Does a blended family actually work?

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09/30/2020 16:38

Subject: Does a blended family actually work?

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Anonymous

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Anonymous wrote:By the way, the “Evil Stepmother“ is an historic archetype for a reason, she‘s existed in oral tradition even predating written history. Since women died so often in childbirth, widowers always remarried with their children and fathered more with new wives. If you ever venture into the sewage of Steptalk, you will witness how little has changed. The studies show that men admit to disliking their stepchildren at about a 50% rate and women hate them even MORE. A lot of this is because the childcare falls almost always on the stepmom. But you cannot ignore the preference you instinctively have for your children over another woman’s (who birthed them with your husband!). How people in the 21st century think they will escape the biological imperative imprinted in their DNA (and thousand year old fairy tales!) is baffling.

You are right in some respects. But there is a world of difference between a historic-era woman trying to raise a deceased woman's kids along with her own, often with highly limited resources, compared to today's scenarios where the biological mother (and father) are very much involved in day-to-day life.

The most vital element in any potential "blended" success story is the children's biological mother. Numerous studies which have shown that if the children's mother can show them she is accepting of the SM - not as an actual mother, per se - but as an important adult in the child's life, there is a potential for the family to succeed. Unfortunately, this rarely happens since most women are imprinted in their DNA to fear other women who form bonds with their kids. It is next to impossible to let another woman become a important to your children without jealousy eventually rearing its head, especially when that woman is now with your former husband.

Different poster here

I think that actually proves pp's point even more. For the historic-era step mother, the previous wife/mom was dead, she was no longer any type of threat or competition. Modern day step mother, the ex wife/bio mom is still there, showing up at the house several times a week to exchange custody of the kids, right there in the same room at school plays and baseball games, etc.
Yes, historic era step mom had a lot of the work/responsibility of raising her husband's kids, but she also had a lot of authority and power as the sole "mother figure" in their life.
Today's step mom still has some of the work/responsibility, still has her time/schedule disrupted by the events/activities in her stepchild's life--yet really has NO authority or power.

Exactly. It does prove the point. Since the old stereotype continues to persist, the modern stepmother is often reviled and blamed for stepfamily issues by society at large despite her best efforts. Children learn to hate stepmothers at an early age even if they don't have one. Think Cinderella. If someone says "I hate my stepmother." they are immediately sympathized with. If a stepmother says, "The situation with my stepkids is very difficult." she is immediately told, "You knew what you were getting into. Suck it all up without complaint because the kids [no matter their ages, including adult kids] come first."

The Evil Stepmother archetype is so persistent (and ancient) because it describes a psychological behavior that is rooted in biology: every fairy tale features the new mother (Evil Stepmother) who is angered by the presence of a young child who competes for her husband‘s affections and resources. Steptalk refers to their stepdaughters as mini-wives (without even a hint of self-reflective irony!), these cunning little creatures whom Dad never says No to (which is also true, divorced dads often compensate for their guilt by being overly permissive). Cinderella even describes the conflict of bio kids - the stepmother wants her daughters to be wed to the prince and despises her stepdaughter for being more loved and beautiful than her own. Hansel and Gretel is about a stepmother who is asked to share the last of their food (resources) with her stepchildren and she gets angry at her husband for “choosing“ his children‘s lives over hers. And by the way, all of the fairy tale stories end with the Stepmother’s attempt to “kill“ the creature taking away her husband‘s love and resources so she and their biological children together will be a complete family.

Notice how the focus seems to be on the evil stepmother? Is that intent or an actual reflection of reality at that time? If you delve into fairy tales (particularly in the original languages) it becomes an interesting study.

The Brothers Grimm rewrote Snow White in 1819 to change the character from an evil MOTHER to an evil Stepmother.

By the fourth edition (1840) of Hansel and Gretel the evil character had transformed from the biological mother to stepmother:

"Originally it was just a mother in dire poverty ... threatened to be starving, [who] talks her husband into abandoning the children in the woods, and had to die off-stage before the children come home (probably to avoid the confrontation). Later editions and adaptions either turned her into an evil stepmother or made her regret bitterly what the couple had done to the kids."

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A4nsel_und_Gretel

I suggest it is time to retire literature, particularly which influences young children, that continues to solidify stereotypes of step relationships. We do this with stories and books which are racist and otherwise bigoted, why not steps? Imagine the difference if children were read books which teach them that their family may change over time, and that is not a horrible, evil thing.

Okay, let‘s do that. Obviously we’ll get rid of Homer‘s Odyssey for the misogyny. Probably the Torah for rampant slavery and the whole sacrificing babies to Molech. Oh yeah, and of course we‘d need to ban Shakespeare altogether for the fratricide, that’s not conducive to positive family modeling.

Fairy tales are not pleasant little make-believe stories to entertain, they are mythical tales that our ancestors used to describe a real truth about humanity (which is why they so stubbornly persist for thousands of years). Had someone understood the stories as warnings, they might not end up on Steptalk thirty years later, lamenting the lazy husband they married whose children despise their new mother for taking their father away.

Some convoluted interpretation there.

No one is reading Homer or Shakespeare to their small children. The example is to illustrate that stereotyping stepmothers as evil[u] in children's books should be curtailed. Why is it acceptable for that trope about stepmothers to remain in children's books but we are horrified and root out all other negative stereotypes in books - based on race, ethnicity, etc.? Statistically most women have a likelihood they will become a stepmother some day so why not "describe [that] real truth about humanity?"

BTW, I wouldn't exactly call fairy tales by the Grimm Brothers as "mythical" since they were written in the 1800s. As were Hans Christian Anderson's.

I wonder what elicited such knee-jerk vitriol. Let me guess: you have a stepmother you hate.

No, never had a stepmother. And I read I’m reading the Odyssey to my kids. They also know Bible stories.

The Brothers Grimm didn’t write those fairy tales, they were compiled myths collected over generations in oral tradition. They are ancient, literally predating written history.

And if you want to curtail stereotypes in literature then my points stands, you will have to remove the entirety of dramas before the 21st century. I suppose a child could be educated by Peppa Pig and the more acceptable years of Harry Potter, though.