reading

“…as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know…it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.”

Donald Rumsfeld

12 February 2002

“I seem suddenly to be part of some mad musical with a very poor director and a cast of thousands.” (Joanna Trollope, Other People’s Children, Bloomsbury, 1998, p.149).

When I look back over innumerable drafts this book seems to have been written by someone with a split personality. If I had been able to sit down and write the whole book over a weekend it would have been a very different book. I’ve had a different opinion on most issues at various times. Some weeks were so terrific I wrote optimistically in the belief that every difficulty could be overcome. Other weeks would have resulted in a book to slash your wrists by.

Writing and rewriting over such a long period has given me a greater perspective on just how fluid the stepparent relationship can be. Some weeks I felt like vaporising one of the children (a feeling I can now relate to with my own children), but by the next week I realised that I would have vaporised the wrong one!

Writing this book has spanned more than thirteen years. In this period my feelings towards my husband’s ex-wife has gone from silent jealousy and resentment to someone I have called on for help. I have gone from childless, inexperienced and naive to a mother of four children of my own. The relationship with my stepchildren has evolved from anxiety-ridden contact every second weekend to friendship and almost daily contact. My stepchildren are such a great part of my life and such a help with my own children I often joke that if I didn’t have stepchildren I would need to adopt some!

Many of the issues I detail in the book have been resolved over time, or been overtaken by events. Nevertheless, they remain in the book as a guide for new stepmothers and for those for whom the issues remain live, even after many years.

When I first became a stepparent I looked for helpful books on the topic. There are a multitude of books by women with PhDs, many of whom have stepchildren and say they are writing from their own experiences, as “kindred spirits”. But I felt little affinity with these writers. Their books were too clinical, full of suggestions involving deep-and-meaningful family discussions, and requiring enough butcher’s paper to wrap a herd. These books did not resonate with me, or shed much light on my everyday experiences as a stepparent.

In discussions I have had with various stepchildren I can see why a chart or two might be helpful as they endeavour to keep track of siblings, stepsiblings and half-siblings from several marriages of both their natural parents. In Fay Weldon’s A Stepmother’s Diary (Quercus, 2008, p.185), the stepdaughter introduces one of her friends: “Briony here has three stepmothers... four stepfathers, two siblings and nine half-siblings. Last Christmas she had seven Christmas dinners in two days... Now she’s bulimic.”

My book is a chart-free zone and the only abbreviation I use is “EW” for “ex-wife”. I have also assumed that everyone in a relationship with someone who already has children is a “stepparent” (whether you are married to the person or not) because you are put in a parenting role regardless of your official status.

As I can only advise from the position that I have found myself in, this book will be most relevant to non-custodial stepmothers. It may be of interest to those who have stepchildren living with them, or stepfathers, or even stepmothers who already have their own children. This book could also be very useful for the natural father (that is, the man who has made you a stepmum). It may help him to understand some of the things you are feeling.

I also hope that stepchildren themselves may be tempted to read this book. It might enable them to understand some of the emotions and motivations of their parents and stepmother. Even adult stepchildren may not be able to imagine the sensitivities involved if they have never, themselves, been in a stepparenting role.

I know that, when I became a stepparent, I understood many things that had puzzled me about the actions of my parents after their marriage break up. I think there is a similar process when we become parents and suddenly appreciate so much more what our own parents gave and felt. I know my parents get much better Christmas presents from me since I became a stepparent and parent!

I originally intended to publish this book anonymously despite the obvious attractions of being on Oprah to promote it! I thought I would not put my name to it, not so that I could fib, but so that I could be perfectly frank. I wanted to share all my experiences without fear of hurting anyone’s feelings or feeling pressured to edit the work with the aim of protecting my family or myself. In truth, I also didn’t know whether I’d be able to get through this book without defaming my husband’s EW, and I didn’t want her to sue me!

Some of the things I reveal in this book I have found difficult to tell anyone. I have read many books on other topics (dating, motherhood, travel) which all recounted personal experiences (both hilarious and humiliating) and these authors had the nerve to put their names to their books. Obviously, I had an additional factor to consider – the privacy of the three stepchildren at the core of my experiences.

