Complicating parents’ gender and sexual expectations for children: A comparison of biological parents and stepparents

Abstract

When social scientists argue that “families” reproduce and sometimes challenge gender and sexual norms, they tend to refer to biological, cisgender, and heterosexual families. We consider how one alternative family form—stepfamilies—might, like gay and lesbian families, challenge these norms. Interviews with 20 biological and stepparents reveal that whereas biological parents held relatively intense feelings about their children’s gender and sexual conformity, stepparents were indifferent and far less inclined to police their children’s behavior. We conclude that stepfamilies, similar to gay and lesbian families, might be a source of less rigid expectations and greater liberty than biological families, and we consider the implications for the future of traditional gender and sexual norms in the face of the proliferation of alternative family forms.

Keywords

Biological parent gender socialization nontraditional families sexuality stepparent

Sociologists have long recognized the wide variety of institutions that contribute to—and sometimes undermine—the gender and sexual status quo. Few other institutions have as much hold on children as does the family, and, unsurprisingly, research has shown the power of parents to successfully instill gender-consonant behaviors in children (Kane, 2006; Witt, 1997). Indeed, Fenstermaker-Berk (1985) described the family as a “gender factory.” In short, biological mothers and fathers have been implicated in steering their children toward heterosexuality and normative womanhood and manhood (Kane, 2006; Solebello and Elliott, 2011).

But the terms “family” and even “parent” include those who might differ from biological families comprised of cisgender and heterosexual parents, particularly in how avidly they work to instill these attitudes and behaviors. One such family type is one with gay and lesbian parents who, on the whole, seem to be “less inclined than heterosexual couples to promote gender conformity in children” (Biblarz and Stacey, 2010: 12). Unsurprisingly, this restraint, combined with the same-gender composition of the parents, exposes them to social judgment, of which they are acutely aware (Berkowitz and Ryan, 2011; Goldberg, 2009; Kane, 2012). It seems that parents seeking to avoid the old, hidebound frameworks are still “subject to wider societal and cultural norms of family life” (Almack, 2005: 3).

What of another type of alternative family, one that also disrupts the progenitor categories of parenthood—namely stepparent families? Does the intensity of emotional investments in their children’s normative gender displays and acquisitions of heterosexuality differ between biological parents and stepparents? Examining these emotional investments illuminates whether parental encouragement of the gender and sexuality status quo is true of families in general or whether it more accurately describes biological families. Do stepfamilies represent a type of “brave new family” (Stacey, 1998), similar to other alternative families, such as those with lesbian and gay parents, in rejecting rigid orientations towards instilling gender and sexually normative behavior? We address these questions by analyzing data from 20 interviews with biological and stepparents to compare how each group views their children’s gender behaviors and sexualities.

Parents’ encouragement of normative gender and sexuality

Research about parents’ role in inculcating notions of normative masculinity and femininity shows that cisgender and heterosexual parents begin differentiating boys and girls when the children are quite young and, in a process of “gendered anticipation” (Kane, 2012), often before they are even born. As children leave infancy, parents tend to discourage behaviors that are discordant with the child’s gender (Coltrane and Adams, 1997) and act to influence their children’s beliefs about gender (Witt, 1997). A key motivation for encouraging gender-typical behavior in a child—even among parents whose preference would be to encourage resistance—was that they felt accountable to others, who ranged from family members to strangers (Kane, 2012: 45, 215). In short, parents raise their children in a gender-normative culture, are themselves enmeshed in the social world, and largely reinforce this context (Kane, 2006, 2012; Risman, 1999).

Gender-typing research shows that parents tend to more strictly guard the boundaries of their sons’ masculinity than they do their daughters’ femininity (Coltrane and Adams, 1997; see also Vänskä, 2019). They tend to be pleased when their daughters engage in gender-nonconforming behaviors or aspirations but place sons under far greater pressure to conform (Kane, 2006). Similarly, parents of trans children sought professional help more often for children assigned male at birth who engaged in feminine behaviors than for children assigned female at birth who engaged in masculine behaviors (Meadow, 2018).

In regard to inculcating heterosexuality, mothers and fathers tend to want their children to grow up to be heterosexual, and many engage in parenting that “normalizes heterosexuality” (Martin, 2009; see also Solebello and Elliott, 2011), which entails presuming their children are heterosexual, portraying adult relationships as comprised of one man and one woman that ideally involves marriage, and rendering gays and lesbians invisible to their children. Whether parents engage in these processes intentionally or not (see Kane, 2012 on this distinction), parents’ behaviors tend to buttress heteronormativity.

