The New York Times · by LESLIE JAMISON · April 6, 2017

作者：萊斯莉·杰米森牢屋，刊于2017年4月6日《紐約時報》

When she was 6, my stepdaughter, Lily, told me that her favorite character in “Cinderella” was the evil stepmother. This wasn’t entirely surprising. During play dates, Lily often liked to play orphan, writing down long lists of chores: dichs(dishes); moping (mopping); feeding (the fish). She and a friend liked to drink something they called pepper water, which was ordinary tap water they pretended their cruel orphan-handlers had made undrinkable. Maybe it was thrilling to stage her own mistreatment, to take power over the situation of powerlessness she had imagined. Maybe she just liked a virtuous reason to dump water on the floor. When I asked Lily why Cinderella’s stepmother was her favorite character, she leaned close to me and whispered, like a secret, “I think she looks good.”

我的繼女叫莉莉。6歲那年，她告訴我埃叭，灰姑娘故事里反番，她最喜歡的是壞后媽违柏。這倒算不上多出乎意料脓斩。以前在跟別的孩子玩的時候耍群，她就喜歡扮演孤兒义桂。她會寫個紙條找筝，上頭列滿了要做的家務活：刷盆（盤）子、托（拖）地板慷吊、喂（魚）食呻征。她跟小伙伴還喜歡喝一種什么“辣椒水”，其實就是普通自來水罢浇，她們假裝是壞心腸的孤兒院老師逼著她們喝的陆赋。或許把想象中對自己的虐待演出來嚷闭，能克服在想象情境中的無力感攒岛，讓她感到興奮；又或許她只不過想找個合理的借口胞锰，把水潑在地上灾锯。我問過莉莉為什么最喜歡灰姑娘里頭的壞后媽，她湊過來悄悄地說：“我覺得她挺好看的嗅榕∷骋”

For all her cruelty, the evil stepmother is often the fairy-tale character most defined by imagination and determination, rebelling against the patriarchy with whatever meager tools have been left to her: her magic mirror, her vanity, her pride. She is an artist of cunning and malice, but still — an artist. She isn’t simply acted upon; she acts. She just doesn’t act the way a mother is supposed to. That’s her fuel, and her festering heart.

這壞后媽的確心狠，但她往往只是童話里的角色凌那。故事里的壞后媽疑神疑鬼兼雄，執(zhí)迷不悟，一心要打破男權的秩序帽蝶。為此赦肋，她不惜用盡手頭僅有的可憐手段：魔鏡，還有她的虛榮和驕傲励稳。她工于心計佃乘、精于算計，雖然長存害人之心驹尼，但手段巧妙卻不得不叫人佩服趣避。她絕不逆來順受，必定要采取行動新翎、操控局面程帕。她絕不是個慈愛善良的母親，但這正是她心里頭那股子狠勁的來源料祠。

In many ways, fairy tales — dark and ruthless, often structured by loss — were the stories that most resembled Lily’s life. Her mother died just before her 3rd birthday, after a 2?-year struggle with leukemia. Two years later, Lily got a stepmother of her own — not a wicked one, perhaps, but one terrified of being wicked.

說實話骆捧，莉莉以前的生活很像那些黑暗殘酷的童話故事澎羞，她像童話里的角色一樣髓绽，失去了很多。她出生沒多久妆绞，生母就得了白血病顺呕，苦苦熬了兩年半枫攀，在她不到三歲的時候去世了。又過了兩年株茶，莉莉有了一個后媽来涨，可能不是個壞后媽，但這個后媽生怕自己虧待了莉莉启盛。

I wondered if it was comforting for Lily to hear stories about fairy-tale children who had lost what she had lost — unlike most of the kids at her school, or in her ballet classes, whose mothers were still alive. Or perhaps it brought the stories dangerously near, the fact that she shared so much with them. Maybe it peeled away their protective skins of fantasy, made their pepper water too literal, brought their perils too close. When I read her the old fairy tales about daughters without mothers, I worried that I was pushing on the bruises of her loss. When I read her the old fairy tales about stepmothers, I worried I was reading her an evil version of myself.

我有時候想蹦掐，莉莉在學校里或是芭蕾課上認識的那些孩子，多數(shù)母親健在僵闯，只有她與眾不同卧抗，所以她聽到童話里的孩子跟她一樣沒了母親，是不是能感到一種安慰鳖粟？又或者童話的存在社裆，讓虛構的危險格外真實，因為她的命運跟童話里的主角如此相似向图。也許童話幻想的外殼是一種保護泳秀，剝?nèi)ミ@層外殼之后，故事里的辣椒水變得那么真實榄攀、故事里的危險那么貼近嗜傅。有時候我給她念到一些沒娘的小女孩的童話故事，我擔心自己是在揭她的傷疤檩赢。而念到關于后媽的童話故事時磺陡，我又感覺我在給她講一個邪惡版的自己。

I sought these tales avidly when I first became a stepmother. I was hungry for company. I didn’t know many stepmothers, and I especially didn’t know many stepmothers who had inherited the role as I had inherited it: fully, overwhelmingly, with no other mother in the picture. Our family lived in the aftermath of loss, not rupture — death, not divorce. This used to be the normal way of being a stepmother, and the word itself holds grief in its roots. The Old English “steop” means loss, and the etymology paints a bleak portrait: “For stepmoder is selde guod,” reads one account from 1290. A text from 1598 says, “With one consent all stepmothers hate their daughters.”

剛當上繼母的時候漠畜，我四處找了不少這樣的后媽故事币他。我想找人傾訴，卻并不認識別的繼母憔狞，更不用說跟我情況一樣的繼母：孩子生母已不在蝴悉，我獨自全然扮演母親的角色。我這個家庭成立之前并沒有裂痕瘾敢，卻有一個黑洞拍冠，沒有經(jīng)歷離婚的坎坷，卻面臨過死亡的傷痛簇抵。其實繼母原本多數(shù)都是父親續(xù)弦再娶庆杜，英語stepmother一詞的詞源就能看出這樣的弦斷之意。古英語里steop意為“喪失”碟摆，詞根溯源晃财，早在1290年，就有這樣對繼母的負面描述：“后母性惡”典蜕。1598年断盛，有另一句話這么說：“后母常厭其女罗洗，人皆知之「置停”

The fairy tales are obviously damning: The evil queen from “Snow White” demands the secret murder of her stepdaughter after a magic mirror proclaims her beauty. The stepmother from “Hansel and Gretel” sends her stepchildren into the woods because there isn’t enough to eat. Cinderella sits amid her fireplace cinders, sorting peas from lentils, her ash-speckled body appeasing a wicked stepmother who wants to dull her luminosity with soot because she feels threatened by it. It’s as if the stepmother relationship inevitably corrupts — it is not just an evil woman in the role but a role that turns any woman evil. A “stepmother’s blessing” is another name for a hangnail, as if to suggest something that hurts because it isn’t properly attached, or something that presents itself as a substitutive love but ends up bringing pain instead.

后來的童話顯然也一脈相承伙菜。“白雪公主”里的皇后命迈，只因魔鏡告訴她白雪公主貌美勝于她贩绕，便令人偷偷殺死繼女『撸“糖果屋”里的后媽讓兩個孩子到密林里去丧叽，只因家里吃的不夠了」悖灰姑娘則棲身于煤灰堆里踊淳，干著把扁豆和豌豆分開這樣的苦活∩驴浚灰姑娘灰頭土臉迂尝，她繼母卻很高興，因為灰姑娘的美貌被煤灰蒙住剪芥，就不會威脅到繼母垄开。從這些故事看來，繼母和繼女似乎天生是死對頭税肪，不是說壞女人當了繼母溉躲，而是當繼母讓女人變壞。繼母的角色好比是指甲旁的倒刺益兄，因為貼得不緊锻梳，所以叫人生疼。繼母想取代生母的愛净捅，結果卻帶來痛苦疑枯。

The evil stepmother casts a long, primal shadow, and three years ago I moved in with that shadow, to a one-bedroom rent-controlled apartment near Gramercy Park. I sought the old stories in order to find company — out of sympathy for the stepmothers they vilified — and to resist their narratives, to inoculate myself against the darkness they held.

壞后媽的故事猶如一道長長的陰影，伴隨始終蛔六。就這樣荆永，三年前我搬進了格拉梅西公園旁邊的一套一室廉租公寓。故事里的繼母角色始終為世人詬病国章，我卻對她們充滿同情具钥，于是我到處收集這樣的故事，半是為了尋找慰藉液兽，半是為了抗拒故事描述的命運骂删，希望自己能走出故事的陰影。

My relationship with Charles, Lily’s father, held the kind of love that fairy tales ask us to believe in: encompassing and surprising, charged by a sense of wonder at the sheer fact of his existence in the world. I uprooted my life for our love, without regret. Our bliss lived in a thousand ordinary moments: a first kiss in the rain, over-easy eggs at a roadside diner in the Catskills, crying with laughter at midnight about some stupid joke he would make during an “American Ninja Warrior” rerun. But our love also — always — held the art and work of parenting, and much of our bliss happened on stolen time: that first kiss while the sitter stayed half an hour late; those diner eggs on a spontaneous road trip possible only because Lily was staying with her grandmother in Memphis; our hands clamped over our mouths during those fits of midnight laughter so we wouldn’t wake up Lily in the next room. This felt less like compromise and more like off-roading, a divergence from the scripts I’d always written for what my own life would look like.

