by Rae Anna Blake

Created on: August 12, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

Getting along with a stepdaughter or stepson can surely be a challenging task for any person that is brave enough to grab the bull by the horns and enter into a marriage with someone that has children. I myself thought I was up to the challenge of becoming a stepmother when I married my husband. When you marry someone that has child from a previous relationship the honeymoon period is very brief and you become a ready made family the minute you say "I do".

Being a stepparent is not all it is cracked up to be. The painted stigma of the stepmother has evolved into a fairy tale marketing machine. Almost all the fairy tales paint the relationship between the stepmother and the stepdaughter and being the most turbulent. I can see where that would make the most sense in creating a story. When dealing with boys and men, the emotion factor is not nearly as prevalent and the animosity seems to be far less. Men have tendancy to say what they have to say when they have to say it and then it is done and over with, sometimes after a testosterone fury of phyicality but then it is done and over with.

Women and girls on the other hand, nothing is forgotten, manipulation is the key, and playing the game is constant. When you put a group of women together you automatically end up with cattiness and gossip. Men may be the more physical of the human race, but women are by far the meaner species. Perhaps that is why there always seems to be an element of conflict amongst stepmothers and stepdaughters. It is a women's natural instinct to be suspicious of the other woman, even if it is the woman in their father's life. Not all stepdaughter relationships are this way, but virtually every stepmother/stepdaughter relationship will have had it's bit of animosity, suspicion, and jealousy.

Can a stepmother and stepdaughter ever really get along with one another. Yes and no. It all depends on where the stepmother enters the life of the child and the way the biological mother perceives the "new wife", and how she teaches her daughter to perceive the "new wife". The stepmother and her ability to relate to the child and her ability to be respected and to know the boundaries of the relationship with her stepdaughter when it comes to parenting are also instrumental in how she will get along with her new stepdaughter.

There are so many different aspects to being a stepparent to a stepdaughter that one could never even begin to imagine how easy or how difficult the relationship will be until they

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