It just struck me as laughable.  On a website I was reading, someone wrote that she wanted her husband to be called a Bonus Dad, rather than a stepfather.  Turns out she hated the term ‘stepfather’ along with all the step variations.  Why, I wondered, do so many of us stumble over the word step when it comes to family relations? 

Could it be the lingering effect of the Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm?  After all, Cinderella battled her wicked stepmother and evil stepsisters to get her Prince; Sleeping Beauty’s malevolent stepmother tried to kill her with a poisoned apple; Gretel saved Hansel after their horrid stepmother drove them to run away.  Does stepchild sound too, well, Grimm?

Could be the word itself.  Apparently step may have been derived from astieped – meaning bereaved – and came into use in the blended family through Latin/Old English in the 8th century.  A bereaved child who lost a parent and whose surviving parent remarried was labeled a stepbairn, and eventually, stepchild.  And it’s been said that every step family begins with a loss of some kind. 

Could be phonics.  Is there anything delightful that starts with the st sound?  Stupid, stubborn, stop, strike?  Maybe strudel, but it’s not my dessert of choice. 

My Italian dictionary lists three separate and distinct words for mother (la madre), mother-in-law (la suocera) and stepmother (la matrigna). That’s probably a good idea.  Each has a distinct identity.  It could be that adding “step” to mother, father, or child feels like an appropriation of the turf of the birth parent. 

The French have a way with language, and when it comes to blending a famille, they win.   Le beau fils translates as good son, or handsome son, and means stepson and son-in-law. Belle-mere  translates literally as pretty mother.  And the same word means both stepmother and mother-in-law. 

I’ll step up and say it:  Belle-mere sure sounds better than Bonus Mom.

A former family court associate judge in Houston, Texas, Patricia Lasher has specialized in family law for more than 20 years. She has written for numerous consumer magazines and has published a collection of profiles, Texas Women: Interviews and Images.