The only 'wicked' one in the family

Give Me a Break:While her husband and stepsons were playing their enduring roles in the sugary-pink Diana hagiography-fest last Friday, what was Camilla doing? Having a lie-in? Grooming her horses? Hiding away in pampered exile watching the coverage on Sky and asking herself why all the love she's poured into Charles, William and Harry still isn't enough to redeem her?

I doubt she was crying her eyes out, but still - it really is thankless being a stepmother. It's the only family title that comes with its own adjective: wicked. No matter how hard she tries, the stepmother is never going to make the grade. Her stepchildren are afraid to love her wholeheartedly because to do so is to betray their sainted mother, and the world sees her as a whore because - justifiably or not - she tore those vulnerable children from their mother's breast, what with access at weekends and so on. When the mother is dead, the stepmother seems to be usurping her role.

William and Harry wanted "Milla" at the memorial service but with typical emotional unintelligence, Queen Elizabeth thought it best that Camilla decline the invitation. That wicked stepmother had to be shunned out of respect for the dead - a strange sort of respect that the queen had difficulty demonstrating when Diana was alive.

It's unhealthy for any of us to keep seeing Diana as a wronged saint, when she was just another sinning human being, no better or worse than the rest of us.

The queen's advice struck me as particularly cruel because when I heard the news, I was in the throes of meeting my latest stepmother-in-waiting. We were on Cape Cod and I recall turning off CNN and getting all jolly about scooping out dishes of ice cream as a distraction. Those of us who have to deal with step-families in real life don't need people telling us that stepmothers are second-class family members.

Like other families, we have our own Diana, my mother who died 27 years ago. So we know what it's like to lose not just a mother, but also a grandmother who died too young to become one. Because there have been a few women in my dad's life since, my children and I know that a relationship with a stepmother/ stepgrandmother is different to that with a mother/grandmother. It can be enriching and delightful - as well as confusing and painful.

We should really talk about it more, instead of pushing stepmothers onto the fringes of family life. Stepmothers in my peer group don't speak about their stepchildren very much - as though they're afraid of putting a foot wrong and upsetting whatever precarious balance they've achieved.

Meanwhile, their efforts to forge healthy relationships with their stepchildren are unsung - maybe because stepmothers are buying into the shame around their wicked role and are afraid to boast.

Loving somebody else's kids - not to mention noisy grandkids - is hard.

It's not the selfless, kneejerk sort of love that comes from infant-mother bonding. When you're a stepmother, you really get to know your partner's kids and grandkids warts and all and decide to love them anyway. That's a strong sort of love. It grows out of action, rather than irrational fidelity.

My latest almost-stepmother (she and my dad are engaged but haven't set a date yet) made it clear from the beginning that she wanted to be a friend rather than a mother figure. The first thing she said - after opening her arms for the first in a series of irresistible mother-bear hugs - was: "I've been thinking about this. I want you all to call me Agnes." So Agnes it is.

And what a woman - 65 going on 25 and delighted to be blooming at her age after a lifetime of experience that she recounted with honesty and humour.

Agnes's approach was: "Take me as I am." We know what makes her happy (good food, great stories, sunshine and swimming) and we know what freaks her out (tantrums, wasting food). No hidden agendas there.

She's an old-fashioned Lady and I reckon my kids could use a bit of that.

And she adores my father, even though they had separate bedrooms - how cute is that?

Every family has its queen with the power to embrace or shun - even though others may resent it. This is probably why Agnes confessed that before meeting me she was terrified. I wondered what my father had been telling her, until I realised that Agnes was channelling the collective unconscious disapproval that we have of stepmothers.

Or maybe my dad truly does think I'm a dreadful old harridan. I don't mind, really.

I hope there's a big wedding, because I'm looking forward to meeting my new stepsister (in addition to the previous steps and halves I wish I knew better). She's a nurse who lives near LA and has two kids the same ages as mine and is married to a cinematographer whose name I'll be looking out for in film credits from now on. That's the strange thing about newly reformed families, a lot of us have half-siblings and "steps" we've scarcely met. But that's OK.

In step-families, the expectations are realistic. Biological families promise unconditional love even when they don't deliver. "Steps" want to love you in their way even though they hardly know you, which is as good as it gets these days when so many of us are redefining what family means.