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Over the last four years, as I researched and wrote my book Stepmonster, I also argued with everyone involved in its production about the title. My agent, whose husband had a stepmother, said it was "too scary." The acquiring editor, a stepchild herself, agreed the title was "provocative," and not in a good way. In the months just before publication, the p.r. and marketing people decided to change the title to something more saleable, like "Stepmothering."
Some people just don't get irony. Or stepmother reality. I stubbornly hewed to "Stepmonster" because the truth is, a woman partnered with or married to a man who has kids from a previous relationship has likely struggled. And much of that struggle has been about her self-concept.
She may have referred to herself as a "stepmonster" in bitter jest after feeling-and being-shut out by her husband and his kids; felt the flash of fear that her stepkids might call her one if she asserts herself in her own home; wondered whether her partner considered her one when she managed to tell him that she'd rather not see his kids this weekend; simmered in anxiety because she felt she "should" love kids who are hostile and rejecting toward her for months or years on end; or experienced the uncomfortable sensation of being judged more harshly-by in-laws, other parents and the teachers at the kids' school, even her own friends-once she came to inhabit the strange and estranging role of stepmother.
Stepmothers are judged by their stepchildren and the world, much more than stepfather are, stepfamily researchers including Constance Ahrons, Mavis Hetherington, and James Bray tell us. And that probably goes a long way toward explaining why they are a highly secretive tribe, where trust has to be earned and disclosures do not come quickly or easily. And why, once they do, gallows humor and inside jokes prevail.
"I heard you're writing a book called Stepmonster. I definitely am one," one woman wrote to me. A psychiatrist who had dedicated a great deal of time and energy to helping her stepdaughter, an occasionally angry and alienating child with serious learning and developmental delays, Dr. D. was anything but wicked. And yet, because she sometimes resented her husband's ex and her husband's child, she was sure she was a monster. Other women I interviewed would typically chat about how great things were with their partner's kids for half an hour before letting the truth out: being a stepmother was tough, and not always satisfying, they told me, and the outcome, even over the long term, was often not the one they had hoped for.
But the luckiest ones discovered that they could have imperfect, good enough relationships with his kids and a thriving, satisfying marriage. This realization seemed to hinge on a degree of self-acceptance in the face of rejection and judgment. And once they had bucked the need for approval from those who had no idea what women with stepkids are really up against, these women also referred to themselves, this time with a sly wink, as "stepmonsters."
We know plenty about how remarriage with children affects the children, and the three most recent longitudinal studies on stepfamilies have focused on stepfather families. Stepmother reality, remarriage with children from the point of view of the stepmother, is the piece of puzzle that is currently missing. Over the next weeks and months I will post here about stepmother reality. Not our collective fantasies about who stepmothers are-either selfish, heartless stepmonsters or self-abnegating, stepped-on stepmartyrs; not our notions of how stepmothers should feel, or how they ought to act. Rather than lectures, simplistic recipes for success, and injunctions that she put the happiness of his kids before her own, women with stepkids deserve a compassionate, non-judgmental look at their circumstances-and some advice about how to navigate them. I hope they, their adults stepkids, and the men who made them stepmothers will find it here.