說到我和莉莉的父親，我們的愛情本身就是童話桃漾，它包羅萬象坏匪，讓人驚喜連連拟逮。實際上撬统，查爾斯的存在就好像一個奇跡。為了他敦迄，我拋開過去的一切恋追，無怨無悔。我們的幸福由千百個平凡的瞬間連綴而成罚屋。我們在雨中初吻苦囱、在卡茨基爾路邊餐廳共嘗溏心煎蛋，半夜看“美國極限體能王”重播脾猛，他講傻兮兮的笑話撕彤，我倆一起笑到流淚。除了這些浪漫瞬間猛拴，我們的愛情還包括我倆為人父母的角色羹铅。我們一起分擔、一起學習愉昆，希望成為更好的父母职员，那些幸福的瞬間實際上也是一個個偷來的時光：保姆多留了半個小時，我們才有了雨中初吻跛溉；莉莉去了孟菲斯她奶奶家焊切，我們才一時興起開車旅行，在路邊店一起吃了溏心蛋芳室；半夜大笑時专肪，我倆其實都緊緊捂著嘴，生怕把隔壁莉莉吵醒堪侯。但這絲毫不影響我們生活的樂趣牵祟，反而感覺像拋開了之前我為自己設想的人生劇本，即興演出抖格，帶來意想不到的快樂诺苹。

I approached the first evening I spent with Lily as a kind of test, though Charles tried to stack the deck in my favor: He decided we would get takeout from the pasta place Lily liked, then spend the evening watching her favorite movie — about two princess sisters, one with a touch that turned everything to ice. That afternoon, I went to find a gift at the Disney Store in Times Square — not only a place I had never been but a place I had never imagined going. I hated the idea of bribing Lily, trading plastic for affection, but I was desperately nervous. Plastic felt like an insurance policy.

第一次和莉莉共度一晚，我感覺如臨大考雹拄。之前收奔，查爾斯已經(jīng)想方設法幫我作弊：他建議我從莉莉最喜歡的意面餐廳點外賣，之后在家看莉莉最喜歡的電影滓玖，就是關于一對公主姐妹倆坪哄，其中有一個能把一切凍成冰的那部片子。那天下午，我專門去時代廣場的迪斯尼專賣店去挑禮物（倒不是說我從沒去過迪斯尼專賣店翩肌，但我從沒想到過自己會去給一個孩子挑禮物）模暗。我真心不愿意用禮物去收買莉莉，這讓我感覺得來的感情太廉價念祭，但我實在不知所措兑宇，廉價的禮物姑且算得上是一點心理鼓勵。

The clerk looked at me with pity when I asked for the “Frozen” section. I suddenly doubted myself: Was it not a Disney movie? The clerk laughed when I asked the question, then explained: “We just don’t have any merchandise left. There’s a worldwide shortage.”

我問店員“冰雪奇緣”禮品柜臺在哪兒粱坤，店員憐憫的眼神叫我心慌：難道“冰雪奇緣”不是迪斯尼家出的嗎隶糕？問題問出口，店員哈哈大笑站玄，他說：“是我們家的枚驻，沒錯。不過跟這電影有關的一切都賣空了株旷，你去哪家店問都一樣再登。”

She was serious. They had nothing. Not even a tiara. Or they had plenty of tiaras, but they weren’t the right tiaras. I scanned the shelves around me: Belle stuff, “Sleeping Beauty” stuff, Princess Jasmine stuff. There had to be other movies Lily liked, right? Other princesses? There was a moment when I considered buying something related to every princess, just to cover my bases. I had some vague realization that the low-level panic in the back of my throat was the fuel capitalism ran on. On my cellphone, I was on hold with a Toys “R” Us in the Bronx. On my way out, I spotted something shoved into the corner of a shelf. It looked wintry. It had ice-blue cardboard packaging: a sled.

她沒騙我晾剖，柜臺空空如也锉矢，連個公主頭冠都買不著。別的頭冠倒多的是钞瀑，不過沒有一個是“冰雪奇緣”里那種沈撞。我找遍了各個柜臺，什么“美女與野獸”雕什、“睡美人”缠俺、“阿拉丁”的禮物都有，除了“冰雪奇緣”贷岸。莉莉肯定也喜歡別的動畫壹士，別的公主吧？我甚至想隨便買個跟公主相關的東西偿警，算是保底躏救。當時，我暗暗笑話自己螟蒸，正是這種不知所措才讓店家大發(fā)其財盒使。我掏出手機，撥通了布朗克斯區(qū)“玩具反斗城”的電話七嫌，往出走的時候少办，瞥見一個柜臺角落里有個什么東西，跟冬天有關诵原，冰藍色紙盒包裝英妓，那是一個小雪橇挽放。

I cannot even tell you my relief. My sense of victory was complete. The sled came with a princess, and also maybe a prince. (A Sami ice harvester, I would learn.) The set came with a reindeer! (Named Sven.) And even a plastic carrot for him to eat. I tucked the box under my arm protectively as I walked to the register. I eyed the other parents around me. Who knew how many of them wanted this box?

當時我那種如釋重負的感覺簡直難以形容，一種滿滿的成就感蔓纠。小雪橇還可以配一個公主辑畦，或者配個王子（后來我才知道，其實他們是薩米族的賣冰人）腿倚，而且居然還搭配一頭玩具馴鹿（名叫斯文）纯出！居然還有它吃的塑料胡蘿卜！去結賬的時候猴誊，我把盒子夾在胳膊底下潦刃，生怕別人搶走侮措⌒柑荆看看周圍這些家長，保不齊真有人要跟我搶分扎！

I called Charles, triumphant. I told him the whole saga: the clerk’s laughter, the worldwide shortage, the frantic phone calls, the sudden grace of glimpsing pale-blue cardboard.

我得意洋洋澄成，給查爾斯打電話，前前后后講給他聽畏吓，店員怎么笑話我啦墨状，怎么到處都缺貨啦，怎么病急亂投醫(yī)到處打電話啦菲饼，以及怎么如有天助般看到那淡藍色的盒子肾砂。

“You won!” he said, then paused. I could hear him deciding whether to say something. “The princess,” he asked, “what color is her hair?”

“親愛的，你太棒了宏悦！”他說镐确，之后停了一下。我聽出他有點猶豫饼煞≡春“你買的那個公主，頭發(fā)什么顏色砖瞧？”他問息堂。

I had to check the box. “Brown?” I said. “Sort of reddish?”

我沒記住，只好看了看盒子块促∪傺撸“棕色，有點發(fā)紅竭翠？”

“You did great,” he said after a beat. “You’re the best.”

“買對了”振坚，他停頓了一下，說：“你真厲害逃片！”

But in that beat, I could hear that I had the wrong princess.

但在他一頓之間屡拨，我知道自己買錯了只酥，不是莉莉要的公主。

Charles wasn’t criticizing; he just knew how much a princess could mean. He had spent the last two years knee-deep in princesses, playing mother and father at once. The truth of the wrong princess was also the truth of unstable cause and effect: With parenting, you could do everything you were supposed to, and it might still backfire, because you lived with a tiny, volatile human who did not come with any kind of instruction manual. The possibility of failure hung like a low sky, pending weather, over every horizon.

查爾斯并不是在怪我呀狼，只不過他知道一個公主對孩子意味著什么裂允。過去兩年里，他整天和這些公主們打交道哥艇，既當?shù)之攱尵唷ＹI錯公主玩具的事也說明了，帶孩子的時候貌踏，你根本搞不清什么前因會引起什么后果十饥，所有該做的都做到，可能依然不討好祖乳。因為這一個個小小人兒忽晴忽雨逗堵，沒有說明書能告訴你怎么跟他們打交道。暴風驟雨隨時將至眷昆，每個家長都得做好心理準備蜒秤。

In “The Uses of Enchantment,” the psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim makes a beautiful argument for the kinds of reckoning that fairy tales permit: They allow children to face primal fears (parental abandonment) and imagine acts of rebellion (defying authority) in a world reassuringly removed from the one they live in. Enchanted woods and castles are so conspicuously fantastical, their situations so extreme, that children don’t need to feel destabilized by their upheavals. I wondered if that was still true for Lily, whose loss lived more naturally in fairy tales than other places. It can be a fine line between stories that give our fears a necessary stage and stories that deepen them — that make us more afraid.

