Stepmother: Redeeming a Distained Vocation

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 emotional, material, and spiritual terrain we share with our stepchildren, and with their other parents. Bringing together insights from sociology, history, clinical studies, and literature, she unpacks prac...