Stepmonster

Reaching to the core of the stepmother experience

Wednesday Martin Ph.D.

Endless Summer: A Disco Diva's Enduring Lesson about Female Sexuality

How a single song helped change the way we think about sex.

Fifty States of Grey

Are we one nation under S&M? Fifty Shades of Grey suggests that maybe the female mainstream is kinky.

Deconstructing Rush: What Really Motivated His Rant about Sluts

What does it really mean when a man calls a woman "slut"? How do we understand the impulse to punish, banish, and humiliate sexual women publicly? Rush Limbaugh's recent rant begs the questions — and our evolutionary prehistory suggests some unexpected answers.

Food Suddenly Feels Perilous, Here's Comfort for Those With Allergies and Intolerances

Six million kids have food allergies–40 percent of them life-threatening–and one in 133 Americans has a diagnosis of celiac disease. Millions more have wheat allergies or gluten intolerance. Now what?

Superbowl 2012: Night of the Living Dead

What if we could inoculate ourselves against impotence, irrelevance and decline... just by watching a TV show?

Give It to Me, Often: The Surprising Secret to a Happy Marriage

Guess what separates the happily married couples from ones who aren't? A new study shows it probably isn't what you think.

We Are All Yueyue

Yueyue, a 2-year-old hit-and-run victim left for dead and ignored by more than a dozen passerby in Guandong province, China, is both an innocent child-victim, and a symbol of the West's rising anxiety about What's Next.

I Don't Know How She Does It: America's Silent Crisis

Millions of women in the U.S. lead double lives. How do they do it? And why does it matter so much?

When (and Why) Did We Become Such Food Snobs?

Guest blogger Elizabeth Gordon, MSW, asks: Is food snobbery this millennium's answer to flamboyance?

The Return of the Repressed: Amy Winehouse and Lucian Freud

British artists Lucian Freud and Amy Winehouse, RIP

Why It's Easier to Love a Stepfather Than a Stepmother

Disliking stepmothers is an epidemic. What's really behind all the hard feelings?

Like Pickle Juice on a Cookie: A Book Helps Parents Help Kids with Loss

Summer is a season of transition and change for your child or stepchild. Rather than trying to "fix it" when your child faces a loss, you can use it as an opportunity to foster growth and resilience

Polygyny and the Single Girl: Why Do Women Have Children with Married Men?

Behind every Arnold Schwarzenegger, John Edwards and Francois Mitterand who fathers a second family on the DL is a woman who chooses him as her mate. Why would a woman have an affair and a child with a man who is already married and a father?

Stepmonster in the Spotlight: What Kate v. Camilla Can Teach Us Commoners

It's wedding season for commoners as well! Why the very issues eating away at the royals as the Big Day approaches are our issues, too.

Matzoh or Jellybeans? Sometimes Kids Aren't Asking What We Think They Are

While there may be no easy answers about questions like "Matzoh, chocolate eggs, or both?" in interfaith households, grappling with two religions may not be as complicated for children as some adults fear

How Can Arguing Actually Improve Your Marriage? Six Tips

Six tried and true tips for arguing with your spouse can actually make your marriage stronger.

Stepmothers on Strike: How Can Doing Less Save Your Marriage

Why women with stepchildren should refuse to be unpaid housekeepers, nannies, chefs, homework tutors, and drivers right now.

What I Learned About Men from the Super Bowl Commercials

Masculinity isn't as easy as it looks. What the Super Bowl 2011 commercials taught me about men

What is a father? Adam Dell v. Padma Lakshmi

Adam Dell's lawsuit for sole custody of Krishna Lakshmi begs the question, What's the difference between fathering a child and being a father?

The Taunting Tiger Mom and Her Lessons

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother has held up a mirror to our very own version of trampling each other to death at soccer games—we are a country that goes berserk when it comes to our national blood sport, judging mothers.

If your Ex were dating Cam or LeAnn...Ex-Wife/Stepmother Conflict

Sometimes a stepmother with the best intentions will enrage a mother/ex-wife by "overreaching" and encroaching on mom's role and relationship with her kids

Holidays or Hellidays? How Stepmothers and Stepkids Alike Can Enjoy

Holidays bring out some of our most primitive longings, and a sense of "nostalgia" for things we probably never had in the first place--a "perfect" family, an "ideal," Ozzy-and-Harriet-type marriage. The flipside of these longings is often resentment and acting out that things are not what they "should be." Helliday eggnog, anyone?