Stepmonster

by Martin, Wednesday

• ISBN13: 9780618758197
• ISBN10: 0618758194
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-05-04
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Summary

What woman with stepchildren has not--in order to diffuse the often overwhelming emotions and challenges of the role-- referred to herself as a "stepmonster"? Wednesday Martin's empowering and original book shines a light on what's so unhelpful to women in the usual take on step mothering--the focus on stepchildren; the emphasis on how to be a substitute parent." Instead--as Hope Edelman does for motherless daughters--"Stepmonster" unlocks her own experience as a stepmother, interviews with other stepmothers and stepchildren; and fascinating insights from anthropology, psychology, and evolutionary biology to reveal the little-understood realities of this most demanding role. Stepmothers will recognize in "Stepmonster", a smart, witty book that marshals new ways of looking at the stepmother experience.

Author Biography

WEDNESDAY MARTIN holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Yale. She was a regular contributor to the New York Post’s parenting page for several years, and her work has appeared in a number of national magazines. Martin, a stepmother for eight years, lives with her husband and their two sons.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 1
The Stepmothering Script
A Wall of One's Own: Becoming a Stepmother	p. 17
"She's Such a Witch!" Fairy Tale History and the Stepmothering Script	p. 36
Remarriage Realities
"You're Not My Mother!": And Five Other Universal Step-Dilemmas	p. 59
"You're Not My Child!": Anger, Jealousy, and Resentment	p. 82
Him: Understanding Your Husband	p. 101
Your Marriage	p. 124
Perspectives
Sociobiology: What the Birds, the Bees, and the White-Fronted Bee-Eaters Can Teach Us About Stepmothering	p. 165
Stepmothers Worldwide: Anthropology, Attachment, Context	p. 196
Risks and Rewards
Stepmother Sadness and Depression: Understanding the Risk Factors	p. 225
Women with Adult Stepchildren: Lessons from "Lifers"	p. 248
Acknowledgments	p. 279
Notes	p. 281
Bibliography	p. 301
Index	p. 314
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

One day we are real, normal people, living alongside everyone else in the regular world, in normal time. Then we marry a man with children and somehow we become something utterly different from what we had believed ourselves to be. When we become a stepmother--even if defining ourselves by this role is the furthest thing from our minds, even if we have kids of our own and are loving mothers, even if his kids are grown...we are likely to find ourselves wrenched from whatever identity we inhabited, and forced into another way of being seen entirely....Why have the specific, shared experiences of women with stephchildren been largely ignored by feminists, sociologists, and even some of the very authors who write about stepmothers and stepmothering?...Disliking stepmothers is easy; suspecting them is more or less automatic. Caring about stepmothers, expressing concern about what they're going through, considering their reality at any length, requires a leap of faith.

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Excerpted from Stepmonster: A New Look at Why Real Stepmothers Think, Feel, and Act the Way We Do by Wednesday Martin
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.