The Courage to Be a Stepmom: Finding Your Place Without Losing Yourself [Paperback]

Sue Patton Thoele (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1999

Sue Patton Thoele addresses the emotions of guilt, shame, fear, grief, and frustration commonly felt by stepmothers and offers hands-on advice for coming to terms with them. She also offers stepmoms tips on how to meet their own needs while forging lasting bonds with stepchildren.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

What's the first word that pops into your head when you hear the word "stepmother"? Wicked? Thanks to Cinderella and other popular myths and fairytales, most of us have received powerful, overt, and subliminal messages that all stepmothers are cold, uncaring, evil women.

Despite these antiquated images, stepmoms are regular women who love their husbands, are committed to their marriages, and take the role of caring for their stepchildren very seriously. Acting as chauffeurs, maids, confidantes and punching bags, many stepmothers endlessly try to please everyone in their families-and in the process may exact a heavy toll on themselves. No matter how secure and psychologically sophisticated a woman may be, often the combination of negative stereotypes, unresolved grief, societal pressures, and unrealistic expectations, places her smack in the middle of an "emotional minefield."

In The Courage to be a Stepmom: Finding Your Place Without Losing Yourself, Sue Patton Thoele, a psychotherapist since 1974 and stepmother of twenty-five years, takes an honest, updated look at this huge and growing population of women. Offering practical skills and hands-on advice, she explores the complex emotional labyrinth of stepmothering and prepares stepmoms for the roller-coaster of emotions that often accompanies the role.

The Courage to be a Stepmom is a powerful book that will help thousands of women get a handle on their new families, and their lives. And, while perfect, "instant" families are as fictitious as evil stepmothers, the experiences and advice of Ms. Thoele and the dozens of stepmoms she interviewed help pave the way to harmonious, blended families, and just maybe, a "happily-ever-after" ending.

About the Author

Popular speaker, psychotherapist, mother, stepmother, and author Sue Patton Thoele has been a practicing therapist since 1974 and a stepmother for almost all that time. More than 500,000 copies of her books are in print and her work has been translated into nine languages. A member of the Association for Transpersonal Psychology, and of Spiritual Directors International, Thoele received her B.A. in drama from Kansas University, and her M.A. in psychology from Santa Clara University. She lives with her husband, Gene, in Colorado, and has two adult children and two adult stepchildren. The Courage to Be a Stepmom is her tenth book. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: Wildcat Canyon Press; 2nd edition (April 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1885171285
• ISBN-13: 978-1885171283
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #843,303 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Writing made me sit down and shut up and, as a result, helped me become aware of the desire to move from an over-busy lifestyle to a more balanced one. I actually didn't begin writing until all four kids were either in college or on their own. In fact, I was forty-five when the Muse grabbed me by the back of the neck and wouldn't let go no matter how much I resisted. And resist I did! However, my first book, The Courage To Be Yourself, seemed to have a mind of its own and simply would not let me rest until I was totally committed to it. By the time the original book was completed, I was passionate about writing. Since I'd had a private psychotherapy practice for many years, it felt natural to write about issues similar to those with which my clients and I grappled.

I am incredibly blessed to be able to do work I love and to have the support of My Husband Gene, without whom I would never have become an author. We--well, really he--self-published "The Courage To Be Yourself", stacked the first 5,000 copies in our itty bitty garage, and hand delivered two and three copies at a time to local bookstores before the book was eventually picked up by a "real" publisher. To this day, Gene continues to do all the heavy lifting, paper and financial work, schlepping of author to speaking engagements, and has enduring patience with the weirdness-of-wife-while-writing phases I inevitably go through while working. He is my rock.... and he makes me laugh.

Each of us plays many roles and works in different arenas during a lifetime. Below are a few roles I've played and some of the work I've done. Several I still do and others seem as if they existed in another time and space.

