Stepmoms in the White House

The U.S.’s current First Lady, the wife of its President-elect and its incoming Vice President are all women who’ve partnered with men who brought along kids from previous relationships. And it’s about time!

Stepfamilies now outnumber what so-called experts used to and sometimes still call “intact” families, as if stepfamilies (statistically the new normal) are inherently broken or ruptured in comparison. We’re not. We’re just a bit or, in some cases, a lot more complicated. So what?

Finally, We Rule!
Those of us in the U.S. are as American as our flag. And it’s beyond time we—by that I mean stepfamilies and, in particular, women with stepkids around the world—had some high-profile representation. But let’s talk about how representation begets expectations, including unrealistic expectations which have the potential to be very damaging.

Notice I didn’t call us “blended” families, stepmoms, bonus moms or even stepmothers once so far? Families and women with stepkids will call ourselves whatever feels right and comfortable, as well we should. It’s best if each of us selects from the admittedly-charged and highly-personal array of present day nomenclature as we see fit.

However, as a woman with stepkids who’s also a social scientist who researches and writes about relationships, I’m obliged to describe those I write about accurately and to do them no harm. I avoid descriptors such as “blended,” which could contribute to engineering unrealistic expectations and thus might be especially exhausting for or harmful to women who are more likely to feel obliged to make unrealistic things happen.

I also use language which acknowledges that many of the women I interview and write about have stepkids yet may not overtly identify as stepmothers. Instead? They frequently describe themselves as people who “happened to marry someone with kids.” Another reality? Many people with stepparents don’t like the label “stepchild.”

Instead they use terms which are as personal and personalized as their feelings. I also hew to a policy of neither praising women who say they have “great relationships” with their husbands’ exes nor criticizing women who say they often find themselves in high- conflict situations with their partners’ exes.

These realities are just that: realities. More often than not, they’re due to circumstances beyond the control of the woman with stepkids. It’s time for mainstream media outlets to catch up and have both some respect for our arrangements and some understanding of our challenges. It’s also time for them to:

• Stop telling us to “blend” already.
• Stop insinuating we’re failures if we don’t.
• Stop tearing us down as if we’re wicked if we have a bad day.
• Stop expecting us to be stepmartyrs, always putting our own well-being and feelings last.

Fair & Equal Representation
Which brings us back to the discussion of representation and expectations, including the word “Mamala”—a mashup of Kamala and the Yiddish word mamelah which Doug Emoff’s kids are said to affectionately use when addressing and referring to the woman their dad married.

It’s sweet and playful. In addition, it sidesteps the freighted, “Am I their mom?” issue in a way we know is less likely to exacerbate loyalty binds for children of any age. The Biden/Harris campaign cannily messaged about Harris’s competence, warmth and cultural relevance by adopting the nickname into its repertoire.

Its haymishe (or homey) coziness stood in distinction to the reported struggles for power between comparatively glamorous Melania Trump and her stepdaughter Ivanka. Some journalists wrote about their “fight” for proximity to President Trump as if it were unusual. Hah! Anyone who’s studied stepfamilies or lived in a stepfamily knows that dynamic and the tensions it stirs up are more like the norm.

Former Second Lady and soon-to-be First Lady Jill Biden, EdD, officially took on her step role five years after the 1972 automobile death of Joe Biden’s first wife, Neilia Hunter, and 1-year-old daughter. Biden’s two young sons were reportedly smitten with Dad’s new girlfriend as soon as they met her.

Unlike a lot of us, however, Jill Tracy Jacobs didn’t rush blindly into partnering with a man who had kids already. As she’s explained in numerous interviews, she knew it was a huge responsibility and wanted to be sure she had it in her. This is the opposite of what people ignorant of stepfamily realities tell us to do: “Oh, you’ll fix it all and love ’em just like they’re your own!”

Romantic Notions Be Damned
It’s easy to romanticize partnering with a man whose wife has died or even a man who’s divorced; to see ourselves as saviors and to capitulate to the gender script that, as women, it’s our destiny and our obligation to swoop down, step up and salvage a tragic situation. And, likewise, to imagine that we can magically repair sadness and dysfunction just by being there with our good intentions at the ready. But we all know that’s a set up for stress—or even failure.