童話能容納超脫俗世的想象，在《童話的魅力》一書中亚斋，心理分析學家布魯諾·貝特爾海姆對此曾有過精彩的分析：在童話里作媚，兒童可以直面內(nèi)心原初的恐懼（被父母拋棄），或是想象自己的叛逆（對抗權威）帅刊，而童話世界與他們所生活的世界天差地別纸泡，想象并不會變成現(xiàn)實。充滿魔力的森林和城堡如此奇幻赖瞒，只屬于想象世界女揭，那里發(fā)生的一切不會影響現(xiàn)實生活。但對于莉莉的生活冒黑，我卻不太確定田绑，失去母親這樣的事似乎只應在童話里發(fā)生，而不是在真實生活里抡爹。因為失去了母親掩驱，原本釋放內(nèi)心恐懼的童話便悄然變化，讓我們恐懼冬竟。

In an 1897 letter to the editor in Outlook, a high-circulation turn-of-the-century American lifestyle magazine, one reader laments the effects of reading “Cinderella” to young children: “The effect or impression was to put stepmothers on the list of evil things of life.” But in our home, it was less that “Cinderella” put stepmothers on an evil list and more that the story raised the question — with a kind of openness that might have been impossible otherwise — of whether stepmothers belonged there. Often, Lily used the figure of a fairy-tale wicked stepmother to distinguish our relationship from the one we had just read. “You’re not like her,” she would say. Or when it came to the stepmother she admired from “Cinderella,” she was generous: “You look better than her anyway.”

十九欧穴、二十世紀之交，美國有一份廣受歡迎的生活雜志叫做《展望》泵殴。1897年涮帘，該雜志刊登了一封讀者來信，信中感嘆笑诅，給小孩子講灰姑娘的故事调缨，“不過是把繼母變成生活里又一樣可怖的東西”疮鲫。但在我們家，灰姑娘故事并沒有起到妖魔化繼母的作用弦叶，而是讓我們有機會討論繼母是不是真的可怕俊犯。說實話，若不是借著灰姑娘的故事伤哺，我們根本無法這樣開誠布公地討論這個問題燕侠。每當此時团搞，莉莉必定要把我跟那些童話故事里的壞后媽區(qū)別開鸥拧，說我們的關系和故事里的不同。她總是說：“你跟她們不一樣颈墅◎殉埽”若是談到她喜歡的灰姑娘故事里的后媽茫舶，她對我總是不吝贊美：“你長得怎么都比她好看∶叫埽”

I wondered if claiming the stepmother as her favorite was another version of playing orphans — a way of claiming the source of fear and taking some control over it. Did she worry I would turn cruel? Did she love me fiercely so I wouldn’t? I wondered if it helped her to see us reflected and distorted by a dark mirror, if these more sinister versions of our bond made her feel better about our relationship — or gave her permission to accept what might feel hard about it. I actually found a strange kind of comfort in the nightmare visions of mean stepparents I found in popular media — at least I wasn’t cruel like them. It was a kind of ethical schadenfreude.

我會想奇适，莉莉說喜歡灰姑娘的后媽坟比，是不是另一種形式的扮演孤兒角色芦鳍，通過掌控恐懼之源來掌控恐懼本身。她是在擔心我總有一天也變壞嗎葛账？她是不是極力去愛我柠衅，讓我不會變壞？我倆的形象倒映在黑色魔鏡里籍琳，變得面目全非菲宴。看到這樣扭曲丑化后的母女關系趋急，她會不會更安心于我和她現(xiàn)在的關系喝峦？或是讓她更容易接受這一關系中原本難于接受的部分？看到大眾媒體里繼母如夢魘般存在呜达，說實話谣蠢，我感到一種莫名的放松，至少我不像那些繼母一樣心狠手辣查近。這是一種道德上的幸災樂禍眉踱。

In many ways, these stories my family inherited mapped imperfectly onto ours. In fairy tales, the father-king was often duped and blind. He had faith in a woman who didn’t deserve it. His trust, or his lust, permitted his daughter’s mistreatment. Charles was like these fairy-tale fathers in only one way: He trusted me from the beginning. He believed I could be a mother before I believed it. He talked openly about what was hard about parenting, which made it feel more possible to live in love and difficulty — love as difficulty. He knew what it meant to wake day after day, choose three possible dresses, pour the cereal, repour the cereal after it spilled, wrestle hair into pigtails, get to school on time, get to pickup on time, steam the broccoli for dinner. He knew how much it meant to learn the difference between the animated ponies with wings and the animated ponies with horns and the animated ponies with both — the alicorns. He knew what it meant to do all that, and then wake up and do it all over again.

我們這個家庭跟那些童話相差甚遠。童話里的父王往往色令智昏霜威，錯信了一個不值得信任的女人谈喳。他的信任，或者說他的欲望戈泼，最終引來他女兒的厄運婿禽。查爾斯跟這樣的父王角色相比赏僧，可能只有一個共同點：他從頭至尾信任我。我還沒有信心能當好一個母親的時候扭倾，他就相信我能做到次哈。對于養(yǎng)育子女時的辛苦，他并不諱言吆录，這種態(tài)度讓我更有信心帶著愛去應對困難窑滞，也許愛本身就是困難。他知道帶孩子的滋味恢筝，每天起床哀卫、從三套衣服里挑一套、倒牛奶麥片撬槽、弄灑了再給她到一碗此改、費勁給她扎上馬尾辮、準點送上學侄柔、準點接放學共啃、蒸好西蘭花準備晚飯。他知道動畫片里長翅膀的小馬暂题、長角的小馬和有翅膀有角的小馬有什么區(qū)別移剪。有翅膀有角的叫做“天角獸”。他知道每天做這些是為了什么薪者，第二天醒來依然樂此不疲纵苛。

My relationship with Lily, too, was not like the story we inherited from fairy tales — a tale of cruelty and rebellion — or even like the story of divorce-era popular media: the child spurning her stepmother, rejecting her in favor of the true mother, the mother of bloodline and womb. Our story was a thousand conversations on the 6 train or at the playground in Madison Square Park. Our story was painting Lily’s nails and trying not to smudge her tiny pinkie. Our story was telling her to take deep breaths during tantrums, because I needed to take deep breaths myself. Our story began one night when I felt her small, hot hand reach for mine during her favorite movie, when the Abominable Snowman swirled into view on an icy mountain and almost overwhelmed the humble reindeer.

和童話故事里不同，我和莉莉之間沒有虐待和反抗言津，也不像離婚時代大眾媒體里描述的那樣：孩子排斥繼母攻人，思念生母，思念生養(yǎng)孕育自己的母親悬槽。在我們的故事里怀吻，有說不完的話，無論是在紐約地鐵6號線列車上初婆，還是在麥迪遜廣場公園的游樂場里蓬坡。在我們的故事里，我給莉莉涂指甲油烟逊，盡量不弄臟她的小妞妞渣窜。在我們的故事里，我教莉莉在想發(fā)脾氣的時候深呼吸宪躯，因為我自己也時不時需要深呼吸來控制自己乔宿。在我們的故事里，有一天晚上访雪，我們看她最喜歡的電影详瑞。雪怪突然在雪山半山腰出現(xiàn)掂林，身形遠遠大過馴鹿。這時坝橡，我感覺她的手朝我伸過來泻帮，小小的，暖暖的计寇。

That first night, when we sang songs at bedtime, she scooted over and patted the comforter, in the same bed where her mother spent afternoons resting during the years of her illness, directly below the hole Charles had made — angrily swinging a toy train into the wall — after a telephone call with an insurance company, a hole now hidden behind an alphabet poster. “You lie here,” Lily told me. “You lie in Mommy’s spot.”

那是我們共度的第一晚锣杂。臨睡前，我倆一起哼著歌的時候番宁，莉莉在床上挪了挪窩元莫，拍了拍被子。正是在這張床上蝶押，莉莉的母親在病重期間每天下午臥床休息踱蠢。她躺的位置上面的墻上有個查爾斯砸出來的淺坑。那天下午跟保險公司打完電話以后棋电，他在氣頭上茎截，隨手把一個玩具火車砸到了墻上。后來赶盔，我們用一張字母貼畫擋住了那個坑企锌。“你就躺這兒吧”招刨，莉莉說：“躺在媽媽的地方霎俩。”

If the wicked stepmother feels like a ready-made archetype, then its purest, darkest incarnation is the evil queen from “Snow White.” In the Brothers Grimm tale from 1857, she asks a hunter to bring back her stepdaughter’s heart. After this attack fails (the hunter has a bleeding heart of his own), the stepmother’s aggression takes the form of false generosity. She goes to her stepdaughter in disguise, as an old beggar crone, to offer Snow White objects that seem helpful or nourishing: a corset, a comb, an apple. These are objects a mother might give to her daughter — as forms of sustenance, or ways of passing on a female legacy of self-care — but they are actually meant to kill her. They reach Snow White in the folds of her new surrogate family, where the seven dwarves have given her the opportunity to be precisely the kind of “good mother” her stepmother never was. She cooks and cleans and cares for them. Her virtue is manifest in precisely the maternal impulse her stepmother lacks.

