Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Stepmothers are women who marry or cohabit with partners who have children from prior unions. This broad definition of stepmothers includes women from a variety of roles and who live in diverse family constellations – those who have children of their own as well as women that are childless or childfree, women in lesbian relationships, and it includes stepmothers who reside with their stepchildren all of the time, some of the time, or never. Women who live with their stepchildren are called residential stepmothers and those who do not live with their stepchildren, or who spend only part of each year living with their stepchildren, are called nonresidential stepmothers. Some women that fit the broad definition of stepmothers, such as women cohabiting with fathers whose children live elsewhere, and some lesbian partners, do not see themselves as stepmothers, and, in fact, are seldom included in studies of stepmothers. Given the diversity of stepmothers’ situations, it is unfortunate that the majority of studies have been limited to married stepmothers and most researchers have not distinguished between residential and nonresidential stepmothers. Anyone who is familiar with children's fairy tales such as Cinderella and Hansel and Gretel knows that stepmothers are not a new phenomenon; there have always been large numbers of stepmothers. However, throughout most of human history, ... log in or subscribe to read full text