The mother of a child who's father has remarried is still their mother!

[Clymene]

I've just been listening to You and Yours on Radio 4 about step families and TWO of the step mothers are referring to the mothers of their step-children as their 'biological mothers'.

NO. They are their mothers, full stop. They don't require the pre-fix biological.

When did this become a thing?

We all know our respective roles and boundaries

That’s not the case with everyone, is it? But even so, I am still my children’s mum no matter how many women my ex lives with and lies to about the kind of person I am. It is not insecurity - my children know full well who is there for them and who isn’t - but it is concern about confusing and upsetting children unnecessarily. No 4 year old child should have to hear the words ‘I’m your mummy now’ from a woman their father has chosen to be with. Words designed to hurt me, no doubt, which have stuck with said child for the last 11 years.

I do get why some don't like it but I honestly can never get as worked up about it as some do on here when I see/hear it. Just doesn't bother me really.

The mother of a child whose father has just remarried is of course still the child's mother. However if the mother isn't fulfilling the role that goes with the title, biological mother is a more accurate description.

This only becomes an issue when someone has a bee in their bonnet already and is feeling threatened. I am my child's biological mother. If someone calls me that I'm not offended because it's true and accurate!

I heard the programme and I thought, in the context of the show the use of "biological mother" was ok. There were a number of different family set ups being discussed, all of which probably used different names for the adults in the family. Some of the step parents calling were the only surviving parent and a number of the step mothers/fathers had been mother or father to the children since they were very young as the other parent was dead and may well be called "mum". Giving both types of parent a prefix I thought made sense on that show

I just can't be bothered about it. Factually speaking I am my children's mother, biological mother and birth mother.

None of those are incorrect. However, I suspect if this was said by a SM.... it would tick me off.

I think it’s been picked up by SMs that it’s a term much disliked by the dm, so they’ve adopted the description because it gets under their skin.

It’s definitely a “thing” and winds me up aswell. But I’ve seen it as BM (birth mum) it’s common on another
Parenting forum I use, step mums referring to the mother as “birth mum”

What if your children had an excellent relationship and chose to also call step mum “mum”?

What then?

Would you force them to change? Tell them how much they hurt you?

I heard a part of that show and when she said "the birth mother" I exclaimed out loud! It was really jarring, the way she said it, though I did feel for her sense of exclusion from school plays etc.

Biological father/mother has always been used to refer to an absent parent ffs radio 4!

Are they trying to erase mothers now!???

A mother and a father are the bio parents. Dicks.

Well to add another dimension.
I’m in my mid 50s Parents divorced decades ago dad remarried (he remarried when I was in my 20s).

I was in a solicitors’ office with my elderly ma (my dad had died recently) helping her sort something out and I had to explain who someone mentioned in a document was. I said to the solicitor ‘xy mentioned there is my step mother’.
A little later in the car I realised mum wasn’t speaking to me. She said after some time of silence or terse ness that she livid that I had called xy ‘my step mother’. I’d never seen her so upset in an angry way. I don’t think I had ever heard her say she was livid about anything to anyone ever. She wasn’t an angry person. After a bit we spoke about it and I apologised For upsetting her and reassured her that of course she was my mum and always would be etc etc. Since then Friends and siblings and dp etc have all said when a parent remarries when you are an adult then ‘step mother/father’ isn’t appropriate/necessary. That I don’t really have a step-mother.
All agree that it was a shorthand useful for the solicitor but that my mum was ‘of coursé’ really upset.
I can see the point. Still not wholly sure what I think about it all.
Mum and I never did laugh about it - I still feel I blundered into hurting her.

Step 'mother' is an archaic term that derived from the days when men owned women and children, just as chattels, like their sofa, or house, and when they pushed a woman out they would force a new 'mother' on their children. They would call her a 'mother' because the children were supposed to forget their actual mother and this was her replacement.

In families where children have a mother, their own mother in their life, and in the case where the 'child' is adult, as above, then mother isn't an appropriate word. Its actually very strange.

Its a misogynistic 'hang-over' some men still do this though.

Yes - agreed. I really was using it as shorthand for the solicitor to quickly understand who she was. I had never used that word before to describe her - always he name or ‘dad’s wife, name’.
My mum has since died and it’s probably the only thing I think about occasionally with regret. I know she’s tell me not to be silly (or would she?!)

Sorry to hear your dm has since passed.

I always find the use of step-mother weird for those situations.

Its outdated ans ahouldnt exist really unless a child needs a mother and doesnt have one, as a child without a mother, probably wants a mum, and one they don't have to refer to as 'step-mum'. They just want to be normal, and not have anyone know they are different or that their mum is a 'step' one.

It needs binning.

Haven't read the full thread sorry, but the term ,"step mother" is quite new too.

It used only to be used if the new wife had also had children of her own with the child's father.

What were they called instead? Not sure but in David Copperfield, he refers to his stepfather as his "father in law" so maybe they were your mother in law?

What I am getting at is that terms change all the time.

(The archetypal 'wicked stepmother' of fairytales was probably favouring her own small DC over the older/stronger protagonists in a time of scant resources. Yet apart from in Cinderella you never hear about step siblings, but they would have undoubtedly been present.)

Biological mother is a derogatory term used to make step mums feel superior.

I'm a mum. I'm a step mum. The step dc only have one mother. But they also have me. Having me does not lessen their mother's status or importance.

Step 'mother' is an archaic term that derived from the days when men owned women and children

And Stepfather...?

Surely it depends, if the step mother is one of the primary carers and the biological mother hadn't seen her children for years let alone looked after them it seems fair. DH calls his step father dad (as he is the man who actually raised him) and refers to his biological father as just that and often a lot worse, I think it depends on the role they play.

YANBU! I say this as a mum (an adoptive mum who has a son with a biological mother) and as a stepmum (who as a stepson with a MOTHER!).

I'm now sure actually that bio mum is a surprise after all aren't we bio/cis women, when just women would absolutely suffice?

This only becomes an issue when someone has a bee in their bonnet already and is feeling threatened

Definitely find this to be true. The only people I usually see with a problem with it is someone who doesn't get on with their child's SM anyway for whatever reason that may be.

I do think people take the dramatics about it a bit too far though. No one is trying to 'erase mothers'... (I've never said BM for what it's worth).

The only time I've ever seen it is on the SP board and most of the time it just seems like an innocent mistake by the poster not realising people here froth at the mouth over it. Then the whole thread becomes about the OPs use of 'BM' rather than anything else.

I understand why it get people's backs up but I do think people get far too upset about it sometimes.

As I said if you read the thread @OhDoFluffOffDear my children don't have a stepmother. I have no horse in this race. I just find the prefix unnecessary and words matter. Especially when they are terms applied to other people.

I don't want to be called my children's birth or bio mother. I'm just their mother.

Its technically an accurate term and there are so many different set ups these days. No need to be offended by it