However, after long and careful thought, I do put my name to this book because I believe my stepchildren are now at an age where they can cope with frankness, and that my precious relationship with them can withstand some breathtaking honesty!

On the other hand, to enable people to reveal things they felt they otherwise could not, I have used pseudonyms when quoting the anecdotes and experiences of other stepmothers that you will find scattered throughout this book. Some of the stepmothers I spoke with were also stepchildren themselves, and were able to offer a dual perspective. I often found my own experiences replicated in their stories.

The stepmother anecdotes were gathered from a number of sources. I have many friends who are stepmothers and who were willing to share their experiences. Whenever the opportunity arose I would quiz any acquaintance about the highs and lows of their stepparenting. I also posted a questionnaire, and invited responses, on a number of internet sites that offer support for stepparents.

I am constantly amazed at and grateful for people’s openness and willingness to allow a glimpse into their private lives. I suspect that many are motivated by the same reasons I have for writing this book – the desire to comfort each other that we are not alone in this often difficult situation, and the knowledge that if we can help another stepmum avoid some of our mistakes then even our lowest lows will not have been in vain.

I can’t help but think that the issues raised by stepparenthood have a lot to do with the high failure rate of second marriages. There seem to be so many women who have been in my position – that is, mid-to-late-twenties and parenting an instant family that you would have had to be a teenage bride to create yourself. Without consulting the statistics, I know that there are enormous numbers of us. I also know that there is a general assumption that we should, somehow, be able to cope because ours is such a common situation.

Well, you know, the cold is referred to as “common” too, but it doesn’t stop us whinging when we catch it, and the fact that lots of people have it doesn’t make any one individual feel any better.

I hope that by telling you what happened on my road I can smooth a few of the potholes that lie ahead. I also want to share some of the wonderful parts of being a stepparent. Prior to having my own children I had never experienced any pain as great as that caused by being a stepmum, but I had also never experienced the joy that children bring, even when they are not your own.

The main insight that I have gained through experience (that was never touched on in the books I read on the topic) is that being a stepmother is not something you can ‘win’ at. It is not (just) about whether you like the children and they like you. It is not ‘game over and collect your prize’ if everyone gets along. The existence of children from another relationship fundamentally and forever alters your relationship with their parent and your life plan. It is something you need to accept and factor into all decisions from that point forward and this brings with it compromises and heartache that having your own children doesn’t. This was an awareness I lacked and hope to impart to you. I think that being adequately prepared for these feelings is more than half the battle.

There is a sisterhood, even between strangers, in the unique position of parenting someone else’s children. I have been the recipient of much advice from those who are in a similar position – and, of course, from those who are not. I have had discussions on the tram and at the petrol pump with other stepmums. I have received a lot more solace and assistance from these conversations than any self-help manual.

So I am hoping that this book will resemble a good long chat over a cup (or two) of hot chocolate.

“Novercaphobia” – fear of your stepmother

How did stepmothers get such a bad name? It seems that no fairytale is complete without a wicked stepmother intent on abandoning or even murdering her step-offspring. And this is children’s bedtime reading! Sometimes I think we should invest in a worldwide advertising campaign where we’d be seen kissing babies, holding puppies, and helping the elderly.

I thought that maybe, as a new stepmother, I was being a bit touchy about the subject so I reviewed some of my own childhood literature.

– Stepdaughter treated as a slave. Cooks, cleans and not allowed to go to the ball. Stepmother is ugly and favours own children. In the Walt Disney Golden Book version (1977), the stepmother even locks Cinderella’s horse in the barn and banishes her dog from the house. Even the stepmother’s cat is bitchy.

– Stepmother is beautiful but evil; sends the stepdaughter into the wood to be slaughtered and, when this fails, tries to kill her with a poisoned apple.

– Locks stepdaughter in a tower then blinds her prince and sends him off to wander aimlessly in the desert.

– Stepmother twice convinces the father to take the children into the forest and abandon them to starve to death, or be eaten by a witch.

Even children’s author Enid Blyton has her own evil stepmother story. In her Chimney Corner Stories, Winkle Pip encounters “a little girl carrying a heavy load of wood”. She was “nothing but a little servant” to her stepmother who called her “lazy and selfish”. Of course, the dear child wouldn’t mind this a bit “if only she would love [her] and be kind”. The stepmother is, naturally, an “ugly, bad-tempered-looking woman”.

