THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, May 10, 1996 TAG: 9605100056
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E11 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JENNIFER RIDDLE, HIGH SCHOOL CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
PERHAPS IT was all the Walt Disney movies. All I know is that the day my father announced that he was planning to get remarried, the only thought that came to mind was that I was going to be a victim of the ``Cinderella syndrome.''
At age 12 I was going to have an evil stepmother.
Being the oldest, and a girl, horrible thoughts of enslavement haunted my dreams and the ancient fairy tale seemed to mirror my situation exactly . . . except for the fact that I was going to have two stepbrothers rather than the unpleasant Anastasia and Drizella of Cinderella's tortured life.
It all happened within a year. Dad is the executive chef at the Norfolk Yacht and Country Club. Karen, who is from St. Thomas, was a temporary waitress. They met at work, and a year later, they were engaged.
I imagined their wedding day in vivid detail, my father's new wife handing me a dishrag and a mop and ordering me to clean every plate from the wedding reception and to make sure that all the floors were spotless. Even worse, I envisioned family vacations that didn't include me because they only had one extra seat and that was for the dog.
Karen made an effort to prove my predictions wrong.
When it was time for her to buy a wedding dress, I was the one who picked it out - it was long and peach colored, covered with lace. And at the wedding reception, I was given a large slice of Island rum cake that her grandmother had made, instead of a mop.
Granted, things were not always easy and the transition from just me and my dad and my brother living together to having another woman in the house wasn't exactly smooth.
I can remember our first argument and how hard it was for us to communicate. I was a 12-year old who thought I was an adult and she was an adult who saw a child wearing entirely too much makeup. There were times when she wouldn't talk to me for weeks, and times when I would have done anything to get away from her.
But when I needed a mother, she was always there. Karen was the one who motivated me when I was in eighth grade and I decided that I needed to lose weight. In fact, she was the one who bought me the Richard Simmons aerobics tape.
On talk shows, in movies, in fairy tales and everywhere, it seems that stepmothers are the bad guys. And stepmother cards reflect this - they are either stupidly humorous, or they are cheesy and dwell on the fact that we aren't blood relatives.
I recently read one that pictured Cinderella. On the inside it said: ``Thank God you never read fairy tales.'' Another was a mock magazine cover titled ``Wicked Stepmother's Weekly.'' It boasted articles on how to make your husband hate his children and how to get more housework out of the stepkids. Inside the message read: ``Obviously you're not a subscriber.''
I can't imagine giving my stepmom one of these cards. Karen is what being a mother is all about. Maybe that's why shopping for Mother's Day is so difficult. How could flowers, candy or even jewelry say what needs to be said.
Maybe next time she does ask me to mop, I won't complain as much. ILLUSTRATION: Correspondent Jennifer Riddle, left, with her not-wicked
stepmother, Karen.
by CNB