Fox News Host’s Attack On Kamala Harris Is ‘Harmful’ To Stepparents

Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy recently shared perplexing comments about former Vice President Kamala Harris and her role as a stepparent during an on-air segment of the show “Outnumbered.” And one therapist has since emphasized that the host’s remarks are “harmful” to all stepparents.

During Tuesday’s segment of the Fox News show, Campos-Duffy was joined by a group of panelists who took turns criticizing Harris’ current tour for her new book, “107 Days.” Among the criticisms leveled at Harris was Campos-Duffy’s comment about the former Democratic presidential nominee being “so inauthentic” — especially as it relates to her role as a parent.

Campos-Duffy, who shares nine children with her husband, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, charged that Harris had “tried to convince everybody that she was ‘momala.’”

“When actually she inherited stepchildren, they were like 17 or 18, [unlike] all of us who have had little tiny kids — it just doesn’t count,” she said. “She’s just not authentic.”

It’s unclear why Campos-Duffy believes Harris had tried to “convince” the public that she was “momala.” Harris shared stories and discussed her family life in much the same way that any other parent running for public office does.

A representative for Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Harris wed former second gentleman Doug Emhoff in 2014. He shares two adult children, Cole, 31, and Ella, 26, with his ex-wife, film and TV producer Kerstin Emhoff. Harris, Doug Emhoff, Kerstin Emhoff and their children have all publicly talked about their love for their blended family and Harris’ important role as a stepparent.

A then-U.S. senator, Harris wrote an essay for Elle in 2019, in honor of Mother’s Day that year, opening up about her family life and what it was like becoming a stepmom. She talked about meeting Cole and Ella for the first time, describing them as “brilliant, talented, funny kids who have grown to be remarkable adults.” She said that she, Ella and Cole had all agreed at some point that they didn’t like the term “stepmom,” and that Ella and Cole came up with “momala” instead.

In the essay, Harris also discussed balancing the demands of parenthood after being sworn in as a U.S. senator in 2017, and her positive co-parenting relationship with Kerstin Emhoff, whom she described as a “dear friend” and an “incredible mother.”

Nonetheless, when Harris ran for president last year, she faced fresh scrutiny and waves of sexist attacks from the right for not having biological children — despite the fact that there are many reasons why a woman doesn’t have, or chooses not to have, kids.

Not to mention, Vice President JD Vance had once referred to Harris as one of the “childless cat ladies” running the country in 2021 during his bid for senate in Ohio.

Kerston Emhoff told the New York Times last year that the attacks against Harris over her parenting status were “baseless attacks.”

“For over 10 years, since Cole and Ella were teenagers, Kamala has been a co-parent with Doug and I,” she said at the time.

Alexandra Cromer, a licensed professional counselor with Thriveworks whose specialties include women’s issues, relationships, and divorce, told HuffPost that Campos-Duffy’s on-air criticism of Harris came across as “exclusionary” and “minimizing to stepparents everywhere.”

“I would say that it’s inappropriate to state that someone is excluded from the role of a parent for simply not being a biological parent and/or being a parent to the non-biological child ‘when they were little,‘” she said of the Fox News host’s remarks. “Her choice of words creates exclusions and isolations for stepparents and parents of non-biological children as her words state that parenthood is ‘earned.’”

There are so many ways to become a parent and parent figure in different stages of life, i.e. becoming a stepparent, adoption, foster care, having biological children, or raising a family member or close friend. Cromer emphasized that it’s “absolutely harmful” to suggest that people who become parents to children at various ages and for different reasons aren’t as “authentic” as people who raise children from a young age.

Cromer pointed out that Campos-Duffy’s remarks comparing Harris’ parenting journey to other parents who’ve raised “little tiny kids,” perpetuates “many false stereotypes that parents who enter into a child’s life at any other point than birth have no worth or have nothing to offer.”

“Not only is that simply not true, but there is empirical evidence that parental relationships are in no way mediated by biological status and entry into life of the child,” she said. “Her choice of words is absolutely harmful to listeners at home and poses a great risk to cause unnecessary feelings of shame and inadequacy.”

“The choice and circumstances in which people become parents is personal and situation-specific; however, those who make the choice to become a parent hold no less value,” she continued.

Cromer said it’s important not to minimize the role of a stepparent.

“It’s absolutely harmful to suggest that becoming a stepparent to older children is less meaningful,” she said, later adding, “We should be mindful that if a parenting situation is different or outside of your own experiences that it’s not deficient; different does not equal deficient.”

“A stepparent plays a critical role in a child’s life and has the potential to have a positive impact on their development at any and all [ages],” Cromer said. She also emphasized that children with stepparents get “introduced to new role models, have opportunities for more care and support and have another adult whom they can trust and have a healthy loving relationship with.”

And as for the years-long attacks Harris has received for not having biological children, Cromer said that it’s unfortunately “very common for women in their middle age and above to receive discrimination and shame for not having biological children.”

“This comes from a myriad of different reasons/sources, but women who do not follow societal norms pose a threat to the status quo,” she said. “Using feminist theory, we can examine a societal status quo or expectation for a woman to have children as something that she ‘should’ do, and a woman who acts and thinks independently from the status quo can be seen as ungovernable.”

Cromer said that women who are not compliant in “a heteronormative system established by men to have children” and to have them at a certain age are deemed “less controllable.”

“Ultimately, [the] shame conveyed by this message is harmful,” she said.