Much is written about Mother's Day being a difficult day for women with stepchildren. Especially for those who came into the lives of those stepchildren when they were very young, took an active role in parenting them, and are not acknowledged on The Day. Anyone who has read my book Stepmonster knows that I am the last one who would tell those women how they "should" feel on Mother's Day, or what is "right" or "wrong" to expect from their stepchildren and husbands on that charged and overdetermined day. Women with stepchildren hear enough lectures and shoulds. It gets old when it's your feelings at stake. Time to let stepmothers just have them, without promptly shoving a list like "Ten Ways to Be a Better Stepmother" into their hands right after.

The sting of not being acknowledged on Mother's Day might be especially sharp for a highly involved stepmother who never had kids with her husband. For many of us, motherhood is the buffer against some of the occasional insults and indignities of stepmotherhood, a safe place and a terrain of comparative ease, at least on That Sunday. Those without the buffer are likely to feel, well, exposed and unprotected.

Then, seven days after, belated and second-best, comes Stepmother's Day. You weren't thinking it would come first, were you? Or that it would be a big deal, taking up 25 pages of advertising in the New York Times? Even though stepfamilies outnumber first families in the U.S. Even though half of all women in the U.S. will become stepmothers or stepmother figures. You weren't thinking anyone would really know about it, let alone celebrate it, were you? Get real.

Stepmother's Day? I've never heard of that, a number of people, including some women with stepchildren, have told me. Don't let that stop you. You could tell your husband or partner that on the 17th you want a card, a massage, or some kind of recognition for doing the stepmother thing. Whether you think of yourself as a stepmother or not, whether his kids are grown and living halfway across the country, whether you embrace or ignore your role as "stepmother," it is, in fact, your day. So for all the times you bought into the myth that, when you're a stepmother, your happiness counts less than anyone else's in the family, on the 17th, make sure you put your happiness first. It will probably be a very strange feeling, and a very unfamiliar one, particularly if you are in the eye of the stepmothering storm at this point, but you might find you come to like it. And that you want to make putting yourself at the center of your own life a more-than-once-a-year thing.

We can only hope. Happy Stepmother's Day.