In sum, research indicates that parents tend to believe it is their duty to inculcate traditional practices regarding their children’s gender and sexuality, and while some scholarship has investigated how parents’ sexual orientation may affect this tendency, studies have not distinguished between biological and stepparents.

Stepfamilies’ lack of institutionalized guidelines and their emotional disengagement

Are there reasons to expect that stepparent families—like gay and lesbian ones—might be less rigorous in gender typing and heterosexuality encouragement? We see two qualities of stepfamilies that might lead to such an expectation: their “incomplete institutionalization” and their tendency towards emotional disengagement with stepchildren.

In a classic article, Cherlin (1978) described remarriage as an “incomplete institution,” in that guidelines about everyday behaviors are unclear. The lack of consistency in terms of address provides one example, as some stepchildren use familiar terms (e.g. “mom”) while others resort to first names. These “linguistic inadequacies” (along with ambiguities such as the meaning of “home” in cases of joint custody) are a symptom indicating that widely accepted understandings of the role of stepparent are lacking. Recent research continues to support the “incomplete institutionalization” hypothesis (see Cohen, 2015; Ganong and Coleman, 2017), which can be seen, for example, in hospital policies that can be unclear about whether step-kin constitute the “immediate family” allowed in the intensive care unit (Ganong and Coleman, 2017) and in intra-family tensions over the right of a stepparent to discipline (Ganong, et al. 1999).

There is even a lack of clarity within a stepfamily about who is a member and who is not. “Family boundary ambiguity,” in which a physically present family member is perceived as psychologically absent or vice versa, is common in stepfamilies. In a national survey, couples with stepchildren experienced roughly three times more boundary ambiguity than those with biological children (Stewart, 2005), underscoring the paucity of norms surrounding the relationship between stepparents and stepchildren. When it comes to stepfamilies, concludes one scholar, “the informal rules and customs are being figured out as we go” (Cohen, 2015: 376).

Stepparents also tend to take on a less active role than biological parents (Ganong and Coleman, 2017; Ganong et al., 2011) and to regard the stepparent role as less central to their identity. A study of identity salience asked both groups to rank order the importance of 17 roles they occupied and found that while parenthood was at the top of the list for biological parents, stepparents ranked their stepparent identity as less important than being a neighbor and about the same as belonging to a voluntary society or having a hobby (Thoits, 1992). As for practices, compared to biological parents, stepparents average less time with and are less absorbed in monitoring their stepchildren and their activities (Hetherington and Jodl, 1994), and they tend to be more emotionally distant than biological parents (Ganong et al., 2011). Given these findings, stepparents’ parenting style has been described as “disengaged” (Hetherington and Jodl, 1994).

Effect on stepparents’ commitment to upholding gender and sexuality norms

These circumstances logically suggest that we should expect to see less commitment to upholding gender and sexuality norms among stepparents for two reasons: they are less committed to stepchildren’s development than are biological parents and they are not held as accountable for children’s outcomes. We address each in turn.

Because stepparents tend to be less involved practically and emotionally, the intensity of the desire for their sons’ or daughters’ normative gender displays and acquisitions of heterosexuality might likewise be less infused with intensity, allowing a “neutral zone” surrounding gender and sexuality that is often-missing in biological families. Biological families can follow existing guidelines, which, as noted earlier, center on encouraging gender and sexual traditionalism. Families formed by remarriage are on their own in resolving difficult issues (Cohen, 2015), including what to do when children profess an interest in alternative gender displays or sexualities. Scholarship is scarce about how stepparents make sense of their children’s gender and sexuality, to what extent they prefer that their stepchildren develop normative forms of these identities, or how they influence that development, if at all. Indeed, the dearth of information is a key reason for conducting this study. Yet research indicating that adolescent stepchildren prefer stepparents to act in a quasi-friend role (Fine, et al. 1998) and that they might be able to discuss difficult issues, including sex, more freely with stepparents than with biological ones (Crohn, 2010; Papernow, 1988) implies that stepfamilies might be more accepting of a child who deviates from gender and sexuality norms.

