Stepmother: Redeeming a Disdained Vocation

Every year hundreds of thousands of American women become stepmothers. Committing to partners who are already parents, we gain relationships with young people who may—or may not—be pleased by our presence.

When Dorothy Bass married a man with a four-year-old daughter, she was hesitant to embrace the title "stepmother," with its many negative cultural associations, and she soon realized she had very little sense of what this new role required of her.

In Stepmother, Bass explores the complex ...