如果說邪惡后媽是現(xiàn)成的繼母典型沉眶，那么其中最邪惡、最黑暗的人物莫過于白雪公主故事里的惡王后杉适。在這則格林兄弟1857年的故事里谎倔，她指使獵人挖出繼女的心帶回來。獵人并沒有照辦（他的心畢竟也是肉長的）猿推，惡王后一計不成反生一計片习，假意慷慨要贈給白雪公主禮物。她扮成一個又老又丑的乞丐蹬叭，贈給白雪公主三樣東西：一件束腰藕咏、一把梳子和一個蘋果。這三樣東西看起來都很有用或是很好吃秽五，也是真正的母親會送給女兒的物品孽查。它們要么是日常飲食，要么代表母親教給女兒自己照顧自己坦喘。但惡王后卻想借此殺死白雪公主盲再。三件禮物到了白雪公主手上西设，她此時生活在新的替代家庭里，照顧七個小矮人讓白雪公主有機會扮演一位好母親的角色答朋，這正是她繼母難以成為的角色贷揽。白雪公主為小矮人們做飯、掃屋梦碗，照料他們禽绪，這種母性本能彰顯了她的賢淑，而惡王后偏偏就缺少這種母性洪规。

The evil stepmother is so integral to our familiar telling of “Snow White” that I was surprised to discover that an earlier version of the story doesn’t feature a stepmother at all. In this version, Snow White has no dead mother, only a living mother who wants her dead. This was a pattern of revision for the Brothers Grimm; they transformed several mothers into stepmothers between the first version of their stories, published in 1812, and the final version, published in 1857. The figure of the stepmother effectively became a vessel for the emotional aspects of motherhood that were too ugly to attribute to mothers directly (ambivalence, jealousy, resentment) and those parts of a child’s experience of her mother (as cruel, aggressive, withholding) that were too difficult to situate directly in the biological parent-child dynamic. The figure of the stepmother — lean, angular, harsh — was like snake venom drawn from an unacknowledged wound, siphoned out in order to keep the maternal body healthy, preserved as an ideal.

在我們家丐一，每講到白雪公主，必定講到惡王后淹冰。后來我才驚訝地得知库车，這個故事早先的版本里并沒有這么個繼母的角色。在這個原始版本中樱拴，白雪公主的母親并沒死柠衍，但這個活著的親媽卻想白雪公主死。格林兄弟對多個故事進行了同樣的修改晶乔，1812年出版的格林童話第一版許多故事里的親生母親珍坊，到1857年出版的最后一版中都變成了繼母。實際上正罢，繼母形象成為一個載體阵漏。母親與子女的關系中，母親有時會對子女又愛又恨翻具，或是產(chǎn)生嫉妒或是厭惡的感情履怯，這些情感過于丑惡，無法與母親這兩個字眼直接聯(lián)系裆泳；同樣叹洲，子女會感到母親暴戾、強勢或是有隔閡感工禾，這些情感無法放置在親生母親身上运提。于是，消瘦闻葵、尖刻民泵、嚴厲的繼母成為毒液，從不知名的傷口流出槽畔，吸干凈后栈妆，才保持母親形象的健康，讓她無可指摘。

“It is not only a means of preserving an internal all-good mother when the real mother is not all good,” Bettelheim argues, “but it also permits anger at this bad ‘stepmother’ without endangering the good will of the true mother, who is viewed as a different person.” The psychologist D.W. Winnicott puts it more simply: “If there are two mothers, a real one who has died, and a stepmother, do you see how easily a child gets relief from tension by having one perfect and the other horrid?” In other words, the shadow figure of the fairy-tale stepmother is a predatory archetype reflecting something true of every mother: the complexity of her feelings toward her child, and a child’s feelings toward her.

“這不僅僅是在孩子的真正母親不再盡善盡美時签钩，可以把美好的母親保留在心中的一種方式”掏呼，貝特爾海姆這樣分析道：“而且還可以使孩子宣泄對于壞繼母的憤怒，而不損害親生母親的慈愛深情铅檩，因為這親生母親被看作一個不同的人憎夷。”心理學家溫尼科特的分析則更為直白：“如果有兩個母親昧旨，一個已經(jīng)過世的生母拾给，一個依然活著的繼母。生母完美無缺兔沃，而繼母可怕至極蒋得，這種對比卻是對孩子內(nèi)心恐懼最大的疏解∑故瑁”簡單來說额衙，童話里繼母的形象實際投射了每個母親身上都存在的幽微：她對孩子以及孩子對她復雜的情感。

Even if Lily didn’t split her ideas of motherhood into perfect absence and wicked presence, I did — assigning precisely that psychic division of labor. I imagined that her biological mother would have offered everything I couldn’t always manage: patience, pleasure, compassion. She would have been with Lily in her tantrums. She wouldn’t have bribed her with ridiculous amounts of plastic. She wouldn’t get so frustrated when bedtime lasted an hour and a half, or else her frustration would have the counterweight of an unconditional love I was still seeking. I knew these self-flagellations were ridiculous — even “real” parents weren’t perfect — but they offered a certain easy groove of self-deprecation, comforting in its simplicity. A woman mothering another woman’s child, Winnicott observes, “may easily find herself forced by her own imagination into the position of witch rather than fairy godmother.”

雖然莉莉并沒有把對母親形象一分為二怕吴，想象成一個不在身邊的完美生母和一個無時不在的邪惡繼母窍侧，但我卻這樣想，在心里把我和她的生母按照故事里的角色進行了分工转绷。我心目里伟件，孩子的生母必定擁有那些我無法保持的特質(zhì)，她必定充滿耐心议经、和顏悅色斧账、飽含深情。莉莉發(fā)脾氣煞肾，她必定會相伴左右咧织。她才不會買一堆廉價的玩具去討好孩子。晚上莉莉上床一個半小時還不睡的時候扯旷，她不會不耐煩拯爽，或者說她對孩子無條件的愛讓她克服了心里的不耐煩，而這種愛钧忽，我還在學習。我知道逼肯，這種自我責備是荒誕無稽的耸黑，因為親生父母也并非完美，但這種簡單化的想象篮幢，卻在某種程度上給我一種逃避的空間大刊，讓我自我放逐。溫尼科特曾經(jīng)說過三椿，一個女人照料另一個女人孩子的時候缺菌，很容易因為自己的想象葫辐，而變得更像女巫，而不是童話里的教母伴郁。

In a study called “The Poisoned Apple,” the psychologist (and stepmother) Elizabeth Church analyzed her interviews with 104 stepmothers through the lens of one particular question: How do these women reckon with the evil archetype they stepped into? “Although their experience was the opposite of the fairy-tale stepmothers,” she reported, insofar as “they felt powerless in the very situation where the fairy-tale stepmothers exerted enormous power,” they still “tended to identify with the image of the wicked stepmother.” She called it their poisoned apple: They felt “wicked” for experiencing feelings of resentment or jealousy, and this fear of their own “wickedness” prompted them to keep these feelings to themselves, which only made them feel more shame for having these feelings in the first place.

在一項名為“毒蘋果”的研究中耿战，心理學家伊麗莎白·切琪（她本人也是一位繼母）對104位繼母進行訪談。她關注一個問題：這些女性怎樣面對壞繼母這樣一個新角色焊傅。通過對訪談結果的分析剂陡，她得出結論：“雖然這些女性的真實經(jīng)歷和童話里的繼母全然不同”，“童話故事里狐胎，繼母擁有巨大的力量鸭栖，而在生活中，這些女性卻有一種無力感”握巢。這種現(xiàn)象晕鹊，切琪將之稱為“毒蘋果”：繼母們在感到厭惡、嫉妒時暴浦，她們覺得自己很邪惡溅话，從而產(chǎn)生一種恐懼感。這種恐懼感又讓她們把自己的真實感受隱藏起來肉渴，反而讓她們更因自己的厭惡和嫉妒而產(chǎn)生羞恥感公荧。

Folk tales often deploy the stepmother as a token mascot of the dark maternal — a woman rebelling against traditional cultural scripts — but the particular history of the American stepmother is more complicated. As the historian Leslie Lindenauer argues in “I Could Not Call Her Mother: The Stepmother in American Popular Culture, 1750-1960,” the figure of the American stepmother found her origins in the American witch. Lindenauer argues that the 18th-century popular imagination took the same terrible attributes that the Puritans had ascribed to witches — malice, selfishness, coldness, absence of maternal impulse — and started ascribing them to stepmothers instead. “Both were examples of women who, against God and nature, perverted the most essential qualities of the virtuous mother,” Lindenauer observes. “Moreover, witches and stepmothers alike were most often accused of harming other women’s children.”

