Hapless, helpless, hopeless: An analysis of stepmothers’ talk about their (male) partners

Abstract

The identity of stepmother is, in many ways, a troubled one – constructed as “other” and often associated with notions of “wickedness” in literature and everyday talk. This paper reports findings from a study on the difficulties faced by stepmothers and how they use talk about their (male) partners, often constructing men as hapless, helpless or hopeless, to repair their “troubled” identities. The data were collected from a web forum for stepmothers based in the UK and 13 semi-structured face-to-face interviews with stepmothers. The analysis took a synthetic narrative-discursive methodological approach, underpinned by feminist theory with particular attention to the discourses that were drawn on by participants and the constraints that these imposed. This paper presents these findings in relation to three constructions of their partners through which repair work was attempted: men as in need of rescue; men as flawed fathers; and men as damaged. The paper concludes with some suggestions for supporting stepmothers by challenging dominant narratives around families in talk, in the media and in government and institutional policies.

“Facilitating wife” and “feckless manchild”: Working mothers’ talk about divisions of care on Mumsnet

“…The “manchild” construction and the corollary notion of “strategic incompetence” may then allow women to position themselves as the sensible and “grown-up” person in the partnership, potentially redressing gender-power relations. This aligns to an extent with Roper and Capdevila's (2020) findings regarding stepmothers’ work at repairing their troubled identities through construction of their partners as “needy”. Indeed, in this research the invocation of male partners as absurdly immature and incapable points to the ways in which this construction may enable women to exert some power by discursively emphasising their partners’ child-like need of perpetual support with domestic aspects of life.…”

Digital families: Gendered relationships in online spaces

“…Furthermore, Ehrstein discusses two complementary constructions framing division of caring, namely the “facilitating wife” and the “feckless manchild”. These constructions resonate strongly with the existing research literature on fathers’ roles in parenting and caregiving such as Locke’s (2016) treatment of media depictions of fatherhood in the British press and Roper and Capdevila’s (2020) work on stepmothers’ talk about their male partners. Ehrstein concludes by noting the supportive nature of Mumsnet as an online social space where working mothers can air these concerns to others in a similar position.…”

Digital mothering: Sharenting, family selfies and online affective-discursive practices

“…Mothers' display of family for consumption by their social network presents relational dilemmas which necessitate particular work by mothers to manage the presentation of their identity and family life within parameters of social acceptability. This work appears intensified for mothers whose circumstances do not easily fit with ideals of the nuclear family (e.g., stepmothers, lone mothers) and whose mothering identities are troubled and in need of repair (e.g.,, Roper & Capdevila, 2020). In this study, the posting of family photos was constituted as a form of digital repair, in which family photographic conventions for pictorially representing "good" families (happiness, togetherness), and "good" parenting (pride), was constituted as visual evidence of mothers' alignment with "good" mothering ideals.…”

“…One example of this is Sarah's account of posting as a stepmother. Her account recognised stepmothering as a troubled identity (Roper & Capdevila, 2020): Sarah: Of the circumstances of being not the biological mother, sometimes you sort of think that they don't have as much love or compassion or the same feelings towards someone else's kids.…”