Accountability—the possibility of being held responsible or actually being held responsible for an outcome—is a crucial mechanism for the social construction of gender (Hollander 2013; West and Zimmerman, 1987), and it also figures prominently in the social construction of heteronormativity (Rich, 1980; Schrock et al., 2014). Parents clearly are held accountable for upholding gender traditionalism, and most invoke it as a major reason they encourage such behaviors (Kane, 2012). Yet, stepparents, whose feet are not held to the fire to the same extent, might be able to operate relatively free of judgment, possibly allowing non-normative stepchildren greater latitude for thinking about alternatives. The concept of accountability highlights the role of coercion. Simply trying to the best of one’s ability to live up to “normative conceptions of femininity or masculinity” is not enough; rather, one “engage[s] in behavior at the risk of gender assessment” (West and Zimmerman, 1987: 136, emphasis in the original). The fear of social opprobrium keeps people in line. In the case of parents, fears of being negatively judged (or being held responsible for a child being negatively judged) work against any desire to violate the prescription to encourage gender-appropriate behavior. Some scholars conceptualize sexuality as similarly imbued with pressures for accountability; indeed, the notion of heterosexuality as “compulsory” (Rich, 1980; see also Schrock et al., 2014) denotes the fundamentally coercive element that reinforces heterosexuality as natural and moral and that allows it to be taken for granted. Informal lessons about the naturalness of heterosexuality, along with virtually no mention of other ways of organizing relationships, infuse the parent–child relationship, obviating alternatives (Kane, 2006; Martin, 2009; Solebello and Elliot, 2011). While research has yet to show the role that accountability plays in stepfamilies, the logic flowing from their noninstitutionalized status implies that they will be held less accountable for enforcing gender and sexuality norms.

By understanding how stepfamilies handle gender and sexuality, we can get a better view of what is typically invisible because it is taken for granted how biological families handle these issues. In other words, we take first-family norms for granted, and it is only in their absence that “we see the continuing importance of institutionalized patterns of family behavior” (Cherlin, 1978: 636) more clearly. In this case, comparing biological and stepparents is likely to provide insights not only about the aberrant case (stepfamilies) but the typically unquestioned case (biological families), as well.

Method

Our analysis draws on interviews with 20 biological parents and/or stepparents of 61 children who ranged from age two years to 32. All interviewees are from mid-sized cities in the Southeastern USA. Recruitment was done via flyers, which yielded four interviewees who referred 16 acquaintances. To create as diverse a sample as possible, we asked respondents for referrals to parents who might think differently than they do. Interviews took place in coffee shops, restaurants, a campus office, and by telephone when circumstances prevented in-person interviews. Interviews averaged an hour and we offered $20.

The resulting sample was demographically diverse. Interviewees ranged in age from 29 to 65, with a mean of 40, and they averaged 3 children and stepchildren combined. The modal respondent held a college degree, and most were employed in the service industry, including a physical therapist, a lawyer, and three nurses; a few were in low-level clerical occupations; and others were unemployed. Thirteen identified as White, two as Black, two as Latino, two as mixed-race, and one as East Asian, making the sample 35% non-White. All identified as heterosexual or straight.

The 19 biological parents were about evenly divided between women (10) and men (9). Four of the biological mothers were also stepmothers, and six of the biological fathers were also stepfathers. One interviewee, a woman, had only stepchildren. Thus, with one exception, the stepparents in our sample were parents of both biological and stepchildren, a configuration that is far more common than the stepparent-only one (Guzzo, 2016).

The goals of this study are to establish whether biological and stepparents differ in their emotional investments in children’s normative gender displays and acquisitions of heterosexuality and to outline reasons for any such differences. Because of the snowball sampling method and the small sample size, the study is not designed to discern patterns in detail (e.g. variation by race, age of child, duration of stepparent role), which would be detectable only with a larger qualitative sample or a nationally representative sample.

Interviews began by asking about the nature of the relationship with each child and, for parents of older children, how these relationships had changed over time. A question about the child’s interests or hobbies led to a question about whether the child was interested in things typical of their gender, followed by a question about how this made the parent/stepparent feel. Other questions further assessed gendered behavior, and others asked about the child’s sexuality and sexual orientation (e.g. “Have you ever wondered about [child’s name]’s sexual orientation?” and “How would you feel if your son were to tell you about a crush he had on his friend John?”). Parents tended to be surprised by this line of questioning, perhaps because, like parents interviewed by Solebello and Elliott (2011: 300), they assumed they “had already established their [children] as heterosexual and/or because their heteronormative assumptions precluded thinking about the possibility that their children might be gay” (see also Sumerau et al., 2019). Despite surprise, no one expressed reluctance in answering, and several described instances of having wondered.

