Ugly stepchild

Posted by Pamela on July 18, 2008 at 00:33

In Reply to: Ugly stepchild posted by ESC on July 17, 2008 at 10:13:

: : What is the meaning of "the ugly stepchild?"

: Here's my guess -- a stepchild might be ill treated by a stepparent in contrast to treatment given his/her "biological" child. And even more so if the stepchild was ugly. (There was actually a study done showing that ugly children in general don't have an easy time of it. More likely to fall out of the shopping cart and so forth.)

I think that there is an additional aspect - a stepchild may be something that you have been lumbered with. Here's one:
"Professional wrestling has always been the ugly stepchild in the world of professional sports. Whenever sports and news journalists are forced to cover a wrestling story, they do so with a tongue in cheek attitude. They treat professional wrestling with the utmost disrespect, just like the people that call it fake. They often report the story with a humorous tone, as if to say the story itself is also fake. (From a blog: "What to tell people that say professional wrestling is fake" By Rich Twilling Jul 5, 2008 - 12:25 PM

So the sports reporters are "forced" to report on pro-wrestling, and it's ugly, and, as ESC has said, they treat it badly.

Pamela