Let's remember the stepmother in
Cinderella
, which Disney adapted in 1950 from the story that the Brothers Grimm published in 1812. It turns out that, in the initial version, the father did not die, he simply married another woman, bad, very bad, when he became a widow.
Did that man do anything to prevent Cinderella from being mistreated by his new wife and his two stepdaughters?
Didn't he find out?
What did she do while the stepmother forced the girl to do thankless tasks, humiliated her, or banished her to the attic?
Didn't his daughter tell him at night what had happened?
Was he an absent father?
We do not know.
Perhaps to avoid having to address this thorny issue, Disney decided to kill him, so that Cinderella was a total orphan, helpless and alone in the hands of three horrible women.
The good mother was the dead mother, the bad mother was the living mother.
We could cite more examples of popular culture narratives (for example,
The Sound of Music
) that have undoubtedly contributed to the fact that in the collective imagination the word stepmother has so many negative considerations, the term is so unpleasant, it takes us to inhospitable places and women. Harpies, married or widowed to sometimes 'innocent' men, always passive.
And not only in stories, but also in folklore, in myths the word is perceived poorly, it is seen as something unfavorable.
Now let's go to real cases.
Priscilla, 30, was a stepdaughter before she was a stepmother and a stepmother before she was a mother.
Like all girls, she had read those stories and that image remained engraved in her head.
She came to Spain from her native Brazil to play professional handball for Bera Bera, which she had to leave early due to an injury.
She was 25 years old, she was alone and misplaced in Donosti, seeking medical help for her shoulder ladrum and Achilles tendon ruptures.
She thus became a 39-year-old physical rehabilitation worker, divorced and with a three-year-old daughter.
She fell in love.
In that unusual relationship, she soon discovered things about herself and the world in general that she didn't know: that she could feel jealous of a little girl, that fear was present every day, that mixed feelings were possible, that the negative connotation of the word 'stepmother' was still intact from the time of Cinderella, and she lived as if she had hurt someone.
“I had a terrible time, I didn't know anyone in the same situation as me, I couldn't find references to guide me and locate me, I had the feeling of being faced with a challenge,” explains Priscilla.
So, of course, she turned to the Internet and there she met Mari Camardelli, creator of a very powerful community of stepmothers in Brazil who were managing, among other things, to normalize the role.
“Seeing that they existed reassured me a lot.
I had just come from a distressing few weeks, I had gone to the park with my partner's daughter and there another girl asked her if I was her mother.
I answered no, that I was 'her father's girlfriend', and then she broke down.
I cried a lot because I wanted a term that connected with the girl.
The word stepdaughter, in Spain, also sounds terrible, as bad as stepmother.
And here in the north I think it sounds even worse than in other places,” Priscilla tells me.
In case something was missing, since he had not yet mastered Spanish, he went to the RAE and found two second meanings of the word stepmother, to know exactly what we were referring to in this country, in the middle of 2024 when we pronounced the word in question. :
1. Something that bothers or harms
2. Mother who treats her children badly
“I, who at 11 years old had a wonderful stepmother (her parents separated and her father remarried), never understood that explanation.
She was an incredible woman, with very good values.
My father was more irresponsible and she was attentive.
They had joint custody and I lived everything very normally, with a lot of love,” says Priscilla.
The buzz of the concept of children's stories disappeared with her good experience, and when she suddenly found herself becoming a stepmother, she thought that everything would be fine.
She faced it with great enthusiasm, her first contact was wonderful and starting a “reconstituted family” seemed like the most normal thing in the world to her.
“But suddenly,” she says, “you go to the doctor with the girl and the doctor looks at you with some reluctance when you tell him that you are not the biological mother.”
She continues: "You realize that if a stepfather gives himself over to the children, he is a great father, but if a stepmother does it, she is trying to take the mother's place, she has evil intentions."
Suddenly she sees herself being watched, judged, by other women at the school door, she finds herself for a moment in a kind of competition with the girl, without the girl even being aware of her.
She finds herself explaining to adults that stepmom is not bad.
