Girls Gone Wild-Not

With the newly released Paris Hilton promising to change her ways, many parents of teen girls hope that their talks about the consequences of making bad choices have been proven in the tabloids. Recent exploits of the three most popular young women Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears have ended in prison, rehab and mental illness. It can make any parent of a little girl shudder about what lies ahead.
Being a parent of a teen girl has never been easy, but according to upcoming guest Karen Stabiner author of MY GIRL: Adventures with a Teen in Training, girls have gotten a bad rap. For example, only 3 percent have diagnosable eating disorders and less than 15 percent have an unhealthy attitude toward food and the rates of teen sex and drug abuse have gone down in recent years. In her book, Stabiner documents her life with her adolescent daughter, Sarah, digs deeper into the research on girls, and interviews many mothers and daughters. The good news is that parenting does matter. Tune into our conversation with Karen this weekend for reassurance and inspiration on raising girls.

Swimsuit Dreams

With summer officially arriving this week it's not a surprise that our listeners flooded our email box about a recent guest, a women who weighed over two hundred pounds in her twenties, gave birth to three children and ended up a swimsuit model in her forties!
Tosca Reno has a truly inspiring story. Unlike most trainers she's lived the struggle of the yo-yo weight gain and loss. Today she writes books and magazine articles with the focus on tools and motivation to lose fat and gain muscle. Best of all, she talked about all the realities of being a busy mom trying to get in and stay in shape. If you missed it, be sure to sign up for our enewsletter which will guarantee you'll know when her FMR interview podcast is posted. You can listen online or download in your favorite mp3 player. We hope it will encourage you to stick with your swimsuit dreams.

We Like Mike Too

When the guys at the radio station found out that ESPN Sportscaster Mike Greenberg was going to be a guest on the show in honor of Father’s Day, all of sudden we were the office heroes.

At the time one of our sister stations was your typical sports talk station. We were in different buildings and for a brief period we hosted the show from their studios. Yes, we talked about parenting issues amongst the posters of half-naked women and beer ads lining the walls. And of course we exchanged polite hellos in the lunch room. But that was life before “Greeny”. Now the guys are regular listeners and engage in conversation- mostly about how much they like Mike Greenberg- but other subjects including fatherhood and “Why My Wife Thinks I’m an Idiot” come up too.

The truth is that Family Matters Radio has always included a broad spectrum of talk and guests. From the beginning our focus has been to open up the airwaves to talk that is inclusive and relevant to listeners who think more about the politics of living in a busy family than political machines. So let us be the first to say “Happy Father’s Day” to all the Dads who tune in to FMR. And personally, we’d like to thank Mike Greenberg for the fun interview and giving us a new status among men. Fortunately, it’s as close as we’ll get because no one has asked us to pose for a poster.

Advice Worth Taking

Taking the enlightening advice from the many expert guests and heartfelt listeners on the program each day and every week has not always been easy for us.

“Slow down” they say. “Enjoy the moment” they advise. And, we’re thinking “hurry up, so we can move on to the next guest, conference call, meeting, carpool duty, family dinner, sports practices and on and on”. This past week personal and business coach Barbara Didion shared her thoughts on a related subject that has stuck in our head. We were talking about guilt- the kind of guilt that wears on most working parents. No matter how hard you try, you feel like you are not giving everything you should or could to your children, spouse, job, business, parents, sister, brother, friends, and the whole list of obligations. So Barbara quietly looked through the tangled microphone cords and said “Why don’t you stop focusing on what you aren’t doing and celebrate what you are doing and all you have accomplished.” Okay.

We’ve been so busy, we can’t remember if she said it on air or during the commercial break. You can listen to our conversation with Barbara via our podcast to find out.