Analysis relied on an iterative process wherein initial themes detected in the data influenced subsequent data collection (Charmaz, 2014), leading to the creation of additional questions, followed by analysis using NVivo, a qualitative analysis software package. Early analyses relied on line-by-line coding, followed by systematically paying attention to instances where parents described their children’s gender or sexuality and how they felt about each. This process involved analyzing differences in how biological and stepparents discussed their children’s gender, gender conformity and nonconformity, sexuality, and sexual conformity and nonconformity. Results illuminate not only how biological parents and stepparents discussed their children’s gender and sexuality but also their emotional investments in these and the extent to which their status as biological or stepparents informed these investments.

Results

This section describes differences between biological parents’ and stepparents’ emotional investment in their children’s normative gender displays and acquisitions of heterosexuality, covering first biological parents on both dimensions and then stepparents.

Biological parents’ reactions to non-normative gender in their children

Although some biological parents seemed to be unconcerned if their child transgressed normative gender behavior, many disliked the idea. Parents generally felt happiness when their children conformed to normative gender behavior (or transgressed it in the case of some girls’ behaviors) and displeasure and worry when their child failed to conform. Regarding happiness, Stacy answered a question about how she felt about her daughter’s interest in makeup and cooking by saying “It makes me feel good because she knows exactly what she likes in life.” Martha said, “It makes me happy,” upon being asked her reaction to her daughter’s gender conformity. When asked why, she said: “Just to see that she is her own ‘little me,’ I guess you could say.” Devin described how his 21-year-old son’s interest in “cars, girlfriends, and clothes” makes him “feel proud that he is growing up to be a young man.” He interpreted his son’s interest in women as critical to his manhood, and his response articulated the well-documented link between heterosexuality and hegemonic masculinity (Bridges, 2014; Pascoe, 2005). Displeasure when a child deviated from the norm was also common. Rohan, for example, insisted that he would not allow his son to dress as a princess for Halloween and explained why: “He’s a boy. I would feel a little awkward because him being a boy … Why would he want to be the princess?” Albert identified the click-clacking sound made when his 3-year-old son wore his older sister’s princess outfit and plastic shoes as a source of “anger” (“It has nothing to do with the fact that he’s wearing high heels for shoes,” it’s the “noise”), although the noise made by his daughter doing the same was not bothersome.

Girls were afforded more flexibility. For instance, many parents mentioned that their daughter would be allowed, and in some instances encouraged, to play with toys traditionally reserved for boys. When asked how she felt about her biological daughter playing with toy trucks, Martha replied, “It doesn’t bother me at all … I’ll encourage it because I think she should be able to do whatever. I don’t think I should be like, ‘Oh, you’re a girl, you should only play with this.’ I think that’s ridiculous.” Renee felt similarly supportive of her young daughter’s choice of gym shorts from the boys’ department: “My husband and I love it because it means that she’s confident, she’s accepted herself and she doesn’t feel like she has to wear things that other people are wearing … [W]e encourage it.”

Parents frequently linked their hesitation about boy’s nontraditional gender displays to concerns about what others would think. Representative of this difference is Trenton, who said that he would be more likely to buy his daughter a truck than his son a doll. He explained:

Say if I’m in Walmart and I buy a doll for my son, I got critics, you know what I mean? People who are going to have their own opinion. So, now I got to—I’m over here thinking, “Who is talking about my son? Nah, I better not.” You know there are going to be people looking at him like, “He got a doll in his hand.”

Trenton seems to be aware of being held accountable for inculcating normative gender behavior in his son (see Kane, 2012; West and Zimmerman, 1987) and is responsive to the pressure, regardless of his inclinations. Veronica also pointed to others’ opinions as influencing her own. She told how her biological son wanted her to help him apply lipstick, and while she considered it, she ultimately refused because “my ex-husband would have kicked my ass.” She recalled a time in her married life when she considered responding to her son’s desire for her to paint his nails but backed off then, as well, for fear that, “My husband would get angry.” Thus, critics real or imagined and close to home or strangers played roles in holding parents accountable to gender norms.

What did biological parents offer as reasons for wishing gender conformity for their children? They expressed concern about the problems their children might face for transgressing normative gender behavior. Their most pronounced worry was about potential bullying and violence. In answering a question about how she would feel if her 8-year-old biological son were to dress as a princess for Halloween, Joyce switched to describing a real-life example:

I would be worried about the bullying. My kids usually hug each other goodbye before they depart for their classes, and he hasn’t been doing that with his sister lately. He says that he’s been made fun of when he hugs his sister. And I try to remind both of them, “If this is who you are, and this is what you want to do, try not to let people get to you.” But I know that’s easier said than done, especially at such a young age. So, I would want to encourage it, but yeah, I think there’s something inside me that really would worry about any bullying and how that would affect him.

