The Smart Stepmom: How to Avoid Becoming a Wicked Stepmother

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FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript

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How to Avoid Becoming a Wicked Stepmother

Guests: Ron Deal and Laura Petherbridge

From the series: The Smart Stepmom

Bob: If you’re a stepmom, you may be able to relate to what Laura Petherbridge is describing here.

Laura: You’d be amazed at the number of stepmoms that have contacted me—emailed me and said, “When I pull in the driveway of my home, and I know the step-kids are there, I feel exactly the same way as I did when I would pull into my home when I was married to an abusive husband.” That’s that kind of fear that is triggered in them—it’s that same feeling of: “I’m out of control. There are people, here, who are hurting me. I feel ostracized. I feel lonely. I feel like I’m being taken advantage of, and I’m going to retreat.”

Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Tuesday, May 7th. Our host is the President of FamilyLife®, Dennis Rainey, and I’m Bob Lepine. What do you do when you’re a stepmom and the thought of just going home makes you tense up? We’re going to talk about that today. Stay tuned.

And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. Have you ever thought about the fact that, in a lot of cartoons, the character that is the personification of evil is a stepmother? Have you ever thought about that?

Dennis: I haven’t.

Bob: I mean, Cinderella—it’s the wicked stepmother; in what was it?—Sleeping Beauty—I think, a wicked stepmother. I don’t know how it got into our literature and our popular culture to be that way; but nobody thinks, “Gee, the stepmom—she’s the noble person.” We’ve got the stereotype of the wicked stepmother.

Dennis: It causes me to wonder if those fairy tales were written by someone who grew up in a home where they had a stepmom; and maybe, that’s the best word they could use to describe their stepmother. Well, we have the authors of a brand-new book called The Smart Stepmom.

Bob: Not the wicked stepmom.

Dennis: No.

Bob: The smart stepmom.

Dennis: No, but one of the authors described herself as a wicked stepmother. Laura Petherbridge—she’s the one who did that.

Laura: I did!

Dennis: You described yourself.

Laura: I did. I’m very honest.

Dennis: I’ve never really ever introduced a guest, since we started this in 1992, Bob, as—[Laughter]

Bob: We want to welcome our wicked stepmother to our program. [Laughter]

Dennis: Here she is on FamilyLife Today. And Ron Deal joins us. I’m not sure how to introduce you, Ron. But you both have a lot of experience in this area of step-parenting. Let’s talk about that for a second. You refer to yourself—in fact, you thought you’d never become the wicked stepmother.

Laura: Yes, it really sounds bad, but the reason I put that in the book is because I want other stepmoms to understand that it’s normal to feel that way. I can remember looking in the mirror, one day, thinking, “What have I become?” because I was feeling so wicked about all the issues that we were dealing with, as a family, and some of the emotions I was having towards my step-kids.

Dennis: Like what?

Laura: Well, just some days, wishing that their mother would move to another state; and I wouldn’t have to see them for six months. It’s a terrible thing to even say; but if I’m being totally honest—and I’m speaking for a lot of stepmoms that contact me—their desire is that the step-kids would move far, far away so you just wouldn’t have to deal with it all the time.

Dennis: So you want them out of your life.

Laura: Exactly; exactly. I know that sounds very un-Christian. It doesn’t sound very loving; but if we’re being honest, that is often the thought that is going across the stepmom’s mind: “This is so much more complicated than I thought it was going to be. Maybe, if they just weren’t here, it wouldn’t be so difficult.”

Dennis: I don’t think I’ve ever admitted this on FamilyLife Today, but I think Barbara and I had some days with our kids—

Bob: I was thinking the same thing. [Laughter]

Dennis: If there had been a box to have checked—“Could there be a chance of our kids moving away—for, maybe, six hours?” Maybe, it wasn’t six months.

Bob: There were times when we sent them off to summer camp and just said, “Thank you, Lord, for summer camp—just for a little breather, here!”

Dennis: I can really understand, Laura, although I’ve, obviously, never been a step- parent. I can understand how that would create all kinds of guilty feelings and shame that you even have the thought.

Laura: Absolutely, because, I think—as a biological parent—when you think that, there is a part of you that knows that’s a little bit normal—but as a stepmom—there’s a part, in particular if you’re a Christian—there’s a feeling inside of you that you know that you don’t love these children in exactly the same way you either love your own children or you love your own family members. There’s a guilt that goes along with that.

So it’s different than the biological parent, you know—being glad that the kids are going off to camp—because it’s just a different family dynamic.

Ron: I think part of this guilt is rooted in self-blame. Stepmoms are really hard on themselves.

Laura: Yes.

Ron: As Laura and I did the research for this book and talked with stepmoms, we developed a team of stepmoms, who advised us about different aspects of the book. That’s one of the things we heard over, and over, and over again. In my counseling with stepfamilies—is this sense of blame.

Stepmoms try so very hard. If they keep kind of beating their head against a wall, and can’t quite get into a child’s heart, or can’t quite figure out how to deal with the power issues in being a parent and so on, they really, really struggle. Oftentimes, they just feel so isolated and alone. They don’t know what else to do—they kind of blame themselves.

Bob: Here’s a scenario I imagine. Tell me if this is kind of a typical ...