Step-parents are more harassed than hazardous in the modern ‘blended’ family unit

Unlike fairytale stepmothers, their real-life equivalents tend to be more harassed than hazardous, writes Áilín Quinlan.

Stepmothers get a terrible press — they’re the archetypal baddies of children’s literature, think Cinderella and Snow White. Introduced to a household by a broken-hearted widower to care for his motherless children, the fairytale wicked stepmothers instead cunningly plots their demise.

But now the tables have turned.