Stiefmutter sein - Elsa Koester

Here comes the new stepmother!
Elsa Koester reads from her new book “Being a Stepmother” about wicked fairy tales, dear stepdaughters, the crazy life in the patchwork family – and about how a stepmother can dance her way free.
Between flowers, wine, olives and new fairy tales, Ebru Tasdemir will guide us through the evening (editor @der Freitag).
Come and celebrate our old and new extended families with us!

Congratulations, it’s a stepchild!
We are everywhere: as soon as a woman falls in love with someone with children, she becomes a stepmother. 40 percent of all marriages end in divorce, a considerable proportion of all children live in step-families. So there are many of us. And yet we can’t bring ourselves to define ourselves as “stepmothers” without that ashamed look down at the ground. The wicked stepmother lives on, in society and in the self-perception of the “affected”. When Elsa Koester becomes a stepmother, quite unplanned, she realises: there needs to be a rethink here. The modern extended family consists of more than two parents – that is not always easy, but it is a great opportunity. Why are there no rituals, no traditions, no congratulations when starting a patchwork family? Co-motherhood brings joy and relief for everyone. High time to rethink family and celebrate stepmotherhood!

Elsa Koester was born in 1984 as the daughter of a French Pied-noir with a Tunisian colonial history and a North German Frisian with a US-American emigration history in Berlin, where she now lives with her partner and two stepchildren. She studied literature and political science as well as sociology and is the political editor for the cover topics at the weekly newspaper “Der Freitag”. Her debut novel “Couscous mit Zimt” (2020, FVA) was enthusiastically received.