Joyce’s concern is sincere and driven by a desire to protect her son, and yet her decision ended up perpetuating differences between boys and girls and thereby naturalizing them.

Biological parents’ reactions to non-normative sexuality in their children

While many biological parents said they would accept their son or daughter displaying an interest in someone of the same gender, several articulated disappointment at the thought. Faith’s response is illustrative: “I honestly would probably be disappointed [if my son were gay]. I’m not saying I would disown him or hate him. I would just be disappointed for the initial … I don’t know, when you want something and you’re so used to something, initially it’s a shock, and you are disappointed.” When asked how she would feel if her son were to tell her about a crush on a boy classmate, she exclaimed, “I’d probably be like, ‘No, you don’t have a crush on a boy. That’s your friend! You have crushes on girls!”… I have gay friends and stuff, but if my son’s saying it, [that’s different].” Faith is clear that her son’s sexual orientation matters and that she encourages it in a normative direction. She is joined in this project by the children’s biological father: “[My fiancé] makes it known that Daddy’s going to marry Mommy because men marry women.” Her and her fiancé’s boy/girl and men/women dichotomy negate not only homosexuality but also the possibility of bisexuality and speaks to the invisibility of more fluid conceptualizations of sexuality (see Sumerau et al., 2019). Other parents concurred with Faith’s insistence on discouraging homosexuality. When asked if he would feel disappointed if his biological son disclosed same-sex attraction, Devin replied, “Yes, I would” and explained that he would feel “hurt” if the child were to go on a same-gender date. He described how he would respond if his children were to approach him with questions about non-heterosexuality: “‘Son, this is wrong. Two men are not supposed to be together. It’s in the Bible.’ Then I would say the same thing to my daughter.” Faith’s and Devin’s orientations illuminate the extent of their emotional investments in their children’s acquisition of heterosexuality.

They were not alone. Trenton’s response is illustrative of not only disappointment but also of the attempt by some biological parents to impose a more rigid heterosexuality on boys than on girls: “What’s different is when you see a girl with a girl, it’s not that traumatizing. To me, it’s not that much. But with boys, it’s a little different to me. I’d look at my son and be like, ‘Man, you got to tighten up. You better get right. I’m going to get you right.’” When Stacy’s son was younger, she described how he would “put on my dresses and put the high heels on, and he’ll walk around the house and be shaking his hips and stuff like that. It used to be funny, but I used to think, ‘I hope he’s not going to be gay.’” Nathan, a biological and stepfather to three grown daughters, said, “If I had a son and he was effeminate or gay, I would feel differently in that situation than I would if my daughters were gay or mannish.” This finding of greater parental investment in heteronormativity for boys than girls parallels that of Solebello and Elliott’s (2011) findings.

Concern about what a child’s possible non-heterosexuality might portend for possible grandparenthood loomed large for several. Devin, a biological father to one daughter and a stepfather to another, said: “If my daughter were to turn around and [become lesbian], it would hurt me just the same, probably more, knowing that it is my actual daughter.” When asked to elaborate, he said, “Her [non-heterosexuality would] threaten her ability to [pro]create. Therefore, I can’t get a grandchild from her.” Others shared his concern, and nearly none alluded to alternative routes to parenthood (and hence grandparenthood), such as adoption, in-vitro fertilization, or surrogacy. It is unclear if this blind spot was because they had not thought through such possibilities or if they devalued them vis-á-vis the more traditional way of acquiring grandchildren. In any event, their disappointment at the thought of not having grandchildren was a notable reason for disapproval. The reasoning of a biological parent who said he would not disapprove if his daughter were lesbian also hinged on grandparenthood: “It wouldn’t matter to me because I’m not stuck on having grandchildren, which I think is a major drawback to that type of situation.”

Fear that their children’s non-heterosexuality would reflect negatively on their parenting was a theme for many. Trenton, for instance, described the consternation he would feel if his biological daughter were to tell him about a crush on a girl: “You are always going to look at something like that as, ‘What did I do wrong? Did I teach her wrong? Did I teach her that?’” While Trenton worried about what the child might have learned in the household that made her “go wrong,” others worried about their biological contribution. Tracy described how her husband would be less bothered if his stepdaughter were non-heterosexual than if his biological son were. When asked why, she said, “I think it’s because it’s his spawn. It’s his offspring. It’s his sperm that [would have] caused it.” Owen explained why his child’s biological mother would be held more accountable for his stepdaughter’s non-heterosexuality than he would be: “Because her genetics are in there for one thing … She’d be getting double-whammied because she was there for the nurture aspects along with the biological aspects. So she would probably take more of the criticism.” Perhaps he was projecting onto her his own sense of culpability, but his invocation of the possibility that genes were involved was a fairly common concern for biological parents presented with the possibility of raising a non-heterosexual child. These findings are consistent with previous research showing that biological parents sometimes assume responsibility for a child’s non-heterosexuality, attributing it to flawed parenting (Brainer, 2017; Fields, 2001).