傳說故事里，繼母往往是母親邪惡一面的化身同规，她完全背離了傳統(tǒng)文化里對母親的期待循狰。但美國文化里繼母形象的嬗變則更為復雜。歷史學家萊斯利·林德諾在《我無法稱她為母親：美國大眾文化里的繼母形象券勺，1750-1960》一書中認為绪钥，在美國，繼母形象的源頭是女巫关炼。林德諾認為程腹，在18世紀大眾想象中，開始給繼母賦予的種種邪惡特征儒拂，完全是清教徒對女巫的描繪：邪惡寸潦、自私、冷漠社痛、缺乏母性见转。林德諾寫到，繼母和女巫都是違逆神的旨意蒜哀、悖逆自然天性的角色斩箫。她們扭曲了母性中最根本的良善。另外，林德諾寫到乘客，在人們的觀念里狐血，女巫和繼母往往會傷害其他母親的孩子。

The stepmother became a kind of scapegoat, a new repository for aspects of femininity that felt threatening: female agency, female creativity, female restlessness, maternal ambivalence. By the late 18th century, the stepmother was a stock villain, familiar enough to appear in grammar books. One boy was even injured by his dead stepmother from beyond the grave, when a column above her tombstone fell on his head. The particular villainy of the stepmother — the duplicity of tyranny disguised as care — enabled colonial rhetoric that compared England’s rule to “a stepmother’s severity,” as one 1774 tract put it. In an article that ran in Ladies’ Magazine in 1773, on the eve of the American Revolution, a stepdaughter laments her fate at the hands of her stepmother: “Instead of the tender maternal affection … what do I now see but discontent, ill-nature, and mal-a-pert authority?” The stepmother offers bondage cunningly packaged as devotion.

于是易核，繼母們成為替罪羊匈织，成為女性新的危險特質(zhì)的化身：自主意識、創(chuàng)造性耸成、不安于現(xiàn)狀报亩、對子女情感的兩面性。到了18世紀后半葉井氢，繼母的反面形象已是家喻戶曉弦追，甚至出現(xiàn)在兒童教材里。有個小男孩的繼母花竞，死了之后都不放過孩子劲件，她墓碑上的一根短柱倒下砸到了男孩。繼母之惡有兩面性约急，她用慈愛掩飾殘暴零远。正因為此，殖民地時期的宣傳中厌蔽，說英國的統(tǒng)治“如繼母般殘暴”牵辣，這一比喻出現(xiàn)在1774年的一首歌謠中。1773年奴饮，獨立戰(zhàn)爭前夕纬向，《淑女雜志》刊登了一篇文章，文中一位繼女哭訴自己的命運被繼母蹂躪戴卜，“她哪有半點母親的柔情逾条？全然是一個不知饜足、生性邪惡投剥、粗魯無恥的暴君师脂。”繼母控制子女命運江锨，卻巧扮為關懷吃警。

But the American popular imagination hasn’t always understood the stepmother as a wicked woman. If it was true that she was an 18th-century gold digger — a latter-day witch — then it was also true that she was a mid-19th-century saint, happily prostrate to the surge of her own innate maternal impulse. In the Progressive Era, she was proof that being a good mother was less about saintly instincts and more about reason, observation and rational self-improvement. You didn’t have to have a biological connection — or even an innate caregiving impulse — you just had to apply yourself.

但美國大眾想象中的繼母卻并非一直以邪惡示人。18世紀啄育，繼母是貪圖錢財而嫁入夫家的惡婦汤徽，后來變成女巫。到了19世紀中葉灸撰，她又成了圣女，因內(nèi)心母性召喚，甘愿吃辛受苦浮毯，毫無怨言完疫。到了進步運動時代，她更成為事例债蓝，證明要成為好母親壳鹤，內(nèi)心神圣的母性本能只是一方面，更重要的是理性饰迹、觀察學習芳誓、刻意自我完善。不需要血肉聯(lián)系啊鸭，甚至不需具備關心他人的本能锹淌，只要傾注心血就能做到。

When I interviewed Lindenauer about her research, she told me that she was surprised to discover these vacillations, surprised to find the figure of the virtuous stepmother showing up in the very same women’s magazines that had vilified her a few decades earlier. She eventually started to detect a pattern. It seemed as if the stepmother found redemption whenever the nuclear family was under siege: in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, or when divorce emerged as a social pattern in the early 20th century. The stepmother became a kind of “port in the storm,” Lindenauer told me. “It’s better to have a stepmother than no mother at all.”

我采訪過林德諾赠制，問及她的研究赂摆，她告訴我，歷史上的繼母形象翻天覆地钟些，她也頗為驚訝烟号，同一本雜志，幾十年前還把繼母貶得一無是處政恍，幾十年后又寫成良善典范汪拥。林德諾說，她發(fā)現(xiàn)了個中奧妙所在篙耗。每當核心家庭岌岌可危之時迫筑，無論是內(nèi)戰(zhàn)之后的風雨飄搖，還是20世紀初離婚率大幅攀升鹤树，繼母的形象都得到改善铣焊。林德諾把繼母比作某種“暴風雨里的港灣”。她對我說：“有個繼母總比什么母親都沒有要強得多罕伯∏粒”

The golden era of the American stepmother archetype — the summit of her virtue — was the second half of the 19th century, during and after the Civil War, when sentimental novels and women’s magazines were full of saintly stepmothers eager to care for the motherless children who stumbled into their laps. In Charlotte Yonge’s 1862 novel, “The Young Step-Mother; or, a Chronicle of Mistakes,” the young stepmother Albinia is portrayed as a woman with a surplus of good will, just waiting for people with needs — read: grief — deep enough to demand the deployment of her excess goodness. Her siblings worry about her marrying a widower with children, afraid she will become a kind of indentured servant, but the novel reassures us that “her energetic spirit and love of children animated her to embrace joyfully the cares which such a choice must impose on her.” When her new husband brings her home, he apologizes for what he is asking from her. “As I look at you, and the home to which I have brought you, I feel that I have acted selfishly,” he says. But she won’t let him apologize. “Work was always what I wished,” she replies, “if only I could do anything to lighten your grief and care.”

十九世紀下半葉，美國內(nèi)戰(zhàn)期間及戰(zhàn)后追他，繼母形象在美國迎來了黃金時期坟募，人人稱頌繼母的美德。流行小說邑狸、女性雜志無一不充斥圣母般的繼母形象懈糯。對于意外來到自己身邊的繼子女，繼母們毫無保留傾注關愛单雾。夏洛特·楊格1862年的小說《年輕的繼母赚哗，或錯誤的記錄》中她紫，年輕的繼母阿爾比尼婭充滿愛心，隨時愿意幫助別人屿储，無論是幫別人讀書贿讹，還是安撫他人的哀痛。她滿滿的愛心簡直無從安放够掠。當她要嫁給一個帶著孩子的鰥夫時民褂，她的兄弟都擔心阿爾比尼婭日后會變成家里的傭人。但小說告訴我們疯潭，“她天生熱心腸赊堪，又打心眼里愛孩子，因此竖哩，對于嫁入夫家后的辛苦哭廉，她毫無怨言∑诜幔”當丈夫帶她回家時群叶，他對將給她帶來的生活負擔感到抱歉《鄣矗“我看著你街立，再看看你來到的這個新家，我覺得自己很自私。”他說粮彤，但被她打斷了：“我忙慣了影锈，只要你高興點档桃、不那么辛苦，我怎么都愿意。”

With the children, Albinia says everything right: She is sorry they have her in place of their mother. They can call her Mother, but they don’t have to. Although the novel is subtitled “A Chronicle of Mistakes,” Albinia doesn’t seem to make many. When I read in the novel’s epigraph, “Fail — yet rejoice,” it felt like a lie and an impossible imperative at once. In fact, the entire voice of the saintly stepmother felt like an elaborate humblebrag. She knew she would always be second — or third! or fifth! or 10th! — but she didn’t care. Not one bit. She just wanted to be useful.

對繼子女荣病，阿爾比尼婭說話也很周全：她說自己很抱歉要代替他們的母親。他們可以叫他媽媽渗柿，但如果不愿意也沒關系个盆。小說題為《錯誤的記錄》，但阿爾比尼婭卻沒犯什么錯朵栖。小說題記里有這么句話：“失敗了颊亮，卻享受著≡山Γ”讀到這句話终惑，我感覺沒有半點道理，而且完全不可能做到门扇。事實上雹有，全書里這位圣母般的繼母偿渡，談吐間感覺甚是虛偽。她知道自己永遠排在第二位件舵，也可能是第三位卸察、第五位，甚至第十位铅祸，但她不在乎，只要能幫助別人合武，她一點都不在乎临梗。

I thought I would be glad to discover these virtuous stepmothers, but instead I found them nearly impossible to accept — much harder to stomach than the wicked stepmothers in fairy tales. My poisoned apple wasn’t the wicked stepmother but her archetypal opposite, the saint, whose innate virtue felt like the harshest possible mirror. It would always show me someone more selfless than I was. These stories forgot everything that was structurally difficult about this kind of bond, or else they insisted that virtue would overcome all. This is why fairy tales are more forgiving than sentimental novels: They let darkness into the frame. Finding darkness in another story is so much less lonely than fearing the darkness is yours alone.

一開始，我以為發(fā)現(xiàn)歷史上這些賢良繼母會讓我輕松稼跳，但我卻無法接受這樣的角色設定盟庞，甚至遠比童話里那些壞繼母還難接受。我的“毒蘋果”不是那些壞繼母汤善，而是她的對立面什猖，那些圣母般的繼母，她們天生賢良淑德红淡，對我來說卻是最難以接受的鏡子不狮，鏡中永遠在提醒我，別人比我更加無私忘我在旱。這種情感聯(lián)系天然難以存在摇零，但這類故事卻忽視了這點，或者堅稱品德能夠克服一切桶蝎。正因為這一點驻仅，童話比這種流行小說更加寬容，童話里容許黑暗的存在登渣。在別的故事里看到黑暗噪服，會讓你在自身經(jīng)歷的黑暗中感到慰藉。

I punished myself when I lost patience, when I bribed, when I wanted to flee. I punished myself for resenting Lily when she came into our bed, night after night, which wasn’t actually a bed but a futon we pulled out in the living room. Every feeling I had, I wondered: Would a real mother feel this? It wasn’t the certainty that she wouldn’t, but the uncertainty itself: How could I know?

