Say you are a woman, and you have an ex-baby daddy (never married him, but he is the father of your daughter) and said BD has four other kids by previous relationships, only one of whom you’ve ever even met.
Can you call yourself their “stepmom”?
I think that’s silly, but the woman ( a real person) described her relationship to the (effectively stranger) kids thusly.
Is this a thing? I know families are different than when I was a kid, dagnabbit, but this seems to be stretching the definition too much.
If they were all cohabitating in the same house sure. It’s a nice way to bond I guess. But never having met them and to say you’re their “step mom” is just weird. Unless she’s just saying it to make her own kid feel better about his or her life circumstances.
Being charitable, perhaps the mother is trying to strengthen the half-sister and -brother bonds between her child and the others.
Not being charitable (and I confess this was my first go-to) she is somehow trying to make herself more important, and/or to weasel her way deeper into her ex-BD’s life and relationships.
I am a woman, with an ex-boyfriend who is the father of my daughter. He also has three younger children by three other women - reverse of your question.
I only have a relationship with child #2 and never suggested she call me anything but my first name. Their mom never suggested my daughter call her anything but her first name.
Mom #3 never suggested anything but her first name, but she’s only nine years older than my daughter, so that’s a whole different kettle of fish.
Mom #4 is a special case. She and my ex dated between #2 and #3. She wanted my daughter to call her “mommy two”, to which my daughter “died cracking up at the crazy lady”. By the time the ex rebounded to her after #3, neither my daughter or I had any relationship with either of them.
Technically, she is not their stepmom, since she is not legally married to their father. If she were, she would, by definition, be the stepmother to all his other kids, regardless of how little of an actual relationship she might have with them.
I certainly wouldn’t correct someone who wanted to use the word incorrectly in order to express how important they felt the relationship was to them emotionally. But if you literally have never met the person, misusing it just seems, as you say, silly.
I’ve never heard the term ‘baby-daddy’ used any other way than derogatory, and always with a nasty racist undertone as well. I would never use it.
As for the use of ‘stepchild’, unless you are living with the parent and sharing parental duties, I would not call them stepchildren. Absent children of significant others are half siblings.
Huh? Your partner’s kids from previous relationships are half-siblings to any kids you and your partner have together, but not to you.
I agree that in ordinary conversation it would be weird to refer to someone you barely know as a “stepchild”, but such a person could certainly meet the dictionary definition thereof.
I would not use it b/c I personally think it sounds stupid, but did not perceive any necessarily negative connotations - unless you perceive having children out of wedlock negatively.
I think a stepmom has to act in some kind of mother role at some point in order to be called that.
My father’s second wife saw us every Friday and Saturday, and acted as a parent when we were there – she’s a step mom. My mother never watched the child that my father and second wife had, so never became a step mom to my half brother.
I suspect the connotations of “baby daddy” vary quite a bit based on what culture you’re approaching it from. I grew up in a time and place where having children out of wedlock was quite unusual, and so the term is kind of negative sounding to me, but I recognize that this isn’t the same for a lot of people. I can’t remember when I first heard this term, but it was certainly not common in my experience in the 70s.
Racist? The term is used primarily by black mothers. And they use the term to express the father of her child who she is no longer (or never) married to.
I’ve certainly heard white people use the word in a tone which left little doubt that it was intended to be both racist and derogatory, but I agree that it isn’t inherently so.
Yeah, but certain cretins use it for racist ridicule. Like saying “Where de baby-daddy at?” when a black mother passes by with her child. I’ve heard this on the bus going to work. Or when the same sort of cretins start discussing welfare policy. It’s disgusting what MAGA types get up to.