The Cinderella Effect

It's a tale as old as time: A princess is born into a happy, healthy, loving family. Tragedy strikes. A parent dies. A stepparent moves in, Stepparent abhors the princess and dedicates his/her life to making the Princess's life miserable, all while spoiling and fawning over her own biological children...

Makes me sick.

Sufficed to say, I've got a bit of a grudge with modern day media... particularly with Disney.

Now. Don't get me wrong. I love Disney. It is my default soundtrack to belt out loudly (and dramatically off key), while on road trips or in the shower. I don't, however, love their general portrayal of stepparents.

I thought, mayhaps, I was just a little "sensitive" on the subject, and thus might be doing what I am oft prone to do: Making a mountain out of a molehill. So... I did my research. And lo and behold, I was right. You would be hard pressed to find a positive portrayal of a stepparent in any Disney film.

Lady Tremaine from Cinderella. Queen Narissa in Enchanted. The Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Meredith in The Parent Trap. The Evil Stepmother in Into the Woods. Dame Olga in Ella Enchanted. Mother Gothel in Tangled (arguably not a traditional stepmother, but I would say it supports the same trope). Frieda in Happily N'Ever After. Maleficent in Maleficent....

Terrible, the lot of them.

And again... this list is JUST. DISNEY.

What, I ask, is this teaching our children? That it's ok to hate a stepparent? That if stepmom or stepdad says "go to bed" when they don't want to, that they are just as evil as that wicked nasty stepparent they've just seen on TV?

Each and every one of these characters was written into a pre-existing trope that represents stepparents as evil, cruel, abusive, intrusive... something to escape from, to be rid of, to overcome...

It's substantial enough, in fact, that there is now a commonly referenced phenomenon in psychiatry called the "Cinderella Effect," which posits that children are at higher risk of experiencing neglect, abuse, or mistreatment from stepparents than they are from biological parents. Evolutionary psychologists argue that this is a side-effect of a natural bias towards kin, and that theories such as Inclusive Fitness, Parental Investment, and Parental Attachment support the idea that humans, as a whole, are discriminative in their care and affection. Parents will always, they say, favor children who can spread their genes and who share a biological connection to them.

Ahhhhhhhh, doesn't it just make you feel all warm and gooey inside, knowing how loved stepparents are by the world?

Ok, it's hard to tell on paper, but that last sentence was dripping with sarcasm and disdain.

Clearly, individuals who support such theories spend more time watching films than they do seeking out actual stepparents with whom to commune. Sure, there are some nasty stepmonsters out there. But you know what? There are some nasty biological parents out there as well. The vast majority of us have made the conscious decision to marry into a family, and work every day to love and support our partners and our children in the best, most genuine ways we can.

And here's the thing! Despite the advent of "The Cinderella Effect" in psychology, science actually backs us, here! Max Planck Gesellschaft, or the Max Planck Institute for the Advancement of Science, wrote an article on the issue some years ago. In short, it states that despite what advocates of the Cinderella Effect argue, parents generally do NOT treat their stepchildren any less favorably than they treat their biological children. They go on to argue that parental care depends less on biological relationship, and more on socioeconomic factors.

So. Put that in your pocket, eh?

In reality, the relationship between a stepparent and their stepchildren is often determined- nay, dictated- by external forces well beyond the control of the stepparent. If a biological parent is dedicated to alienating a child from their other parent and stepparent, there is little to be done. If the loyalty bind between a biological parent and child is insurmountable- that is, if the child believes that loving a stepparent would be a betrayal of the biological parent- what are we to do?

Well... we don't sit them in front of a Disney film, that's for sure.

The truth is, children with stepparents don't NEED any other foundation in their lives to build up a dislike or distrust of their stepparents. And that's exactly what Disney (and the rest of those Hollywood big-wigs who are ready to make a buck on the backs of stepparents everywhere) is doing. Outside of the silver screen, it's things like conflict by proxy, cultural expectations, and stereotypes that tend to stack the deck against stepparents and convince children that they are worthy of hate.

Knowing this, the kinds of things we really ought to be teaching children in these beloved films is that love can (and does) transcend biology. That as long as there is love and respect within a home, it doesn't matter whether or not you're biologically related to someone. That sometimes, we cannot trust what others tell us, and that it is critical we learn to seek out our own opinions of people. That stepparents are parents too, and they they love them and would do anything for them.

Anyway. Consider my grievances aired.

I gotta go.... my poisoned apples are nearly ready...

Cheers!

The Evil Step-Momster