Parents’ concerns were not only about what a child’s deviant sexuality would mean for themselves, and we now turn to their concerns for the child, which they had thought through in some depth. Their worries were similar to the ones they felt regarding gender nonconformity, namely: bullying and emotional well-being.

Regarding fear of the child being put in harm’s way, Faith said, “I see what happens in the world … Pulse Night Club, for example [where a gunman opened fire in an LGBTQ club]. I see it. I mean, people are bullied for littler things than that. I saw my cousin—he was bullied as a kid and his brother disowned him actually. His brother doesn’t talk to him. So yeah, of course I worry.” Stacy was similarly influenced by having observed the poor treatment a gay nephew had received and that made her reflect on her 24-year-old son, and how she “didn’t want my son to go through the same thing.” She continued:

I told him, “If you be like that [gay], I’m gonna still love you.” I just don’t want to have [him be gay], you know? Because society is so cruel, and they do so many cruel things to people. And they’ll treat you a different way, or they’ll say funny things about you … He likes to fight, too, [so] I don’t want it where it would be like he constantly is trying to fight to protect himself and protect his sexuality.

Her explanation of why she wished he were straight began with fear of cruelty but moved to his propensity for fighting. Her concern about physical safety is well placed, given intolerance and homophobia (Pascoe, 2005) coupled with her son’s unwillingness to back away when insulted. This fear might be compounded in this case because Stacy and her son are Black, and violence against gay Black men is more pronounced than violence against gay White men (Meyer, 2015).

Representative of the respondents who would worry about their biological children’s mental and emotional well-being is Albert, whose worry centered on the child’s emotional health: “I would be concerned for him and his own mental health [if he were not heterosexual] and the things he is going to have to go through.” Joyce felt similarly if her daughter were to be lesbian: “My concern would be more about her emotional well-being because I don’t—just as a parent—I don’t want to see her struggle.” Biological parents also worried about the stigma faced by people who deviate from the sexual norm. Rohan explained why he would be perturbed if one of his children were to be gay: “I know a lot of people who are gay … And I have seen their life, and they’re going to struggle their whole life because there is so much social stigma involved.”

Stepparents’ reactions to non-normative gender in their stepchildren

The predominant sentiment among stepparents about the possibility that their stepchild would display non-normative gender behaviors was indifference. Not one stepparent expressed consternation about a child’s having transgressed (or potentially transgressing in the future) a gender-display norm. Whereas many biological parents seemed pleased when their sons and daughters conformed (or failed to conform in the case of some girls’ behaviors), stepparents seemed to take no such pleasure.

When asked how she felt about the fact that her stepson’s interests line up with those of other boys, Tracy explained that “it doesn’t make me feel good or bad—I’m indifferent. Indifferent. It makes no difference to me if Ethan is interested in things that are typical girl things.” In explaining how she felt that her stepdaughter’s interests do not conform to what is defined as normal for girls her age, Madeline said that she does not “feel one way or another about it.” When asked why not, she stood firm in her indifference: “I don’t have an opinion about it.” And whereas biological parents tended to be displeased when boys violated gender norms, Antonio was nonplussed when his stepson played with dolls and nail polish; in fact, he appeared to endorse these practices: “[There] was a cool time when we were actually painting each other’s nails.” When asked how he felt about it, he replied, “To me, it’s just like a memory, you know? Something I’ll be able to remember forever.” What likely would have been a source of concern for a biological parent was instead the source of a pleasant memory for this stepparent. Unlike biological fathers, who often feel impelled to raise sons to perform hegemonic masculinity (Kane, 2006), Antonio, like other stepparents, was not in the business of enforcing gender conformity, allowing his stepson to engage in actions perceived to be feminine.

Stepparents’ reactions to non-normative sexuality in their stepchildren

The vast majority of stepparents expressed no disapproval about a child’s actual or potential non-heterosexuality, and indeed, they were often supportive. When Antonio was asked how he would feel if his stepson were one day to date a man, he said he would:

Try to get to know the person, invite the person for dinner, get to see if that person is willing to give him as much love as I gave him … And at the end of the day he’s going to be with somebody he loves just as much as that person loves him back. That’s what I’m really worried about. Love is the most important thing.