ROLES I'VE HAD
Wife, divorcee, wife again ... still "wife again"
Mom, single mom, stepmom ... once a mom of any kind, always a mom
Grandmother, mentor ... love these roles
Myriad acting roles in community theater ... now do some Reader's Theater

WORK I'VE DONE
Author
Psychotherapist in private practice
Public/Keynote Speaker
Seminar/Group/Retreat Leader
Hospice Chaplain, Trainer &
Counselor
Director of a Counseling Center
High School and Adult Ed teacher

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great addition to the stepfamily literature; highly recomm, April 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Courage to Be a Stepmom: Finding Your Place Without Losing Yourself (Paperback)

The Courage To Be A Stepmom reflects author Sue Patton Thoele's considerable experience in the area of empowering and encouraging women to grow spiritually, intellectually and emotionally. Perhaps more importantly, Ms. Thoele's willingness to draw extensively from her own experience as a stepmother brings the subject matter alive and will leave most readers feeling that it really is okay to take some wrong turns on the long and sometimes arduous journey from novice to "stepmother emeritus."

The Courage to Be a Stepmom skillfully covers the basics-keeping expectations reasonable, going slowly, strengthening the marriage, and so on. There's good, practical advice to be found in its pages. However, it moves ahead of many of the contemporary books on stepparenting and stepfamilies in its ability to present its subject in the context of personal growth. Ms. Thoele, often through personal example, encourages stepmothers to continually look within and work with their feelings, expectations and beliefs as they face the challenges of building a successful stepfamily. The underlying premise of the book is that you have to be willing to grow yourself if you want to promote growth in your stepfamily, and secondly, that this is an extremely challenging, sometimes painful, but potentially quite rewarding process.

Particularly strong, I think, are her chapters on taking care of yourself. Sue Thoele adeptly blends together established concepts about nurturing the self with anecdotes derived from the nearly forty stepmothers she interviewed for the book. What emerges is a compassionate model for caring for others from a position of caring for yourself. These chapters will be particularly useful to new stepmothers who have a tendency to be self-sacrificing in an effort to win the approval of both their stepchildren and their new spouse-a strategy that almost invariably backfires.

The Courage To Be a Stepmom succeeds in its goal to emotionally prepare and inform stepmothers who are new to the role as well as to support and encourage those who are several years into the process. It will be an important tool for women seeking to "survive-and eventually thrive-as a stepmom."

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best..., February 10, 2002

By 

Karon Goodman (Oxford, AL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Courage to Be a Stepmom: Finding Your Place Without Losing Yourself (Paperback)

The author, a psychotherapist and a stepmother, begins her comforting book by helping the reader understand the impact of her past and present on her family. She stresses the need for flexibility as stepmoms search for the courage to be "teachers of love and connection."

She discusses reasonable and realistic expectations and how the stepmom can exercise her right to boundaries without jeopardizing her marriage. The eight concise "stepmuddling" steps are a practical guide for getting through the typical stepfamily struggles.

Mrs. Thoele encourages the reader to be a "true friend" to herself by holding on to what sustains her and taking care of her marriage. She also provides tips to guide the stepmom in helping her own children adjust to the new family.

You'll find inspiration in "Gathering the Gifts," in which the author discusses the gifts that we receive from stepchildren and the spiritual gifts that we would not have so fully developed in perhaps another family situation. The "Twenty Guidelines for Stepmoms" are right on target and equally applicable to stepdads.

One sentence of the book speaks for us all as we struggle to find the courage that we need to succeed in our demanding role against incredible odds: "I believe that I did the best I could considering who I was at the time." Keep doing the best you can where you are.

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars At last! Both realistic AND hopeful..., November 13, 2003

By 

TeacherAmy (Charlotte, NC Metro) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Courage to Be a Stepmom: Finding Your Place Without Losing Yourself (Paperback)

My new husband teases me good-naturedly for my collection of 16 stepparenting books (and counting), but it's important to me to do the best I can. I've read a ton on this topic, and though I think it's important to do that, the reading often drags down my spirit and I find myself anxious and saddened by the enormity of this undertaking. It's particularly difficult and overwhelming as a never-married, no children wife.

This book is has been an incredible relief. Ms. Thoele manages to candidly acknowledge the difficulties faced by a stepmother and to offer some accurate and helpful insights without ever losing her underlying message that this is possible, we CAN do it, and there are steps you can take to make this a positive adventure. She reminds us that the rewards we reap often correspond to the effort involved, and so there is great hope.

I find myself wanting to highlight far too much of the text to make highlighting worthwhile! I'm tremendously relieved that this book arrived shortly before my wedding, and I rate it in the "top 5" stepfamily books in my growing collection. Do yourself a favor if you're a stepmother: grab this book, sit down with a cup of coffee, and allow yourself some grounded encouragement from someone who has been there.