Lessons from Birds and Primates
While I was researching my book, I was fascinated to discover that there is plenty of stepparenting in the animal world. Evolutionary biologist Stephen T. Emlen, for example, studied some Kenyan birds, the White Fronted Bee Eaters, and discovered uncanny similarities between their families and ours. Bee Eaters live in rather large communal apartments–okay, they’re really giant bird houses in mud banks, but you get the idea. They help extended family members with provisioning and childcare (yes, juvenile bee eaters actually babysit their younger offsprings and cousins) and they also “divorce” (that’s what ornithologists call it) after a nesting failure (i.e., no chicks in a breeding season). After which the Bee Eaters will “repartner.” That’s right, get married again.
Guess what then happens in the Bee Eater household with the introduction a new stepparent? Increased levels of conflict with juveniles, who will then disperse from the nest (that is, take their leave from home) earlier than juvenile Bee Eaters from homes without “stepparents.” And if mom or dad has offspring with the new stepparent, the juvenile Bee Eaters are even more likely to disperse and live with other relatives. Hmmm.
As for primates, Dr. Dan Wharton of the Chicago Zoological Society, a primatologist with decades of experience observing some of our closest non-human relatives, tells me we might look to gorillas for some lessons about human stepparenting, and stepmothering in particular. Gorillas live in harem-like groups of a single male and a number of unrelated females with whom he has offspring. Get it? It’s sort of like living with your husband and several of his ex-wives and all of their kids. Wharton says that in many cases, it’s just a question of individual chemistry–a female may or may not get along with her mate’s offspring with another female. “Sometimes those relations are close, sometimes they’re conflictual,” Wharton observes.
And, he suggests, there may be a lesson for us in that. “In the same way, it makes sense to acknowledge that in the relationship between a woman and her stepchild, there may be great individual chemistry, and the possibility for great friendship, or the possibility for very little beyond civility.” As a primatologist, Wharton has this to say about stepmothering: “I think the problem is the word ‘mother’ in there. It makes things very confusing. From my work it seems it is better to hang back and not embrace that mothering role.” Something like a friendship–with the understanding that you are indeed entitled to respect and authority in your own home–is probably a better bet.
So now I finally understand why, whenever it’s not too cumbersome or awkward, I prefer the term “woman with stepchildren” to “stepmother.”
Tags: animals, Bee Eaters, Dan Wharton, gorillas, primates, Stephen Emlen, stepmothering, stepparenting
April 23rd, 2009 at 6:04 pm
On that last point (“woman with stepchildren” versus “stepmother”), in something I read recently (possibly your book, possibly a link from your blog), a woman with stepchildren reported being hurt when her husband’s child called her “my father’s wife.” And I can imagine some stepchildren being hurt to hear themselves referred to as “my husband’s children,” because compared to the accepted blended-family lingo, it does sounds like a pointed, distancing demotion. Semantics: Yet another realm where steps really can’t win until society changes its thinking.
April 23rd, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Great point, Mary. Imagine the particular dilemma of the stepmother here, too: if she calls her stepkids, “My stepkids,” she risks “offending” with the step word; if she introduces them as “my kids,” that’s inaccurate and presumptuous, and could make the kids feel awkward. And if she calls them “my husband’s children,” she seems cold and distancing. The truth is, they are her husband’s children! As for me, being introduced as “Dad’s wife, Wednesday” never rubbed me the wrong way, but it was never said in a nasty, distancing way, either. My stepdaughters just used it descriptively. I was just about to post something about “Step Semantics”–stay tuned!
June 6th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
There were times when I introduced my stepmother as ‘my father’s wife’ and I meant it to be snotty. I was pre-teen or early teen. In later teen years when I fell in love with my stepmother, I hated to use ’stepmother’ because I thought it was a nasty word. So I started to use ‘friend.’ This, however, didn’t really do the trick either, as it was too vague, and why was I friends with a 40 year old woman when I was 16? So I started to use ’stepmother.’ She didn’t like that because she had had a truly wicked and evil step mother of her own after her own mother died. Then she and my father divorced, and I felt better about using ’stepmother’ because it seemed to give her a higher rank now that they were actually divorced. Think how snotty and downright cruel I could have been-’my father’s ex-wife’, or ‘my ex-stepmother’. But at that point I loved her so much and it never would have occurred to me to do that.
June 7th, 2009 at 10:10 am
Dihann,
A very interesting evolution in your relationship with your, what shall I call her? I think you’re right that the words are so tricky–especially when the woman with stepkids has a history of her own!
Pre-teen and early teen years are a terrible time to get a stepparent–and for the stepparent to become one. If people can survive that and form a relationship later, hats off; it is a true achievement. I can’t tell you how many people I interviewed who just couldn’t find their balance after going through the stepchild’s teen years, and couldn’t have a relationship with the then-adult stepchild because of all the resentment that had built up. I’m so glad you and your stepmother found a way to avoid that. Brava!
Hope you will be back to read more soon, and thanks for your comments,
wednesday