當我失去耐心時胜茧，我自責粘优；當我用禮物收買孩子時，我慚愧竹揍；當我想逃避時敬飒，我內(nèi)疚。莉莉每晚跑到我跟查爾斯的床上（其實算不上床芬位，只是我們在客廳里支起的沙發(fā)床）无拗，我心生厭倦時，我責備自己昧碉。我每每問自己：親生母親這時應該有什么感覺英染？我內(nèi)心不安揽惹，并不是因為我知道親生母親不會跟我一樣，而恰恰是因為我不知道親生母親應該怎樣：我怎么才能知道呢四康？

I had imagined that I might feel most like a mother among strangers, who had no reason to believe I wasn’t one, but it was actually among strangers that I felt most like a fraud. One day early in our relationship, Lily and I went to a Mister Softee, one of the ice cream trucks parked like land mines all over the city. I asked Lily what she wanted, and she pointed to the double cone of soft serve, the biggest one, covered in rainbow sprinkles. I said, Great! I was still at the Disney Store, still thrilled to find the sled set, still ready and willing to pass as mother by whatever means necessary, whatever reindeer necessary, whatever soft-serve necessary.

我曾以為搪搏，在陌生人面前，我會感覺更像一個母親闪金，因為他們不清楚我的底細疯溺。但實際上，在陌生人面前哎垦，我更感覺自己是個冒牌貨囱嫩。我跟莉莉相處不久的時候，一天漏设，我和莉莉去一家“富豪雪糕”店墨闲，這樣的雪糕店像地雷一樣，全城到處都有郑口。我問莉莉要什么口味的鸳碧，她指了指雙筒軟冰淇淋，這是店里賣的最大的一款犬性，上頭還撒了彩虹米瞻离。我說，沒問題仔夺！我的心態(tài)還留在迪斯尼專賣店琐脏，為找到雪橇興奮，只要讓我過了當媽這一關缸兔，什么辦法都行日裙，那種馴鹿都可以買，多大的冰淇淋都能讓她吃惰蜜。

The double cone was so huge that Lily could barely hold it. Two hands, I would have known to say a few months later, but I didn’t know to say it then. I heard a woman behind me ask her friend, “What kind of parent gets her child that much ice cream?”I felt myself go hot with shame. This parent. Which is to say: not a parent at all. I was afraid to turn around. I also wanted to turn around. I wanted to make the stranger feel ashamed, to speak back to the maternal superego she represented, to say: What kind of mother? A mother trying to replace a dead one. Instead I grabbed a wad of napkins and offered to carry Lily’s cone back to our table so she wouldn’t drop it on the way.

雙筒冰淇淋個頭實在太大昂拂，莉莉都快抓不住了。如果再過幾個月抛猖，我會告訴她用兩個手拿格侯。但當時我不知道該說什么。我聽到背后女人跟朋友悄悄議論：“這人是怎么當媽的财著，讓孩子這么大的冰淇淋联四。”我感覺面紅耳赤撑教〕眨“怎么當媽的”，意思就是“根本不是當媽的”伟姐。我不敢回頭收苏，心里卻想回頭亿卤，好好跟這個不認識的女人說道說道，告訴她所代表的母性超我：“怎么當媽的鹿霸？我在盡力替別人當媽排吴。”但我終究沒說出口懦鼠，而是拿了一疊紙巾钻哩，幫莉莉把甜筒拿回桌上，坐著吃葛闷，免得她半路掉了憋槐。

As a stepparent, I often felt like an impostor — or else I felt the particular loneliness of dwelling outside the bounds of the most familiar story line. I hadn’t been pregnant, given birth, felt my body surge with the hormones of attachment. I woke up every morning to a daughter who called me Mommy but also missed her mother. I often called our situation “singular,” but as with so many kinds of singularity, it was a double-edged blade — a source of loneliness and pride at once — and its singularity was also, ultimately, a delusion. “Lots of people are stepparents,” my mother told me once, and of course she was right. A Pew Research Center survey found that four in 10 Americans say they have at least one step relationship. Twelve percent of women are stepmothers. I can guarantee you that almost all these women sometimes feel like frauds or failures.

身為繼母，我經(jīng)常感覺自己是在冒名頂替淑趾，或者說，我無法融入那個家庭熟悉的過往忧陪，這讓我尤為孤單扣泊。我沒有懷胎十月，一朝分娩嘶摊。我沒有感受過體內(nèi)激素分泌帶來的母子連心延蟹。我每天面對的是一個雖然管我叫媽，卻依然思念生母的孩子叶堆。我常說阱飘，這樣的母女關系獨一無二，但每個獨一無二其實都有兩面虱颗，既讓我孤單沥匈，也讓我驕傲。況且忘渔，所謂的獨一無二也并非真的無二高帖。“當繼父母的多得是”畦粮，我母親告訴過我散址。她說得對。皮尤研究中心的一項調(diào)查中發(fā)現(xiàn)宣赔，40%的美國人都有當繼父母或是繼子女的經(jīng)歷预麸。12%的美國女性是繼母。我敢確定地說儒将，所有這些繼母都曾感覺自己是個冒牌貨吏祸，或者不稱職。

In an essay about stepparents, Winnicott argues for the value of “unsuccess stories.” He even imagines the benefits of gathering a group of “unsuccessful stepparents” in a room together. “I think such a meeting might be fruitful,” he writes. “It would be composed of ordinary men and women.” When I read that passage, it stopped me dead with longing. I wanted to be in that meeting, sitting with those ordinary men and women — hearing about their ice-cream bribes, their everyday impatience, their frustration and felt fraudulence, their desperate sleds.

在一篇研究繼父母的文章里椅棺，溫尼考特認為雖然有些繼父母當?shù)貌怀晒缯郑@樣的事例也自有其價值齐蔽。他甚至還想過，召集一些這樣不成功的繼父母到一起床估『危“我認為這樣的見面會很有好處”，他寫道：“參加這一活動的都是些普通的父母丐巫√缚觯”讀到這一段，我心里無比向往递胧。我希望參加這樣一次活動碑韵，跟這樣的普通父母促膝長談，聊聊他們怎么買冰淇淋哄孩子缎脾，他們怎么沒耐心祝闻，怎么感覺受挫、感覺自己是冒牌貨遗菠，他們怎么為買禮物黔驢技窮联喘，最后找到了小雪橇。

In the methodology portion of her “Poisoned Apple” study, Church admits that she disclosed to her subjects that she was also a stepmother before interviewing them. After an interview was finished, she sometimes described her own experiences. Many of her subjects confessed that they had told her things during their interviews that they had never told anyone. I could understand that — that they somehow would feel, by virtue of being in the presence of another stepmother, as if they had been granted permission to speak. It was something like the imagined gathering of unsuccessful stepparents, as if they were at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in a church basement, taking earned solace in the minor triumphs and frequent failures of their kind: a kind of kin.

在“毒蘋果”研究論文的方法論部分辙纬，切琪曾透露豁遭，在采訪之前，她會告訴受訪者她本人也是繼母贺拣。而訪談結束后蓖谢，她有時會講述自己的經(jīng)歷。很多受訪者承認譬涡，在訪談里告訴切琪的一切她們從沒告訴過別人闪幽。我完全理解這種心理，因為在另一個繼母的面前昂儒，她們會感覺似乎受到許可沟使，能敞開心扉。這是一種想象里的“失敗繼父母懇談會”渊跋，就像那些在教堂地下室舉辦的“匿名戒酒會”一樣腊嗡。無論是小小進步，還是他人同樣的失敗經(jīng)歷拾酝，都會讓參加者感到些許安慰燕少，形成一種歸屬感。

The decision to call the stepmother Mother, or the decision not to call her Mother, is often a dramatic hinge in stories about stepmothers, a climactic moment of acceptance or refusal. In a story called “My Step-Mother,” published in The Decatur Republican in 1870, a young girl regards her new stepmother with skepticism. When her stepmother asks her to play a song on the piano, trying to earn her trust and affection, the girl decides to play “I Sit and Weep by My Mother’s Grave.” But lo! The stepmother is undeterred. She not only compliments the girl on her moving performance; she shares that she also lost her mother when she was young and also used to love that song. The story ends on a triumphant note, with the daughter finally calling her Mother, an inverted christening — child naming the parent — that inaugurates the “most perfect confidence” that grows between them.

