by Rachel Stockton

Created on: July 15, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

I really don't like the term "stepmother", because of the negative connotations. The fairy tale, Cinderella, and the Rogers and Hammerstein/Walt Disneys morphs thereof have done nothing for stepmotherhood's reputation. For the most part, the connotations are negative when the word is merely mentioned.

And, of course, in every fairy tale where there is a stepmother that makes Hitler look compassionate, the object of her ferocious ire is a stepdaughter (never a stepson, which is kind of irritating to me.).

I've been a stepmother to a little girl for 6 years, and I can tell you that it's not easy at times. But, we have a good relationship, and I've learned through the years, admittedly the hard way in some instances, of how to make the relationship work.

1. Avoid thinking of her mother when you look at your stepdaughter. The natural tendency, because we are human, is to attribute every negative behavior we see to her mother, whether through DNA, or environment. This, I truly believe, is the number one stepdaughter-stepmother relationship killer. And, I've noticed that if a child LOOKS like her mother, it's harder not to do this. I was "fortunate" in that I knew several women who, for whatever reason, could not stop seeing "mama" in their stepdaughter, so I learned what not to do. Kids are perceptive, and they can see through us more easily than we think. Remember that the mother-daughter comparison isn't fair to your stepdaughter, and more importantly, it's not fair to you, her stepmother. Wonderful qualities that she may have gotten from her mother, her father, or genetic anomaly will go unnoticed, and you'll miss the opportunity to develop a genuine fondness for, and eventual love toward, your stepdaughter.
2. Whatever you do, don't set yourself up as a competitor for your husband's attention. My daughters had a stepmother (yes, "had", as in the past tense, and you'll see why momentarily) who got irritated when they sat next down to their father at a restaurant, or went to sit with him on the couch. She competed with them for his attention, and in the end, she lost.
3. Don't go out of your way to "make sure" she knows that you are NOTHING AT ALL like her mother, and that if her mother says black, you are going to automatically say white. A friend of mine told me that her daughter figured out that no matter what the situation, her stepmother made it clear that she had a different way of approaching a problem, or a different opinion on something relatively benign,

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