I Never Wanted to Be an Evil Stepmother…

I had not thought of myself as a bad person before I became a stepmother. Quite the opposite, in fact—the adjective most used to describe me had always been nice, as in, “You’re so nice, you wouldn’t send burned restaurant food back to the kitchen.” Or, “You’re so nice, I worry you’re only going out with me because you don’t want to hurt my feelings.” Pleaser would probably have been a more accurate description than nice, but either way, I didn’t think I had it in me to be wicked.

But then I became a stepmother, something I’d never envisioned happening to me. It did not jibe with my ordinary, orderly—and yes, fairytale—idea of how my life would go. For although stepmothers are not doomed to be reviled, or to commit filicide by poisoned apple, a stepmother’s relationship with her stepchildren is fraught with pitfalls. A strange adult in the household, particularly one who brings new rules and soaks up the attention of a biological parent, will not always be welcomed by the kids.

I count myself lucky that I was an experienced parent when I became a stepmother, and that I have well-behaved and kind stepkids. Despite the relative ease of our family blending, however, I gave a lot of thought to the fairy tale stereotype of the evil stepmother. In the early days, I often felt like a monster, because the natural, from-the-womb love I felt for my daughters did not automatically well up between me and my stepchildren. Without the protective gauze of affection, inevitable points of friction in our relationship chafed miserably. I could not reconcile my self-image as a fundamentally good person with the negative thoughts I was having about innocent children. To resolve that quandary, I had to either change my view of myself as a good person, or I had to alter my definition of what it means to be good. Ultimately, I did both.

Writing is the best way I know to untangle complex thoughts and feelings, so I began to write about Cinderella’s stepmother, starting from the premise that she was neither Mother Teresa nor Adolf Hitler, but a standard-issue decent and flawed human being.

But when I shared chapters of my manuscript with a friend, I realized where the disconnect between writing a realist character and writing a fairytale character occurred. “Finally,” he said after reading a scene where a particular character had done something bad, “I’ve been going back and forth, wondering if he’s a good guy or a bad guy, and now I know he’s a bad guy!”

“In the early days, I often felt like a monster, because the natural, from-the-womb love I felt for my daughters did not automatically well up between me and my stepchildren.”

The satisfaction in my friend’s voice made me realize the reason why we love fairytales: they tap into our desire to see things in black and white, superheroes and villains, sweet girls and evil stepmothers. There is comfort in being able to categorize, to know when to withhold emotional investment and what outcomes we should root for. We feel unconflicted gratification when Dorothy kills the Wicked Witch or birds pluck out the eyes of Cinderella’s ugly stepsisters, because those characters deserve the punishment they receive. We can read about their suffering, close the book, and say, “What a happy ending!”

The simplicity of fairy tales and superhero stories is a delight that many of us never outgrow, but that simplicity maps poorly onto real life. If fictional narratives are meant to do more than entertain, if they are, in the words of David Foster Wallace, “about what it is to be a fucking human being,” then, in one important respect, fairy tales fail us. Human beings are not simple. I had thought of myself as a “good” person, but what does that mean? I was imagining that people come in two boxes, good and bad. That’s a common idea, stretching back to Ancient Greece and the principles of formal logic. All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal. In deductive reasoning, a premise is either true or false; it can’t be both at the same time. This powerful method for thinking—of categorizing and excluding—gave us the Enlightenment and modern computing. It also gave us a regrettable tendency to try to stuff things into boxes that don’t belong, as when we categorize human beings as “good” or “bad.”

Fairy tales conform to our desire to categorize, but they do not create empathy, and they do not shed light on the human condition. (Fairy tales may provide a mirror for the human psyche as described by the psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim in “The Uses of Enchantment,” but I speak here about what can be learned from engaging with the stories as a reader, not from studying their origins as an academic.) Children picture themselves as sweet princess or brave knights, never witches or stepmothers. We all grow up thinking of ourselves as “good,” even if we’re a bit vague about what it would mean to be “bad.” This thinking led to my cognitive dissonance as a stepmother, because good people do not feel resentment toward young children. Yet, sometimes they do. Or, anyway, it’s part of what it means to be a “fucking human being.” As Leslie Jamison pointed out in her excellent 2017 New York Times Magazine essay, stepmothers worrying about being wicked is common to the point of banality.

Compassion for my own imperfections grew from my writing. I empathized with my version of Cinderella’s stepmother, and like fairy dust, some of that empathy rubbed off on me. This is the power of literary fiction. Instead of telling readers how to feel, the author invites readers to join characters on a journey. This intimacy can feel uplifting or uncomfortable; it can also hijack readers’ innate sympathies and help them break through prejudices and notions of good and bad. It is hard to spend hours with a character without finding points of similarity with ourselves or others we care about. Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye is a self-absorbed jerk, yet we cheer him on. Hamlet is a dithering milquetoast, yet we weep for him.

I no longer think of myself as a good person, but that’s not because I am bad. We don’t live in the simple black-and-white land of fairy tales, but in a messy, complicated world full of imperfect people. Just as the best literary fiction can teach us sympathy for flawed characters, we can learn acceptance in real life by resisting easy categorization; we should instead invest in the effort it takes to develop true understanding.