叫不叫繼母“媽媽”蒿囤，這是繼母經(jīng)歷中最重要的轉(zhuǎn)折點客们，這一刻決定了孩子到底接不接受她。1870年《迪卡特共和報》刊登過一篇《我的繼母》，文中的女孩始終對繼母心存疑慮底挫。繼母為了取得她的信任和愛恒傻，有一次讓她在鋼琴上彈首曲子，她彈的是《母親墳前的啜泣》建邓。但好一位繼母盈厘！她繼續(xù)勇往直前，不但夸女孩琴聲動人官边，而且告訴她自己也是幼時喪母沸手，因此以前也喜歡這首曲子。故事最后迎來了歡喜的結局注簿，女孩終于開口叫她“媽媽”契吉。這是一種倒轉(zhuǎn)的洗禮，孩子為母親命名诡渴。這一聲“媽媽”帶來了兩人之間“最深的信任”捐晶。

For Lily, calling me Mother wasn’t the end of anything. The day after Charles and I married in a Las Vegas wedding chapel — just before midnight on a Saturday, while Lily was having a sleepover with her cousin — Lily asked almost immediately if she could call me Mommy. It was clear she had been waiting to ask. I remember feeling moved, as if we had landed in the credits at the end of a movie, the soundtrack crescendoing all around us.

我和莉莉的故事里，她叫我媽媽并不是結局妄辩。我跟查爾斯在拉斯維加斯的一所結婚教堂結成夫婦租悄，時間是個周六半夜零點之前，那天莉莉在表姐家過夜恩袱。結婚第二天，莉莉就問我能不能叫我媽媽胶哲。顯然畔塔，她已經(jīng)想了好久。我記得自己當時很感動鸯屿，感覺就像電影迎來大結局澈吨，片尾曲起，演職員名單開始在屏幕上滾動寄摆。

But we weren’t in the credits. We were just getting started. I was terrified. What would happen next? What happened next was pulling into a 7-Eleven for snacks and feeling Lily tug on my sleeve to tell me she had an “adult drink” at the laser-tag birthday party and now felt funny. She didn’t want me to tell her dad. It was like the universe had sent its first maternal test. Was she drunk? What should I do? If I was going to let myself be called Mommy, I had to be prepared to deal with the fallout from the laser-tag birthday party. Charles eventually deduced that she had had a few sips of iced tea.

但我們還沒到片尾谅辣，其實剛剛開始片頭。我緊張得要死婶恼。下面該怎么辦桑阶？接下來發(fā)生的是，我們一起開到一家7-Eleven買零食勾邦，莉莉拉了拉我的袖子蚣录，告訴我她剛參加完朋友的生日聚會，大家一起去玩激光對戰(zhàn)眷篇，后來她喝了點“大人喝的東西”萎河，現(xiàn)在感覺有點飄飄然。她告訴我要保密，不能告訴爸爸虐杯。這是上天給我的第一份考卷玛歌，看我是不是個合格的母親。她喝多了擎椰？我該怎么辦支子？如果我準備好讓莉莉叫我“媽媽”，我就得想好怎么給激光對戰(zhàn)生日聚會的結果善后确憨。不過译荞，查爾斯最后推斷，莉莉肯定是抿了幾口長島冰茶休弃。

It felt less as if I had “earned” the title of mother — the way it has figured in so many sentimental stories, as a reward for behaving the right way and defying the old archetypes — and more as if I had landed in the 1900 story called “Making Mamma,” in which 6-year-old Samantha layers a dressmaker’s dummy with old fabric in order to make a surrogate mother for herself. It was as if Lily had bestowed a deep and immediate trust in me — unearned, born of need — and now I had to figure out how to live inside that trust without betraying it.

我感覺吞歼，自己并不是“贏得”母親的稱號，不像流行小說里的情節(jié)塔猾，我用所作所為打破了陳舊觀念篙骡，最終得到獎賞。我感覺自己來到了1900年的一個名為《制造母親》的故事里丈甸，講的是六歲的薩曼莎給裁縫店的人偶穿上舊衣服糯俗，給自己做個一個假媽媽。莉莉給我的似乎是一種無條件的深刻信任睦擂，是她的情感需求得湘，并非是我贏得的。接下來顿仇，我得學會怎樣不辜負這份信任淘正。

Once I stepped into the costume of a well-worn cultural archetype, I got used to hearing other people’s theories about my life. Everyone had ideas about our family without knowing anything about our family. One woman said our situation was easier than if I had a terrible ex to compete with; another woman said I would be competing with the memory of Lily’s perfect biological mother forever. When I wrote about a family vacation for a travel magazine, the editor wanted a bit more pathos: “Has it been bumpy?” she wrote in the margins of my draft. “What are you hoping for from this trip? A tighter family bond? A chance to let go of the sadness? Or … ?? Tug at our heartstrings a bit.”

一旦我成為傳統(tǒng)刻板觀念里的角色，我就習慣了別人對我生活的各種猜測臼闻。雖然完全不了解我們家庭的情況鸿吆，但人人都能評頭論足。一個女人說述呐，比起有個前妻跟我競爭惩淳，我的情況實在是好得多。另一個女人說乓搬，我一輩子都要跟莉莉記憶中的完美生母比高下了思犁。我給旅游雜志寫家庭度假，編輯問我能不能加些感情料缤谎，“一路順利嗎抒倚？”她在我稿件上批注：“通過旅行你想達到什么目的？家庭更親密坷澡？找個機會釋放哀傷托呕？等等…挑動挑動讀者的心弦含蓉。”

I realized that when this editor imagined our family, she envisioned us saturated by sadness, or else contoured by resistance. More than anything, I liked her “Or … ??” It rang true. It wasn’t that every theory offered by a stranger about our family felt wrong; it was more that most of them felt right, or at least held a grain of truth that resonated. Which felt even more alarming, somehow, to be so knowable to strangers.

我意識到项郊，這位編輯的想象里馅扣，我們家必定是憂傷揮之不去，要么就是母女間罅隙叢生着降。其實差油，我最喜歡她寫的那個“等等…”。這個“等等”頗有幾分道理任洞。并不是說別人對我們家的想象都是錯的蓄喇，其實大多數(shù)都對，或者至少有幾分道理交掏。讓我警醒的是妆偏，外人是怎么看出來的？

But every theory also felt incomplete. There was so much more truth around it, or else something close to its opposite felt true as well. I rarely felt like saying, No, it’s nothing like that. I usually wanted to say: Yes, it is like that. And also like this, and like this, and like this. Sometimes the fact of those assumptions, the way I felt them churning inside everyone we encountered, made stepmotherhood feel like an operating theater full of strangers. I was convinced that I was constantly being dissected for how fully or compassionately I had assumed my maternal role.

但外人的想象都不全面盅弛。背后還有很多故事钱骂，或者有時候想象與事實幾乎完全相反。但我不太愿意駁斥別人挪鹏，說：完全沒有這回事见秽。我一般都說：沒錯，就是這樣讨盒！就是那樣解取！你說的對！他說的對返顺！有時候肮蛹，這些紛紛擾擾的猜測，或是我感到的每個陌生人強烈的好奇创南，讓繼母們好像是在一個滿是陌生觀眾的劇場里演出。我確信省核，我有沒有履行好母親義務稿辙，有沒有體現(xiàn)母愛關懷，這些早被別人分析了個透气忠。

I only ever found two fairy tales with good stepmothers, and they were both from Iceland. One stars a woman named Himinbjorg, who helps her stepson through his mourning by helping him fulfill the prophecy his mother delivered to him in a dream: that he will free a princess from a spell that had turned her into an ogre. By the time he returns from his mission victorious, the royal court is ready to burn Himinbjorg at the stake, because everyone is convinced that she is responsible for his disappearance. What I read as her selflessness moved me. She is willing to look terrible in order to help her son pursue a necessary freedom. I worried that I cared too much about proving I was a good stepmother, that wanting to seem like a good stepmother might get in the way of actually being a good stepmother. Perhaps I wanted credit for mothering more than I wanted to mother. Himinbjorg, on the other hand, is willing to look like a witch just to help her stepson break the spell he needs to break.

那么多繼母童話里邻储，我只找到兩篇關于好繼母的，兩篇都來自冰島旧噪。一篇里的女主角叫希敏約格吨娜。她繼子的生母托夢給他，說他將幫一位公主擺脫咒語淘钟，從怪物變回常人宦赠。希敏約格幫助繼子實現(xiàn)這一預言。當男孩凱旋歸來之時，朝廷正打算把希敏約格火刑處死勾扭，因為大家都相信毡琉，男孩失蹤是她搞的鬼。故事里女主角的無私忘我感動了我妙色。為了幫繼子獲得必要的自由桅滋，她不顧自己在他人眼中的形象。我有時擔心身辨，自己是不是太在意別人的眼光丐谋，想證明自己是個好繼母。是不是比起當好母親煌珊，我更在乎別人對我的認可号俐？希敏約格就不是這樣。為了讓繼子打破魔咒怪瓶，她情愿背負巫婆的罵名萧落。

Then there was Hildur. Hildur’s husband had vowed never to marry after the death of his first queen, because he was worried that his daughter would be mistreated. “All stepmothers are evil,” he tells his brother, “and I don’t wish to harm Ingibjorg.” He is a fairy-tale king who has already absorbed the wisdom of fairy tales. He knows the deal with stepmoms.

