Did you catch Oprah yesterday? The theme was "Secrets of Motherhood," and women were cutting loose (http://www.oprah.com/dated/oprahshow/oprahshow-20090311-secret-lives-moms). I laughed out loud at the story of a mom who was driving down the highway with all of her kids asleep in the backseat — bliss! A few moments, perhaps even an hour, of quiet to look forward to! But what to do about the fact that she was dying to pee? If she pulled over at a rest stop the crowd would wake up and make her life hell again, after all. So, like any self-respecting mom in desperate need of silence and a potty, she hauled a diaper out of the nearby diaper bag — and used it. You also have to give it up for the mom who said she thinks the secret of discipline is for your kids to think you're a little bit crazy and they just don't know what you might do next. Case in point: she threatened her daughter that if she continued to misbehave, Mom would get rid of ALL her toys. Her warning went unheeded — so she made good on her promise. Swooping into the room with a big garbage bag, she spirited every toy away, Grinch-style: "There wasn't so much as a Lego left." She left her kid high and dry for 24  hours, then returned the stash. But the lesson lives on: "All I have to do is get a certain crazy look in my eye," the woman reports, "and she knows I mean business."

Newsflash: motherhood is really, really difficult, and moms are imperfect. Sometimes we're already screaming at 7:30 a.m. We don't necessarily like doing craft projects or imaginary play with our kids ("Mom, you be Obi-Wan, and I'll be Luke!"). Trips to the playground can be mind-numbingly tedious ("Oh my god. He wants to go down the slide. Again").  Trisha Ashworth and Amy Nobile know all about it — they interviewed hundreds of women for their book I Was a Really Good Mom Before I Had Kids. Among the things they discussed: the judgment moms put up with everyday, often from total strangers ("Put some mittens on that baby!"); the loss of your old self when you become a mom (no more dropping in on friends spur-of-the-moment; less frequent forays in high heels; too tired for fun or sex; can't remember where Prada is anymore); a feeling of failure if you can't do it all ("There are days when I say, 'If I can just get out of bed and get them breakfast I'm happy,'" a mom of three explained).

"It was like a bomb hit us," Amy said of motherhood. "I felt I didn't have permission to talk abut how hard motherhood really is."

The whole show got me thinking: wouldn't it be great if Oprah told the truth about stepmotherhood next? As a mom of two, I know how tough motherhood is. But come on now, as any mother who's also a stepmother can tell you, you don't know judgment, the loss of your old self, or the feeling of failure until you marry a man with kids. And talk about feeling you don't have permission to admit how hard it is and how much you hate it some days!

Kids can make your life heaven — and hell. But they're yours, and until they're teenagers, it's clear how much they love you, even as they palm your droopy tricep and exclaim, "Ewww, mommy, it's hanging down like a bat wing!" Or harumph, "You're not my MOM anymore," when you nix a fifth consecutive episode of Arthur.

Stepkids? Not so much. Certainly not at first. They make your life hell, and then they make it clear they wish you'd just disappear. Sure, you might get close to them eventually. Or you might not. Each of those outcomes is in the range of normal. But have no doubt that you will be judged — ruthlessly, mercilessly, relentlessly — by everyone from your mother-in-law to the people who work at the grocery store if you and your stepkids ever seem like anything less than BFFs.  

Have I mentioned losing your self? And feeling like a failure? Women I interviewed for my book sounded bewildered as they lamented that no one had ever hated them, or treated them like they were more mortifying than an open fly, until they partnered with a man with children. "I used to wonder, 'I'm nice, I'm fun, I'm cute, why the hell don't they like me?'" one woman I'll call Brenda asked me, summing up what virtually every woman I interviewed had been through.

Then come the feelings of failure ("They don't like me and I don't like them. This isn't working and it's my fault!") And resentment ("Screw this. Screw them. I don't deserve to be treated this badly"). And worse — this doesn't happen with children, but it sure happens with stepchildren — these feelings create a rift between you and your husband, who (if he's anything like other dads who divorce) has developed selective amnesia, blindness and deafness that kicks in whenever his children do something obnoxious or objectionable.

So there you are, feeling rejected, like a failure, alienated from not only these kids but also your husband, not to mentioned gagged, since talking about it will bring the judgment raining down ("His kids don't like her. She's doing something wrong!")

Oprah, yesterday you did a world of good for moms. Tomorrow, onto stepmoms. Please. We need it, and we're waiting.