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COPING AS A STEPMUM
The author and broadcaster suggests key novels to help you through the trickier times in life
BEING a stepmother can be a thankless task. My stepmother married my father when she was in her early 20s and without hesitation took on the care of his two children, as he had been awarded custody in my parents’ divorce.
It can’t have been easy taking on two children under ten, and I am afraid to say that I gave her a very tough time indeed when I reached adolescence.
It is hard enough, sometimes, to love your own children when they reach this stage — I can’t imagine how difficult it must be to love someone else’s.
There are plenty of examples of how not to be a stepmother in fiction, starting with the wicked stepmothers in Cinderella and Snow White, who were threatened by the youth and beauty of a younger woman.
Then there is Mrs Kirkpatrick, who marries the widowed Dr Gibson in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Wives And Daughters. She appears to be all sweetness and light and says she is longing to be a second mother to Dr Gibson’s daughter, Molly. But as Molly discovers, her real agenda is to make an advantageous match for her own daughter, Cynthia, and she is quite prepared to sacrifice Molly’s happiness if it gets in the way.
She is the worst kind of stepmother, one who has not a shred of real affection for her stepchild.
A much more appealing lesson in how to be a stepmother is found in Dodie Smith’s classic I Capture The Castle.
Topaz, who has married the widowed father of the two Mortmain girls, Cassandra and Rose, makes no pretence of replacing their mother (she is only about ten years older). Instead she acts as stylist and best friend — always ready to give advice, but never imposing it.
She is not like so many fictional stepmothers, locked in a battle for the husband/father’s affection.
Joanna Trollope is a writer who is very aware of the emotional nuances that can result from blended families. In Other People’s Children, eight-year-old Rufus finds he prefers the company of his father’s new partner, 38-year-old Elizabeth, to that of his own mother.
Sometimes the right kind of stepmother can form a relationship with a child that is as powerful as a biological bond — and all the stronger because it has been chosen.