“I realized when I started researching that, in heteronormative relationships, it's like, if she doesn't bring a child to the relationship, she will always be a 'second-class woman.'”
With all that sudden mental load, with the discovery of the Brazilian website, she decided to bring it to Spain.
From there, her project Somosmadrastras was born, where a lot of women like her, stepdaughters, biological mothers, find peace, protection, explanations, to have “lighter, more peaceful and emotionally healthy relationships for us and our families,” just as explains on the website.
On Instagram they have more than 10,000 followers.
Let's go back for a moment to the 'second-class woman' thing.
Recently, one of the stepmothers who came to her website told her of her anguish in the form of a question.
“We are going to have a baby and it affects me a lot to think that he has already gone through all this with someone, that he has already gotten married and formed a home and in some way I feel that the importance he gives it now is different.
"The ex steals so much of our energy, she is so present in our lives... before she didn't affect me, but now that I am going to be a first-time mother I would like him to feel the same nerves and the same excitement as me... Has this happened to you?" .
With the question “it is clear the damage caused by those beliefs that it is only valid when you give him the firstborn,” Pri answers.
But are we really still doing this in the 21st century?
Really, with so many diverse families, with feminism implanted, with so many determined, independent women, with so much information, with so much psychological support, are there still reticences, resentments, obscurities about the stepmother? I asked Pri in our first meeting.
"Yes Yes.
It was very difficult for me to accept the role as such.
I realized that it was difficult for me to accept my husband's communication with his ex... In my head, suddenly, I was somewhat unacceptable, even having had a stepmother.
It was difficult for me to manage unpleasant emotions, jealousy, envy, which perhaps is a sin, learning to repress everything.
And I did that alone,” she responded.
But the other women arrived in a rush, through that website, from whap groups, and she realized that they had all had the same depressions, the same fears, the same insecurities, that all the stepmothers who approached were living in fits and starts. an inner hell.
Because prior to the myth of the bad mother, there was already that of the bad woman.
So, all bad.
The website grew, the meetings became more and more enriching, more soothing, and when the psychologist Patricia Burlaud Gomes joined, light came on.
She teaches them, among other things, to be compassionate with themselves, to understand that they are not evil simply because they are stepmothers, that the fact that they suddenly feel jealous does not make them Snow White's stepmother.
“It gave me the keys to connect with my stepdaughter, helping me set limits and be responsible for what I want for myself.
I remember one day, my 3 year old stepdaughter came home and I just wanted to get away and sleep.
Patricia told me that an adult had to face her fears, she had to be clear that when she lived with a child it was a responsibility to take care of it and protect it and that if she did not do so we would never have a healthy relationship.
It seems obvious, but when you are in a strange pit full of mixed feelings, something like this can be clarifying, as other stepmothers who join in point out in their meetings.
But what does one find if they go to SomosMadrastras?
To begin with, the possibility of knowing oneself better, of giving names to diverse and dark thoughts.
To be clear that sharing learning and fears with women in your same situation gives you power.
To understand that a stepmother also educates, that the couple has to decide where to go.
“For example, in the first session I recommend talking to couples and clarifying things.
There are parents who demand that women love their children as if they were their own, I have encountered the anguish that this generates,” says Pri, who, as an ambassador and administrator of the website, serves Spanish-speaking women sometimes at through Instagram, like the last meeting they had yesterday, also led by Patricia.
Sometimes they are individual consultations, sometimes they are in groups, and some new question always appears, and best of all, some new answer.
One of the stepmothers, Soledad, assures that she wanted to feel welcomed, in essence.
All those who approach come with guilt because the word that connects them with the creature already condemns them from the beginning, blocks them a little, and they want to meet more women like them.
They begin to search for and resolve mixed feelings: loneliness, jealousy, anguish, anxiety.
They are looking for space, belonging, to have a voice, many times you can't talk about it with anyone and that is devastating.
For Juni, 34, discovering this website was soothing.
“Shortly after I started being a stepmother, I felt completely lost.
I didn't have a bad experience but I did have thoughts that I thought were bad.
I thought it wasn't normal to feel the way I felt.
