The trope of the ‘wicked stepmother’ has been written about in children’s stories for generations.
According to a recent poll of single mothers in Britain, 43% said the negative portrayals of stepparents have deterred them from dating.
On Lunchtime Live, stepmother and social worker Deirdre McCarthy described the unique position in family life as an “absolute minefield” to navigate.
“Stepfathers don’t seem to have the same [pressure] put onto them,” she said.
“It doesn’t seem to come up as much.
“For me, it’s about navigating it early and having that conversation with the other co-parent is the vital component of it before you ever introduce anybody to your children.
“You also need to know that this relationship is serious because you don’t want to be introducing children to multiple partners over different periods of time.”
Mother caressing her worried child outdoor in nature. Image: Martin Novak / Alamy. 16 July 2014Ms McCarthy is a stepmother to adult children and when her stepson announced he was getting married, she made it clear she did not want to go to the wedding.
“I just said, ‘I cannot be at the wedding,’” she recalled.
“That is not my space. That is the space for his mother and his father - not for me to be coming in.”
Instead, Ms McCarthy decided to go to the second day of the wedding because she did not want to make it a “really uncomfortable situation”.
“Why would I do that to another woman on her child’s wedding day?” she said.
“So stepping back as the other stepparent and honouring the quality of the relation that the other parent has and not feeling threatened by that.”
She added that clear boundaries are always useful when marrying into someone’s family.
“I think that when somebody feels that they’re not confident about their position within the blended family is when mistakes can be made and actually fuel that and create that ‘evil stepmother’ [perception],” she said.
Main image: A child walking with his mother. Picture by: Andrey Deryabin / Alamy
