Step Mother & Son's Lost Weekend Pt.1 - Silvia Sage - Family Therapy

Female stepparent

A stepmother is a woman who enters 1's family by being in a relationship with i's parent. Children from her spouse'southward previous unions (to whom she is non otherwise related) are known as her stepchildren.

Culture [edit]

Pace parents (mainly stepmothers) may likewise face up some societal challenges due to the stigma surrounding the "evil stepmother" character. Morello notes that the introduction of the "evil stepmother" graphic symbol in the past is problematic to stepparents today, as it has created a stigma towards stepmothers.^[i] The presence of this stigma can have a negative impact on stepmothers' cocky-esteem.^[2]

Fiction [edit]

In fiction, stepmothers are often portrayed as being wicked and evil.^[3] The character of the wicked stepmother features heavily in fairy tales; the most famous examples are Cinderella, Snow White and Hansel and Gretel. Stepdaughters are her most common victim, and and so stepdaughter/stepson pairs, only stepsons likewise are victims as in The Juniper Tree ^[four]—sometimes, as in Due east of the Sun and West of the Moon, considering he refused to marry his stepsister as she wished,^[5] or, indeed, they may make their stepdaughters-in-police force their victims, as in The Boys with the Golden Stars.^[6] In some fairy tales, such as Giambattista Basile's La Gatta Cennerentola or the Danish Greenish Knight, the stepmother wins the matrimony by ingratiating herself with the stepdaughter, and one time she obtains it, becomes cruel.^[seven]

In some fairy tales, the stepdaughter'due south escape by marrying does not free her from her stepmother. After the birth of the stepdaughter's offset child, the stepmother may effort to murder the new mother and supplant her with her own daughter—thus making her the stepmother to the next generation. Such a replacement occurs in The Wonderful Birch, Brother and Sister, and The Three Piffling Men in the Wood; just by foiling the stepmother'due south plot (and unremarkably executing her), is the story brought to a happy ending.^[viii] In the Korean Folktale Janghwa Hongryeon jeon, the stepmother kills her own stepdaughters.

"Awake Groa Awake Mother" past John Bauer, a son at his female parent'southward grave seeking aid against his stepmother.

In many stories with evil stepmothers, the hostility betwixt the stepmother and the stepchild is underscored by having the kid succeed through aid from the dead mother.^[9] This motif occurs from Norse mythology, where Svipdagr rouses his mother Gróa from the grave so as to learn from her how to attain a chore his stepmother ready, to fairy tales such as the Brothers Grimm version of Cinderella, where Aschenputtel receives her clothing from a tree growing on her mother's grave, the Russian Vasilissa the Beautiful, where Vasilissa is aided by a doll her female parent gave, and her mother's blessing, and the Malay Bawang Putih Bawang Merah, where the heroine's mother comes back equally fish to protect her.

The notion of the word stepmother being descriptive of an intrinsically unkind parent is suggested by peculiar wording in John Chance'southward "An Irish Wake" (1826). He writes of a woman soon to die, who instructs her successor to "be kind to my children." Gamble writes that the injunction was forgotten and that she "proved a very step-mother."

Fairy tales tin can take variants where i tale has an evil mother and the other an evil stepmother: in The Vi Swans past the Brothers Grimm and also in The Wild Swans past Hans Christian Andersen, the heroine is persecuted by her married man'south female parent and in another one by her stepmother, and in The Twelve Wild Ducks, past his stepmother. Sometimes this appears to be a deliberate switch: The Brothers Grimm, having put in their first editions versions of Snowfall White and Hansel and Gretel where the villain was the biological mother, altered information technology to a stepmother in afterwards editions, perhaps to mitigate the story'south violence.^[x] Some other reason for the change from a villainous mother to a villainous stepmother may have been the belief that mothers were sacred, as well as the belief that people would not believe that a female parent could harbor such ill-will and antagonism toward their kid.^{[11] [12]} The Icelandic fairy tale The Horse Gullfaxi and the Sword Gunnfoder features a good stepmother, who indeed aids the prince like a fairy godmother, but this figure is very rare in fairy tales.

The stepmother may be identified with other evils the characters meet. For instance, both the stepmother and the witch in Hansel and Gretel are securely concerned with food, the stepmother to avert hunger, the witch with her house built of food and her want to swallow the children, and when the children kill the witch and return abode, their stepmother has mysteriously died.^[13]

This hostility from the stepmother and tenderness from the true female parent has been interpreted in varying ways. A psychological interpretation, by Bruno Bettelheim, describes it every bit "splitting" the bodily mother in an ideal mother and a faux mother that contains what the child dislikes in the actual female parent.^[fourteen] However, historically, many women died in childbirth, their husbands remarried, and the new stepmothers competed with the children of the first marriage for resources; the tales can exist interpreted every bit factual conflicts from history.^[15] In some fairy tales, such every bit The Juniper Tree, the stepmother's hostility is overtly the want to secure the inheritance of her children.^[4]

Stepmothers also brand many appearances in Chinese tales of family. Wicked stepmothers are mutual.^[16] In Classic of Filial Piety, Guo Jujing told the story of Min Ziqian, who had lost his mother at a young age. His stepmother had two more sons and saw to information technology that they were warmly dressed in winter but neglected her stepson. When her hubby discovered this, he decided to divorce her. His son interceded, on the ground that she neglected only him, but when they had no mother, all 3 sons would be neglected. His father relented, and the stepmother henceforth took intendance of all 3 children. For this, he was held upwards as a model of filial piety.

