Book Reviews

The Enlightened Stepmother
by Perdita Kirkness Norwood with Teri Wingender
Review by Patricia Schiff Estess

If you read the back-of-the-book promotion, you might assume that The Enlightened Stepmother (Avon, $14) will be like dozens of other books: why you should give your marriage top priority, how to handle relationships between your kids and his, how to overcome guilt of not loving your stepchildren and on and on.

But this book is different. It's real. It's powerful. It's rich with ideas.

What it is not: a manual on how to become an ideal stepmother. (Thank heavens!) That's because it rests on a number of premises that haven't been well-connected before - but should have been.

• That every successful stepfamily is as unique as each stepmom - so there are no universal answers.
  
  
• That anyone marrying someone with children has to be a pretty good person, otherwise why would she even consider the monumental task of playing an integral role in the lives of someone else's children.
  
  
• That a stepmom needs to know who she is and what she wants and then examine how all these new people fit into her life (not how she can blend in with theirs) before making a commitment.

If all this sounds harsh (what about the poor stepchildren who through divorce, death or abandonment have suffered loss), it isn't. The "poor stepchildren" are not shunted aside in the pages of the book. In fact, their issues are clearly and poignantly described. No suggestions are meant to harm them; most are designed to feather the marriage nest for a secure, respectful, and eventually loving home. But the kids are not the focus here. It's the stepmom. The twenty-year old stepmom, the thirty-year old stepmom, the forty-year old stepmom, the fifty-year old stepmom and the stepmom of adult stepchildren.

The authors' emphasis is to remember to be you and be true to your personality, beliefs, dreams and goals before the wedding and through the years of marriage that follow. Starting with the wedding, the authors write

"Opinions vary widely about what is appropriate for a second marriage. Wear white or not? Religious or civil? Accept from the start that you will not please everyone, whatever choices you make. The most important thing to remember (and to keep reminding yourself about) is that your wedding day is your wedding day."... "At the risk of horrifying critics who believe stepmoms should give way for the sake of the children, we recommend, 'Go for it!' "

The emphasis on expecting respect continues throughout the marriage, say the authors. "No apology or compensation can make up for disloyalty between spouses, even though we might understand a father's own difficulties with divided loyalties. A mate who continues to put his children ahead of his wife is perpetuating an intolerable situation and a continual erosion of the marital relationship."

The stepmoms interviewed for the book didn't all wind up with marriages made in heaven. A number never made it long enough to celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary. But by sharing their mistakes as well as their creative ways of handling situations, they enlighten the reader far more than any book I've read on the subject in recent years.

• Consider the stepmom who shocks her truly rude and uncooperative stepchildren by showering the wretches with beneficent attention - unconditionally and outrageously. She compliments them on the way they look, what they wear, how they behave. She thanks them profusely for whatever they do - even the most minor positive acts.
  
  
• Or the stepmom who makes allies of the children's maternal grandparents.
  
  
• Or the stepmom who understands that her stepson wants to spend his birthday with his mom, but creates an "official" birthday for him on an entirely different day.
  
  
• Or the woman who doesn't bring to her husband's attention how little interest his adult children have in his happiness, but instead makes him feel like a hero when they're together.

I wish I had the space to share more of the wonderful ideas crammed into this book. But if I did, you might not read it. And that would be your loss. The Enlightened Stepmother needs to be on every stepmother's reading list, then on the bookshelf, to be pulled down and reread from time to time. It's a fabulous soft-cover support group.

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