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In both cases, while "mom" or "mother" is often used on its own, that is more or less a courtesy, and everyone involved knows there's a major difference. There has been a campaign to not refer to a biological mother as a "real" mother, and to redefine "mother" as the one who raised you (which works better with adoptive parents and step-parents who came in very early on), but it has not been entirely successful. And as far as I know, the go-to way to hurt a custodial but not biological mother is still "You're not my real mom!".
And yes, it's hurtful for a stepmom to not be recognized as the "real mom". But mostly it's hurtful because it's true, and no amount of using social pressure on word definitions will change that; the reality will remain even if it is harder to express.
I think there is a real difference between how step parents used to be introduced to a family and today; now we have divorce and couples cohabiting and then breaking up, so the absent parent is still alive and on the scene (unless they were a deadbeat dad or runaway mom), and often the kid(s) will be shuttling between two houses and two sets of families.
In the past, it was more likely that you got a step parent because your mother/father died and the surviving parent re-married (seemingly, enough Victorian men were marrying their late wives' sisters that they had to eventually pass the Deceased Wife's Sister's Marriage Act 1907 ).
So if one of your parents died when you were three, and there was a sporting chance your new stepmother would also be your aunt related by blood, then it would be natural for people to grow up with "this is the only mother I have ever known".
Of course, there have always been stories of wicked stepmothers and wicked stepfathers, see "David Copperfield" for the misery young David endured when his mother remarried.
But now you could have three candidates at a time for this position: your biological mother, the first remarried and now divorced stepmother, and your current stepmother. Who, indeed, is the real mother out of all that?
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Conversely, I have a step-kid and I very much try to be a serious parent interested in his long-term well-being. I am absolutely certain he wouldn't call me anything close to his real dad. Ironically, his actual dad is a hands-off checked out stoner who just buys him whatever he wants, let's him eat whatever and imposes no real structure. The teenage kid adores him, of course.
The kid needs life saving surgery once a year or so (he has some rare benign throat cancer) that requires two nights of travel. I've been there for 5 of the last 6. We're preparing to do the next one and he just asked me if I've ever gone to one of these. He honestly couldn't remember. Yeah kid :/
Meanwhile his biodad has only been to 1 of the last 6.
Indeed, his own dad can act absolutely psycho and the kid will defend him but if I criticize the slightest thing it's reported to mom.
No competing with biology!
What are we talking about again? Oh right. If trans women could sign up for the full package where they get periods, risk unwanted pregnancy with no access to abortion, and have an uncontrollable urge to oooh and ahhh and snuggle every baby in their vicinity while getting no special male or female fetish attention I will have no doubts about their need to be women (I mean, not that anyone asked me...)
Because if I can do real dad things and not be considered a real dad then it's more than fair for trans women to have to do real women things to be considered real women.
I know it's small consolation but yeah, teenagers. Exactly like this. I was like this. "It's not fair, you never let me do anything, you always take X's side" and so on.
Fun 'dad' is okay because the kid is going back home to you and his mother, where he has stability and people to look after him and give him discipline. It would be a very different story after a couple of weeks of living with 'fun dad' where there was no food or clean clothing etc.
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I recently learned that my stepdad and my biomom had gotten together and taken care of me together years - over half a decade! - earlier than I would have guessed from memory.
Stepkids' memory can be wonky, it seems.
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Yeah, that's been my experience too. I assume from the baffled perspective of my (decade+) older friends that it wasn't always this way, so my assumption is that modern society provides enough of a safety net for these kids that they never really suffer from their parents' abdication, and so the need for approval and validation overrules the need for stability.
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Insert your parallel to ‘you will never be a real woman’.
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