I came across this nasty little book by accident the other day and immediately experienced a huff of outrage. This hit a nerve, so stick with me, folks. This is going to be a several-part series.
"A child is one hundred times more likely to be abused or killed by a step-parent than by a genetic parent, say two scientists in this startling book. Martin Daly and Margo Wilson show that the mistreatment to stepchildren, long a staple of folktales, has a solid basis in fact. Daly and Wilson apply the perspective of evolutionary psychology to investigate why step-parenthood is different from genetic parenthood and why step-relationships succeed or fail."
Oh, so as if the social stigma of being a stepmom wasn't bad enough, now I'm suspect as a potential child abuser too? Just because of the label my role happens to have?
I would first like to point out that my outrage wasn't just in defense of my own position as a stepmom. Anecdotally, my own childhood experience proves the opposite of the authors' supposition: I suffered abuse at the hands of a biological parent, and was subsequently adopted by a step-parent who has been the best father a girl could ask for, and would never think of abusing a child, his biologically or otherwise.
Then my outrage led me down this rabbit trail: for every stepmother/stepchild currently being featured by the media as a classic case of evil-stepmom-abuses/and or kills-poor-stepchild (Kyron Horman, Zahra Baker, Haleigh Cummings), I can think of an equally disturbing case of biological moms killing their own kids: Andrea Yates, Susan Smith, Darlie Routier. Heck, I can even name a pregnant stepmom murdered in cold blood by her soon-to-be stepson: Kenzie Houk.
But all that is neither here nor there. Setting my indignation aside, I decided to do my best to read this book with an open mind. Not an easy task, I promise you. I found so much of this book distasteful and I have so much to say about it that I'm going to break it into parts, otherwise this blog post might become a book in and of itself!
Stay tuned for Part II tomorrow...
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