It occurs to me that if any other group were as maligned in literature as stepmothers are there’d be marching in the streets. If the evil characters, rather than being stepmothers, were all hairdressers, say, or vegetarians, or fat, then the placards would be out in force.

One wonders where all the fathers are in these stories??? Not only are there never any recriminations from Cinderella or Hansel and Gretel about the wicked women their fathers married, but the fathers appear to be oblivious to the cruelty inflicted on their children.

And just how long have stepmothers been the “bad guys” in every fairytale? It seems that in the case of Cinderella we’ve been the baddie since about the ninth century in China and since at least the early 1600s in England, France, Germany and Sweden (Alan Dundes, Cinderella: A Folklore Casebook, Garland Publishing, 1982, p.117). I was astonished at the universality of the Cinderella story. According to Dundes, there are some one hundred and thirty-seven recorded versions involving the same essential elements we have today.

My favourite is the Neapolitan version, from the 1630s. In it the Cinderella character is persuaded by her governess to murder her awful stepmother so the governess can become the new stepmother. Cinderella kills the first stepmother by letting the lid of a heavy trunk fall and break her neck. Her new stepmother, however, turns out to be no improvement at all. She suddenly unveils the six daughters she had previously hidden and attempts to endear them to her new husband to the detriment of his own child.

Interestingly, in many classic fairytales, the character assassination of stepmothers is not so historically entrenched. In fact, many of the worst examples of fairytale cruelty originally did not involve a stepmother at all. In her autobiographical work, The Woodcutter's Wife: A Stepmother's Tale, Dolla S. Merrillees gives an interesting review of the evolution of popular fairytales (Halstead Press, 2007, pp.12-20). In particular, in both Snow White (1812) and Hansel and Gretel (1810), the diabolical female was originally the natural mother. But this, apparently, became increasingly unpalatable for publishers and the general public, and over time and successive editions the “evil mother” metamorphosised into the more acceptable “evil step mother”.

Our fairytales are not the origin of the stepmother stereotype. It seems that the demonisation of stepmothers dates back as far as 1000BC. The Greek myth of Helle and Phrixus reveals a familiar stepmother stereotype (Patricia A. Watson, Ancient Stepmothers: Myth, Miscogyny and Reality, E. J. Brill, 1995, p.29). Helle and Phrixus were the twin children of Athamus and Nephele. Athamus left his wife Nephete and married Ino. Ino hated her stepchildren (who were, of course, angelic) and hatched a plot to rid herself of them. She caused all the crops to fail and, when the frightened farmers sought guidance from the Oracle, she bribed the Oracle’s messengers to say that the Gods required the sacrifice of the young twins.

Both Greek and Roman literature depict the malevolence of stepmothers a “necessary consequence” of the step-relationship. Watson argues that this conflict is nothing to do with either the individual stepmother or stepchild, but is an inevitable product of the relationship.

Watson suggests that two stories in particular illustrate this proposition. In the first, a father sends his two sons (each born to a different wife) to be raised in the country. Years later the boys return and, because they are so similar looking, the second wife begs her husband to tell her which “son” is hers. He refuses on the basis that if she knows which son is her own (and therefore which is really her stepson) she will mistreat the stepson. Similarly, in Greek myth, Creusa initially favourably receives Ion because she believes she is his mother. She actually is his mother, but when she’s told that he is her stepson rather than her natural son she hates him and plans his demise.

The very word for stepmother in Latin – noverca – was a synonym for murderer. It was used pejoratively in everyday Roman phrases. For example, Watson recounts how vegetables growing well in one place but poorly in another were said to have earth that nurtured them like a mother and a stepmother respectively. To look at someone “like a stepmother” was to look at them as if you wanted to murder them. This hatred by a stepmother was thought to be natural and unavoidable and therefore, in order to protect their existing children, widowers were encouraged not to remarry. Watson goes on to relate that Plato advocated a law advising against remarriage for men with children. In Greek myth, Alcestis, who had agreed to die in place of her husband, begged him on her deathbed not to remarry because “a stepmother comes as an enemy to the children of your former union and is no more gentle than a viper” (Watson 1995).