Conversely, the exemplary stepmother prefers the stepson to her own child, in recognition that his seniority makes him superior.^[17] The "righteous stepmother of Qi", faced with her son and stepson having been found by a murdered man, and both having confessed to shield the other, argues for her son'southward execution because her husband had ordered her to look after her stepson, and her son is the junior blood brother; the king pardoned them both for her devotion to duty.^[17]

The ubiquity of the wicked stepmother has fabricated it a frequent theme of revisionist fairy tale fantasy. This can range from Tanith Lee's Red as Blood, where the stepmother queen is desperately trying to protect the state from her evil stepdaughter's magic, to Diana Wynne Jones'south Howl's Moving Castle, where, although information technology is known that stepmothers are evil, the actual stepmother is guilty of nothing more than some carelessness, to Erma Bombeck's retelling where Cinderella is lazy and a liar. More subtly, Piers Anthony depicted the Princess Threnody as beingness cursed past her stepmother in Crewel Lye: A Caustic Yarn: if she ever entered Castle Roogna, it would fall downwardly. Merely Threnody explains that her presence at the castle caused her begetter to dote on her and neglect his duties to the devastation of the kingdom; her stepmother had only made her destructive potential literal, and forced her to face up what she was doing.^{[ citation needed ]}

The graphic symbol of the evil stepmother can likewise be found in the genre of young adult fiction or young adult social problem novels. In Lisa Heathfield's Newspaper Butterflies. the protagonist June suffers horrific abuse at the hands of her stepmother, a fact that she conceals from her father.

Despite many examples of evil or cruel stepmothers, loving stepmothers as well be in fiction. In Kevin and Kell, Kell is portrayed as loving her stepdaughter Lindesfarne, whom her husband Kevin had adopted during his previous matrimony. Likewise, Lindesfarne considers Kell her mother, and has a considerably more favorable view of her than Angelique, Kevin's ex-wife and her adoptive mother, due to feeling neglected by Angelique during her childhood. The Disney film Enchanted also makes references to the "evil stepmother" belief, as the villainess is a stepmother, only her wickedness comes from her selfishness and ability hungriness rather than the uncomplicated fact she is a stepmother. When a little daughter tells the heroine Giselle that all stepmothers are evil, Giselle reminds her that she personally knows some wonderful women who were good stepmothers, and the fact a woman is a stepmother does non suddenly change her personality. This is shown subsequently on when Giselle marries that daughter's father, who had her from a previous matrimony, thus becoming a stepmother herself. As Giselle is a sweet and caring woman, she makes a good wife and stepmother. However, it is notable that during much of that moving-picture show, Giselle was more of an older sister figure than a maternal figure to that trivial girl.

In the movie Nanny McPhee a group of children worry that their father will remarry, believing from their fairy tales that all stepmothers are an "evil brood." Although they help their begetter marry again to aid keep the family together, their soon-to-be stepmother is very vicious, as they suspected. When the wedding to her is called off, the father decides to marry the much kinder scullery maid, causing one child to comment that the evil stepmother personification does non apply to her.

Stepmother relationships are oftentimes examined in soap operas. An example of this is the long-running rivalry betwixt Victoria Lord Banks and stepmother Dorian Lord on the American soap opera Ane Life to Alive.

In contrast to many other Disney-related media, the animated series Phineas and Ferb features a stepfamily in which both parents go along well with their iii children (avoiding the normal tropes of evil stepparents).^[18] In television, Drake & Josh features a stepfamily in which both parents unremarkably get along well with their iii children. In the series The Adventures of Shirley Holmes, ane episode featured a princess who was the heir to the throne of her country and feared that her stepmother wanted to have her assassinated as her own son was side by side in line after her stepdaughter. The episode concludes the revelation that her stepmother actually wanted her stepdaughter to inherit the throne and had attempted to thwart actual assassins who did non want a woman to dominion their country. In Sofia the First, Sofia's mother Miranda became stepmother to Prince James and Princess Amber, she acknowledged there weren't many tales featuring loving and kind stepmothers. This is another example of a well-blended family unit.

Classical Literature [edit]

Greek [edit]

Alcestis (play) [edit]

438 BCE: The dying biological mother requests that her married man not remarry, for fearfulness of her children being mistreated by a stepmother.

Hippolytus [edit]

428 BCE: The stepmother commits suicide to preclude herself from following through on her lust for her stepson and leaves a note falsely claiming that the stepson had raped her.

References [edit]

1. ^ Morello, C. (January 19, 2011). "Composite families more common, simply the 'stride' in 'stepmom' withal carries a stigma". The Washington Mail.
2. ^ Christian, A. (2005). "Contesting the myth of the 'wicked stepmother': Narrative analysis of an online family support grouping". Western Journal of Communication. 69 (one): 27–47. doi:ten.1080/10570310500034030. S2CID 143785307.
3. ^ The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales, p. 141
4. ^ ^{a b} The Annotated Archetype Fairy Tales, p. 161
5. ^ The Annotated Archetype Fairy Tales, p. 193
6. ^ Warner, p. 221
7. ^ Warner, pp. 205–6
8. ^ The Difficult Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales, pp. 147–8
9. ^ The Difficult Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales, p. 151
10. ^ The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales, p. 36
11. ^ Overflowing, A. (2014). "Grimm brothers' fairytales have claret and horror restored in new translation". The Guardian.
12. ^ Claxton-Oldfield, S. (2000). "Deconstructing the myth of the wicked stepparent". Marriage & Family Review. 30 (1–2): 51–58. doi:10.1300/j002v30n01_04. S2CID 145632182.
13. ^ The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales, p. 57
14. ^ Warner, p. 212
15. ^ Warner, p. 213
16. ^ Mark Edward Lewis The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han p 157 ISBN 978-0-674-02477-nine
17. ^ ^{a b} Mark Edward Lewis The Early on Chinese Empires: Qin and Han p. 158 ISBN 978-0-674-02477-9
18. ^ "Disney'due south Phineas and Ferb - Children's Television receiver".

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepmother

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