Unlike the disappointment and even shame felt by some biological parents, Antonio’s only concern was that his stepson create a relationship characterized by mutual love. Jane caught her stepson “kissing a boy” when he was 16 years old and reported that he was afraid she would tell his father, whose reaction he feared. She reassured him by saying, “Dude, if that’s what you want, that’s what you want. You know your heart has no … it doesn’t have a filter. Your heart loves who it loves, and you can’t help that. Nothing wrong with that.” This stepmother honored her stepson’s wishes to remain closeted and provided emotional support during a tumultuous time, something he presumably felt his biological father was unable or unwilling to provide.

Stepparents did not feel that their stepchildren’s sexuality reflected on their parenting. Kyle’s response to a question about his feelings if his stepdaughter were to tell him she was a lesbian was typical: “It would be her choice … She is responsible for herself and that is her choice and her decision. None of that reflects on me at all, so I would have no reason to be disappointed.” Owen’s answer about whether his stepdaughter’s possible non-heterosexuality would reflect on him was the same: “Honestly, I don’t feel like it would reflect on me.”

Since most stepparents had both biological and stepchildren, it was possible to sometimes assess whether they felt differently about the children in this regard. When Owen was explicitly asked if he would be held more responsible for his biological children’s non-heterosexuality than his stepchild’s, he replied with a succinct “Yeah.” While only one stepparent, Devin, expressed disappointment at the thought of raising a non-heterosexual stepchild, he explained that he would be more disappointed if it were his biological daughter. Moreover, his reaction was less about his own feelings than about his wife’s, as he would empathically “feel the disappointment through her mom.”

To the extent that stepparents feel less need to police their stepchildren’s sexuality, they are freer than are biological parents to ignore heterosexual standards. While the results of the analysis paint a picture of stark differences between biological and stepparents’ reactions to a child’s deviant gender displays or sexual orientation, they were similar on one dimension: both groups sought to downplay the existence of alternative sexualities. In testament to how prevalent such dismissiveness is in society, no biological or stepparents in the sample discussed with their children or stepchildren the possibility of intimate relationships between two men or two women, despite discussing their own relationships and heterosexual relationships more generally. They said that they lie (“they’re just friends”) or deny the existence of such couples (“men marry women”) and if a child, especially a boy, asked about such possibilities, they deflected the question. Thus, despite variation between the two groups in how they addressed an individual child’s potential gender or sexual deviance, both groups participated in what Martin (2009) termed “normalizing heterosexuality.”

Discussion

This study is the first to distinguish between biological and stepparent status in seeking to understand how parents reproduce and challenge traditional gender and sexuality socialization practices. It finds that—as is the case with same-gender parents—stepparents are less invested in their children’s gender and sexual conformity relative to biological ones (see Averett, 2016; Biblarz and Stacey, 2010; Kane, 2012), and it unpacks the reasons behind this relative “zone of liberation.”

Findings show that biological parents held more intense feelings regarding their children’s gender displays, tended to focus on discouraging boys’ gender deviance more than girls’, and had more fully developed fears about what could happen to a gender-nonconforming child. These attitudes stand in stark contrast to stepparents’ indifference. Stepparents also were more likely to say that they would be accepting of raising a non-heterosexual child and that their stepchild’s sexual orientation did not reflect on their parenting. Both groups explicitly tried to ignore the possibility of alternative sexualities in discussions with children.

These findings imply that it might be less that “families” are key purveyors of traditional gender and sexual norms, and more that biological families made up of cisgender and heterosexual parents are the purveyors. No matter how benevolent biological parents’ motivation—fear for a child’s well-being or safety or a desire to shower affection on future grandchildren—most tended to determinedly steer their children toward gender normativity and heterosexuality, thus reifying the gender and sexuality status quo. For their part, stepparents’ relative indifference meant that they were less often in the role of gender and sexuality police and thus had a lesser role in the reification project.

Two factors account for this difference: stepparents’ less intense emotional involvement and their relative lack of accountability, which seemed to operate with greater intensity among biological parents, who are evaluated on successfully instilling gender- and sexuality-consonant behaviors in children (Kane, 2006; Terry, 1998; Weeks, 1985). Thus, our findings point to one advantage of stepfamilies’ incomplete institutionalization: the paucity of norms seems to allow stepfamilies to operate relatively free of judgment, providing them with the freedom to refrain from encouraging gender and sexual traditionalism.

