Appreciation for Stepparents

Blended families are not a new thing these days, if anything they are more the norm. The relationships that children have with their stepparents can be riddled with problems, including animosity and misplaced anger towards a person that they perceive to be taking the place of their mother or father. The stepparent has to walk a fine line of friend, disciplinarian and parent and often times what they do for their stepchildren is either unappreciated or taken out of context. The stepparent is often cast as the evil person who stops Cinderella from going to the ball, or the evil woman who sends a man's children off to boarding school so they are not in the way. However, there are stepparents, especially stepmothers, who are devoted to their stepchildren and are successful in making it clear to the children that they are not trying to take the place of their mother/father but simply want to be there for them. On Mothers' Day, kansascity.com published the following article that pays tribute to those rare people who have been successful stepparents: http://www.kansascity.com/105/story/104997.html