But when I discovered Pri everything changed.
Not only my way of thinking, but also the way I see the word stepmother as something bad.
I began to value it, to make it part of my life as something natural, to see beyond, to feel affection for other women like me,” she says.
I attended the Instagram meeting led by the psychologist responsible for the Empowermum website aimed at divorced mothers, and which was joined by dozens of women.
There was talk, in a tremendously clarifying talk, about the aforementioned romanticization of motherhood.
“We think that the children are ours, and that makes it very difficult to see it as normal for them to be with another person, especially if it is your ex's new partner.
The thought that they are going to take your job is horrible... I am clear that this lack of sisterhood on both sides comes from everything they have put in our heads, from the romantic love of the movies...", said the psychologist, for whom , communication is key, even if they are uncomfortable conversations.
“Sometimes we see ourselves having sarcastic behavior with our partner or irritability, when, for example, we experience situations in which the biological mother, who wants to return to her partner, sends endearing videos of the child together, to validate emotions,” they said.
You are never prepared to have conversations about complex agreements.
“We imagined ourselves dancing, laughing and kissing, while we prepared food in the kitchen, but not agreeing on more prosaic things,” Pri said.
At the meeting, much emphasis was placed on the need to seek help, support, and common groups, when the situation is not cordial.
“This creature is not my son, but we have decided to do it this way, and if we want we will reduce the intensity, we will give space, we will set limits.”
There was a question: what if the biological mother insults me?
Difficult, of course.
“When you see that there is bad faith on the part of the biological mother, you have to use email, not WhatsApp, for example.
We must not lose sight of the fact that we must safeguard our emotional well-being.
That all of this not only depends on you and that you cannot be responsible for what that other person does,” she responded.
"We also need to be aware that when we get divorced we have to open our minds and think that my way is not the only way and when our children go to the other party's house, they will do it their own way and as long as they are well cared for and taken care of, there is no need to expect anything else,” the psychologist concluded.
The word stepmother, with the prefix “mad”, comes from maternal, like godmother, although Pri said that stepmothers are not babysitters and that they certainly have no obligation to care, but for functional adults, the stepmother specifically, It comes naturally to them to participate: if I'm going to make dinner, I do it for everything.
It was clear at the meeting that the situation is a roller coaster, that it is normal for everyone to feel that way, that you are not alone, that you are not a weirdo, that there is a journey with many curves where self-love is very important. and that you have to take care of yourself with what makes you happy, and look for other stepmothers and create a network.
There is something else.
Helped by the psychologist, they discover that what they really feel is that society rejects the word, which leads, again, to competition between women, which is something that sells, they tell, and they feel that rivalry.
Parents tend to be super passive in all of this, they tend to avoid conflict and in many cases they don't know how to act.
“So my goal,” Pri says, “is to deconstruct them.
“This way everything will be lighter.”
Along with that, Pri has two other big projects: writing a book to break the stigmas that she wants to be called “Being a stepmother is a political act.”
The intention is to make it clear that we must break the system, the patriarchy, because “when we say that we are stepmothers we make noise, we bother.
When we are able to not compete with the biological, we also bother.
Man is not a prize, he is not a trophy, there we break the political, structural system.
It is something super old-fashioned and very little is said about it.
“Of this and the romanticism of motherhood.”
The second purpose takes us to the beginning of this article and to the RAE, to those very unpleasant meanings.
He tells me something that happened in Brazil in 2019. If you Googled the word teacher in that country, one of the definitions that appeared was: “prostitute with whom adolescents begin their sexual life.”
The concept was a 'Brazilianism', which went viral on social networks and raised debates about perpetual machismo.
The term teacher, on the other hand, only had two meanings: one who professes a belief and one who teaches.
The matter caused so much discomfort and commotion that Google had to back down and shortly after, next to the expression teacher, only “woman who teaches or works as a teacher” appeared.
That is exactly what Pri Dos Santos wants to achieve: that the dictionary, that the RAE, removes those two meanings of stepmother, "so stereotyped, so prejudiced, so misogynistic."