These findings recall research showing that gay and lesbian parents also tend to be less concerned than heterosexual parents with their children’s gender and sexual conformity (Biblarz and Stacey, 2010; Stacey and Biblarz, 2001; Sutfin et al., 2008). Some even resist imposing such conformity on their children by offering them clothing and toy options from “across the aisle,” decorating children’s rooms in gender-neutral ways (Sutfin et al., 2008), and providing access to activities generally deemed inappropriate for their gender (Averett, 2016; Kane, 2012). One explanation for this less rigid approach compared to heterosexual parents is that gay and lesbian parents do not share heterosexual parents’ fear that such activities will lead to children becoming homosexual later in life (Averett, 2016; Kane, 2012).

Yet, “resistant” gay and lesbian parents face a fear of their own: judgment from others (Berkowitz and Ryan, 2011; Goldberg, 2009; Kane, 2006). This fear stems from facing the “heteronormative misconception that LGB parents cannot serve as adequate gender role models for children” (Kuvalanka et al., 2018: 73). For instance, while gay and lesbian parents were more likely than heterosexual parents to resist gendering their children, their sexual orientation—and others’ knowledge of it—made them feel under more intense scrutiny (Kane, 2012). These worries about being held accountable are not unfounded. A study of parents of trans children showed that sexual minority parents were more likely than heterosexual parents to have the state intervene in their lives (Meadow, 2018). Thus, gay and lesbian parents’ attempts to introduce moments of gender-neutral childrearing might be thwarted by the heightened accountability pressures they face as gays and lesbians (Berkowitz, 2011).

Heightened accountability is exactly what is missing in stepparents’ relationships with their children, and it is possible that this is what allowed them to casually violate norms. They engaged in no conscious resistance efforts, they put little thought into restraining or encouraging normative behaviors, and they reported no impetus to correct a child’s actual or imagined gender or sexual deviance. The outcome was similar to that of many gay and lesbian families: children are given greater latitude in self-expression (Stacey and Biblarz, 2001).

Our finding of stepfamilies offering children some surcease from the constant imposition of gender and sexuality norms complicates prevailing understandings of stepfamilies as deficient compared to biological families. A body of research on how stepfamilies differ from biological ones points to some deleterious outcomes for children, and much debate has centered on the extent to which children’s outcomes are worse in stepfamilies (Sweeney, 2010). But do differences always mean that it is stepchildren who experience the overall detriment? We argue that when it comes to creating openings for children to experience less gender- and sexuality-constrained circumstances in their homes, stepfamilies might be superior to biological families made up of cisgender and heterosexual parents.

If stepparents are less active in enforcing traditional beliefs and policing behavior, as we found, they might represent “safe havens” for children desiring more flexibility or struggling with such issues. Future research could expand on this possibility by exploring the experiences of other groups. For example, much could be learned from examining how children experience biological and stepparents’ reactions to their gender or sexual non-normativity. Since sibling relationships also affect coming out experiences (Mathers 2019), exploring stepsibling relationships is also likely to produce insights. Answers to these questions would allow for a more complete understanding of how the incomplete institutionalization of stepfamily relationships matters for thinking about gender and sexual non-normativity.

The social change implication of the proliferation of alternative domestic arrangements is worth considering. Just as children raised by same-gender couples tend to be less rigid about gender and sexual norms than are children raised by heterosexual parents (Stacey and Biblarz, 2001), so also might children from stepfamilies be more open to non-normative gender and sexual roles in themselves and in others. As more children are raised in families that question the given order, they themselves will one day form families likely to do the same. Over time, these personal challenges to the set-in-stone quality of traditional gender and sexuality practices help loosen the hegemonic hold of the existing system.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank Tristan Bridges, Corinne (Rin) Reczek, J Sumerau, Koji Ueno, Miranda Waggoner, and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article.

ORCID iD

Lawrence Stacey

Lawrence Stacey is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology at Ohio State University whose research interests include how gender and sexual norms are reproduced and resisted through parenting practices, the health of sexual and gender minorities, and sexual minority men’s dating and hookup experiences via popular dating apps.

Irene Padavic is the Mildred and Claude Pepper Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Florida State University, where her research lies in the areas of gender, race, and sexualities in organizations and families. Her sexualities research includes analyses of the dynamics in a LGBT-oriented church that reverted to patriarchal traditions and on lesbian families’ negotiation of parental roles.

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