Stepmothers are strange and take a lifetime to understand I think. I acquired mine when I was five. They have had their own lives and ways of thinking and I believe that since we're not "theirs" the fit can be horrible.

Are you or your stepmother left-handed? I was reading a scientific book on left-handedness and it pointed out that since 90% of people are right-handed, the world is set up for them and when you go into grocery stores, "they" have you going toward the right for what they want you to buy/high price items, etc. just like they put all the stuff you "need" in the back of the store so you'll have to walk past the other stuff and hopefully impulse buy. But it was interesting reading about how left-handers (that would be me :-) can turn wrong directions, have trouble learning to dance with another (that would be me too, very bad experience as a teenager to not be able to "follow" when dancing with a boy in the early-1960s). But left-handed people literally die 5-10 years earlier on average than right-handed because the world is set up for the right-handed and literally dangerous for lefties. Other than in England, driving a car and have an emergency and a lefty will unconsciously jerk the wheel left, right into the line of oncoming traffic. Buttons and controls for machinery are set up across the lefties body from their dominant hand, etc.

But I only felt better about my stepmother when she bought me a coat I wanted and it was many sizes too big. I was puzzled and a bit hurt because she'd been buying me clothes forever and was a stickler for fit. But then I suddenly realized she felt I was "bigger"/better/larger-than-life, etc. for her. She was a bit "afraid" of me/in awe I think. She had wanted to go to college but it was the Depression and only her brothers were sent to college since she'd just get married and have a family and who wants to waste the money -- it's so hard thinking about the old societal rules (some still in effect when I was growing up) and I feel so sorry for her. But I was a college graduate and she thought I was "smarter" than she was just because of that! This woman who use to stand in front of the Saks and other high-end store windows and sketch the designer dresses there and then go home, make a pattern, and then the dress for the formal parties she and my father attended!

But don't be so annoyed with yourself, Alexandra. Our parents have their own issues and didn't wake one morning and think, "gee, how can we mess up Perna's life today?" And I figure if I can feel a bit sorry for them and their struggles then I should feel a bit of compassion for myself too?