Wicked Stepmother

This is a short monologue I'm working on for our Mother's Day celebration at Living Water Fellowship. Just a RD but it's coming along nicely.

Villain? Or Victim?

I'm going to be a mom next week.
No, I'm not pregnant. I'm going to be... wait for it...
a STEPMOTHER! Tun tun tun.
I never thought I'd marry a man with a kid. It just wasn't ever a possibility I'd considered. But like it says in the Bible, God can do more than I can ever imagine.
And Tom is definitely the best thing that's ever happened to me. (beat) He's so much more than anything I thought I ever wanted.
So maybe that's why I decided to take The Plunge with him and Davey.
Yep, Davey is his kid's name. He's such a cute little guy. He runs around the house in his underoos, his lanky arms and legs everywhere. Typical nine year old stuff. He's great. (beat) Except when he's not. I love him because he's part of Tom. But sometimes, like when he gives me dirty looks over the dinner table, I his mother all over his face.
And then I get angry and I start to think, "What right do I have to expect this kid to even care whether I'm in the same room or not, much less finish the food I made for him."
And that thought inevitably leads me to Paranoia City. He's plotting to steal my favorite pen. He's poisoning the plants. (beat) He's trying to split up Tom and me. (long pause) He hates me.
And then I get really, really sad. BEcause no matter how much I love him, feed him, hug him, I'll never be his mother. There will always be that word between us:
Stepmother.
What is it about that term that strikes fear into the hearts of children everywhere? Maybe it's because Carol Brady's attempt to eradicate the centuries-old stereotype failed miserably.
Let's just think about this for a minute: in all those fabulous fairy tales your mom read to you when you were growing up, who the really evil villain?
The stepmother. (or the witch... sometimes she was one and the same.)
Doesn't that just take the biscuit?
A woman who is willing to give up her independence voluntarily to help raise someone else's child is the villain in the story. Always the villain. Always? ALWAYS.
And do you know the reward these women get for unselfishly raising another woman's kid, sacrificing her youth, dreams, and needs because she loves her husband and the kid is part of the package?
She DIES. Most of the time in the most horrible ways you can imagine.
In Hansel and Gretel, she perishes of "unknown causes" (while the kids are cavorting around the woods harrassing a poor old lady who just wants to bake cookies in peace...)!
Vasilisa the Beautiful had a stepmother who was instantaneously incinerated by looking at a skull, and there's an Irish story where the stepmother is burned at the stake.
Let's not forget Cinderella. The poor woman doesn't die... unfortunately. Her own girls' eyes get poked out by pigeons (ick) and pretty Little Cindy's stepmom got to spend the rest of her life penniless taking care of her two blind daughters. Fun.
Then there's the lesser known story called The Juniper Tree where the stepmother's blood literally begins to boil, and when she goes outside to cool off, a huge rock falls out of the sky and smashes her (at which point her husband and his children go inside and eat dinner)!
And of course, the classic. Snow White. Did you know that at Snow White's wedding reception, little Miss Perfect forced her stepmother to wear iron shoes that had been heated white hot in the fire? True. And then she made the woman dance... until she crawled into the forest, dragging her burnt and mangled feet behind her and died in agony. (beat)
Sometimes I have nightmares that I'll be eaten by leeches at Davey's high school graduation.