Greek and Roman myth depict essentially three types of motivation for stepmother malevolence – jealousy (usually of the beauty of a stepdaughter), lechery (anger at being rejected sexually by a stepson), and money (trying to ensure inheritance for her own children over her stepchildren, or for herself). All of these motives are stepmother character flaws, meaning that she is motivated by inner emotions rather than by rational external influences, such as the conduct of the stepchild. In these scenarios, the stepchildren are almost invariably innocent and good.

As in the fairytales, fathers – and even stepfathers – get off very lightly. Stepfathers are often portrayed as noble characters taking on the children of others, sometimes adopting them, protecting them and even making them their heirs. Wherever conflict arises between stepfather and stepchild it is motivated by rational responses to events such as a stepchild’s betrayal or murderous intentions (Watson 1995).

In a complete reversal of fairytales and ancient myths, the prevailing wisdom now is that stepmothers are the well-intentioned victims of evil stepchildren. In The Stepmother’s Diary (Quercus, 2008, p.14), Fay Weldon writes: “Wicked stepdaughters are more common now than wicked stepmothers ever were. Poor ousted Hansel and Gretel no longer roam the forest hand in hand: rather it is awash with lonely, weeping, second wives shivering in the cold and rain, tripping over tree roots, grabbed by thistles and thorns which can pierce the heart. Hansel and Gretel stay home in the warm… “[T]he stepmother must hide from the murderous children”.

Quite literally, stepchildren have been the bearer of the ‘poisoned apple’. In Australia, a twelve year old boy, who was having trouble adjusting to his parents break-up and subsequent repartnering, laced his stepmother’s toothpaste with peanuts in the hope of triggering a potentially fatal allergic reaction (The Courier-Mail, Brisbane, Australia, April 11, 2012). In a less life threatening attack, a British woman created fake internet accounts for various relatives, including her stepmother, and used them to send herself vile taunts on Facebook for a year in an attempt to frame them (MX News, Melbourne, February 6, 2014).

At the same time we see the rise of “positive” images of stepmothers. Mrs Brady from television’s The Brady Bunch and Maria from The Sound of Music spring to mind. I don’t know about you, but I found them of dubious value as role models. To quote Phyllis Dyller, “No one can be that happy all of the time”.

I don’t recall seeing the first episode of The Brady Bunch, so it is just possible that they all stared vacantly at each other, made inane small-talk and lapsed into depression. But it is far more likely that the first, like all following episodes I saw, involved rational, all-calm, all-wise, heart-to-heart chats while brushing silky blonde hair. Maybe it was having a live-in housekeeper that enabled Mrs Brady to look so unfazed and cheerful about her “blended” family of three daughters and three stepsons, and the spin-cycle that is stepmotherhood. I like to draw on the wit and wisdom of Mrs Brady but only when I feel like a good (hysteria-tinged) laugh.

As for Maria, I think she heard the “sound of music” because her only comparison to stepmotherhood was a nunnery. She also had secret weapons in the war to win over her seven initially hostile stepchildren – a good voice, puppetry skills and the ability to create outfits out of curtains.

In my formative years – the 1980s – we had television’s Dynasty (or Die-Nasty, as we affectionately pronounced it) as a role model for family life. At least this series reversed the stepmother stereotypes. The first wife, Alexis (played by Joan Collins), was a dark-haired harridan, while the new wife and stepmother, Krystle (played by Linda Evans), was sweet, vulnerable and blonde. I was quite fond of Krystle, but not as a role model. Joan Collins ate her for breakfast and wrestled her into a pond.

More recently, actress Julia Roberts, playing the part of gorgeous novice stepmother, showed us how it’s done in the movie Stepmom. I was inspired to write this book, in part, by the painful experience of sitting through this film. In the Julia character we have a true Teflon stepmother, with the ridicule and rejection from the children just sliding right off her. Julia confesses to the children’s mother, who is dying of cancer by this stage, that she never wanted to be a mum, yet is completely untroubled by the fact that her decision to marry a man with children and a terminally ill ex-wife will soon make her the full-time mother of two. Her successful and glamorous career crumbles under the pressure of being “on-call” for the children, but never for a moment does she reassess what it is she wants for herself and her life.