另一篇的主角叫希爾杜。希爾杜的丈夫在第一任王后去世后洗贰，曾發(fā)愿不再另娶找岖，因為怕女兒被后媽虐待×沧蹋“后媽沒一個好的”许布，他對弟弟說：“我不愿讓英吉約格受一點委屈∫锘危”這是位已經(jīng)在童話里學到智慧的童話國王蜜唾。他清楚后媽們的面目。

But he falls in love with Hildur anyway. She says she won’t marry him, though — not unless he lets her live alone with his daughter for three years before the wedding. Their marriage is made possible by her willingness to invest in a relationship with his daughter that exists apart from him, as its own fierce flame.

但他還是愛上了希爾杜庶艾。希爾杜卻不愿嫁給他袁余，除非自己先跟公主共度三年，之后才能跟國王成婚咱揍。正因為她愿意獨立于夫妻之外颖榜，培育和繼女的感情，這才點燃了婚姻的火焰煤裙，讓這段婚姻得以實現(xiàn)掩完。

The closest thing Lily and I ever had to an Icelandic castle was a series of bathrooms across Lower Manhattan. Bathrooms were the spaces where it was just the two of us: the one with wallpaper made from old newspapers, the one where she insisted that people used to have braids instead of hands, the one at a Subway with a concrete mop sink she loved because it was “cool and simple.”

我和莉莉最接近這些冰島城堡故事的經(jīng)歷，發(fā)生在曼哈頓下城的幾個衛(wèi)生間里硼砰。衛(wèi)生間是我們兩人的空間且蓬，一間墻上貼著舊報紙做的墻紙，在另一間里题翰，她非說過去的人不長手光長辮子恶阴，第三間是地鐵衛(wèi)生間诈胜，莉莉說她喜歡里面的水泥拖把池，因為設計“很簡單很酷”存淫。

Bathrooms were our space, just as Wednesdays were our day, when I picked her up from school and took her to the Dunkin’ Donuts full of cops at Third Avenue and 20th before I rushed her to ballet, got her suited in her rhinestone-studded leotard and knelt before her tights like a supplicant, fitting bobby pins into her bun. At first, I expected an Olympic medal for getting her there only two minutes late. Eventually I realized that I was surrounded by mothers who had done exactly what I’d just done, only they had done it two minutes faster, and their buns were neater. Everything that felt like rocket science to me was just the stuff regular parents did every day of the week.

衛(wèi)生間是我們兩人的空間耘斩，每周三則是我們兩人的時間。每到這天桅咆，我去學校接她放學括授，之后去第三大街或是第二十大街經(jīng)常見到警察光顧的“唐恩都樂”甜甜圈店，之后趕著送她學芭蕾岩饼，跪著幫她換上鑲著水鉆的連衣褲荚虚，活像個女仆，給她發(fā)髻戴上發(fā)卡籍茧。剛開始版述，我做到只讓她遲到兩分鐘時，感覺應該給自己頒塊奧運金牌寞冯。后來才發(fā)現(xiàn)渴析，周圍這些媽媽們?nèi)寄茏龅剑冶任铱靸煞昼娝绷洌宜齻兣畠旱陌l(fā)髻更利索俭茧。這些對我來說難如天書的事，其實只是這些普通家長們每天的日常漓帚。

But those afternoons mattered, because they belonged to me and Lily. One day, in a cupcake-shop bathroom in SoHo — a few months before Lily, Charles and I moved into a new apartment, the first one we would rent together — Lily pointed at the walls: pink and brown, decorated with a lacy pattern. She told me she wanted our new room to look like this. Ours. She had it all planned out. In the new place, Daddy would live in one room, and we would live in the other. Our room would be so dainty, she said. She wasn’t even sure boys would be allowed. This was what Hildur knew: We needed something that was only for the two of us.

雖然如此母债，但這些下午卻很重要，因為這是我和莉莉的獨處時光尝抖。一天毡们，在蘇豪區(qū)一家蛋糕店的衛(wèi)生間里（當時莉莉、查爾斯和我還沒搬進新公寓昧辽，我們?nèi)业谝淮巫夤⑦€是幾個月之后的事）衙熔，莉莉指著墻，墻粉色褐色裝飾搅荞，還有蕾絲花紋青责。她告訴我，以后我們的新房間也要這樣裝修取具。我們的。她心里已經(jīng)計劃好了扁耐。到了新家暇检，爸爸住一間，我和媽媽住一間婉称。我倆的房間一定要裝得最漂亮块仆，她說构蹬。她都沒想好能不能讓男的進去。這就是希爾杜的智慧：我們要有兩人獨有的生活苍息。

A few months later, reading Dr. Seuss’s “Horton Hatches the Egg” to Lily in that new apartment, I felt my throat constricting. Horton agrees to sit on an egg while Mayzie the bird, a flighty mother, takes a vacation to Palm Beach. Mayzie doesn’t come back, but Horton doesn’t give up. He sits on a stranger’s egg for days, then weeks, then months. “I meant what I said, and I said what I meant,” he repeats. “An elephant’s faithful, one hundred per cent!”

幾個月后蝶怔，我們搬進了新家桨螺。一天，我給她讀蘇斯博士的《霍頓孵蛋》藻烤。讀著讀著，我感到嗓子有點發(fā)緊头滔。懶鳥梅吉怖亭，這個長翅膀的媽媽去棕櫚灘度假，霍頓同意幫她孵蛋坤检。梅吉一直不回家兴猩，但霍頓卻堅持，在別人下的蛋上孵了好幾天早歇、好幾個星期倾芝、最后好幾個月〖“我不說則已晨另，說到就要做到⌒坡耄”他一直說：“大象最守信用拯刁，百分百守信∈哦危”

When the egg finally hatches, the creature that emerges is an elephant-bird: a bright-eyed baby with a small, curled trunk and red-tipped wings. Her tiny trunk made me think of Lily’s hand gesticulations — how big and senseless they got, like mine — and how she had started to make to-do lists, as I did, just so she could cross things off. But she also had a poster of the planets in her bedroom, because her mom had loved outer space, and she was proud to say she always had her “nose in a book,” just as her grandmother told her that her mother always had. She has two mothers, and she always will.

蛋終于孵出來了垛玻，出來的是一只小象鳥：眼睛亮晶晶，長著根小小卷卷的象鼻子奶躯，還有一對紅色尖尖的翅膀帚桩。小象鳥的小鼻子讓我想到莉莉舞動的手，這雙手慢慢變得和我的手一樣大嘹黔，卻一樣不再敏感账嚎。這雙手也開始列待辦清單了，也會劃掉清單里的條目了儡蔓。但莉莉在臥室里貼了張行星貼圖郭蕉，因為她親生母親喜歡宇宙。她的親生母親“總是埋在書里”喂江，這是姥姥告訴她的召锈，每次說到這個，莉莉總是自豪的不得了获询。她有兩個母親涨岁，永遠都會有拐袜。

For me, the stakes of thinking about what it means to be a stepmother don’t live in statistical relevance — slightly more than 10 percent of American women might relate! — but in the way stepparenting asks us to question our assumptions about the nature of love and the boundaries of family. Family is so much more than biology, and love is so much more than instinct. Love is effort and desire — not a sentimental story line about easy or immediate attachment, but the complicated bliss of joined lives: ham-and-guacamole sandwiches, growing pains at midnight, car seats covered in vomit. It’s the days of showing up. The trunks we inherit and the stories we step into, they make their way into us — by womb or shell or presence, by sheer force of will. But what hatches from the egg is hardly ever what we expect: the child that emerges, or the parent that is born. That mother is not a saint. She’s not a witch. She’s just an ordinary woman. She found a sled one day, after she was told there weren’t any left. That was how it began.

對我來說，思考怎樣當好繼母梢薪，意義并不在統(tǒng)計數(shù)字里蹬铺，畢竟只有百分之十多一點的美國女性和我感同身受。但通過思考這個問題秉撇，促使我們?nèi)ニ伎嫉降资裁词菒厶鹋剩业慕缦薜降自谀膬骸＜彝サ母拍钸h遠超過生物學的聯(lián)系畜疾，愛遠遠不止是本能赴邻。愛是樂于奉獻、甘于奉獻啡捶。愛不是流行小說故事里從天而降姥敛、憑空而來的情感聯(lián)系，而是苦樂交織的共同生活帶來的：火腿鱷梨三明治瞎暑、孩子發(fā)育期半夜的疼痛彤敛、汽車座椅上的嘔吐。愛是在她身邊了赌。我們共同擁有的皮卡車墨榄，我們一起經(jīng)歷的故事，這些塑造了我們勿她，無論是子宮孕育袄秩、蛋殼孵出，還是不離不棄逢并、矢志不渝之剧。但蛋里孵出的雛鳥卻超乎我們想象：一個孩子的誕生、一個母親的成熟砍聊。母親不是圣人背稼，也不是女巫，她只是一個普通的女人玻蝌。別人告訴她什么禮品都不剩了蟹肘，她還能找出一臺小雪橇。這就是故事的開始俯树。