It started out as a quiet evening at the scrapbook store. I wheeled in with a pile of old photos showing stepkid #1 – who will graduate from college in a few months – and settled in for an evening of cropping, gluing and assembly. Unwittingly, I sat down at a table full of moms who obviously attended these events regularly and all knew each other.

When asked if I had any children and what I was working on, I responded cheerily, “I have three stepchildren. We recently received a large number of old photos and I’m making scrapbooks about each child for us to enjoy.”

The moms weren’t sure what to do with that. Their lighthearted banter fell to silence, and one said, “Oh.”

An hour or two went by, and eventually the mom on my left warmed up to me and said how it was very noble of me to be making these scrapbooks about my stepchildren. I smiled and said that my stepdaughter enjoys helping me with them, and she said, “Oh wow, you could like bond with her while you are doing that.” On my right, the other mom ignored me and talked with the other moms. It was a very strange evening.

While stepmom forums, authors and researchers have devoted considerable ink and bandwidth to ruminating on the emotional minefield of the stepmother/bio-mom relationship – few have discussed the stepmom and her dealings with other moms. I’m talking about the moms we run into at soccer practice, Sunday school, piano recitals – and yes, scrapbook stores.

Because stepmothers are denigrated in popular culture, regular moms aren’t necessarily sure how to handle the stepmoms when they show up at these functions. This is particularly true for childless stepmoms – who don’t have any mom credentials to offer that demonstrate their social legitimacy.

The fact that there’s a woman out there who wears the stepmom badge with pride is a bit of a shocker. After all, according to popular stereotypes, the stepmoms are high-heel wearing money-grubbing temptresses out to siphon off the men and pack up children for boarding school. The notion that a stepmom could be a conservatively dressed executive who cares about her stepchildren, and is involved in their daily lives alongside both their father and their mother, is an alien one to a lot of people.

Moms guard their social turf, and they don’t know what to do with a stepmom incursion into their domain – such as the playground, the scrapbook store, the school library, or the baseball team booster club – especially if she’s “not a real mom.”

Some moms harbor their own fears and view stepmoms as visible reminders of a nagging and subtle worry. They fear that their marriages will shatter and their husbands will find another woman to raise their children – after all, they’ve seen it happen to some of their friends. And they worry about the arrival of another woman who interferes with the one thing they feel the most expert in – being a mom.

After all, being a mom can be a very socially isolating event. Many women leave the workplace and devote themselves to motherhood with zest, only to find their contributions devalued and depreciated in a sexist culture that penalizes them for nurturing its future generation.

It’s not surprising that they guard their turf. Queen bee moms dispense social capital and lord it over the other moms in a social charade where adults spar over who is the better parent and show off their supremacy through their children. Talking about how to build a community of support around all our kids falls to the bottom of the agenda for many of the very same groups that are supposed to champion child well-being.

Author and educator Rosalind Wiseman in Queen Bee Moms and King Pin Dads details how this hostile “take no prisoners” behavior by adults is hurting our schools, communities, and children. Although Wiseman doesn’t offer advice specific to stepfamilies, she notes that many parents who care about children are marginalized by the posturing and overbearing behavior of other parents who act as social arbiters of Perfect Parent World. I found myself nodding often as I read her book, noting how often I had observed similar social snarkiness at events for my stepchildren.

Stepmoms – it’s time for us to stand up and make our voices heard. We are part of the community that cares for children – and it is ok for us to have a seat at the table if we want one. We can’t stay silent just because we fear a label like stepmother. Public life holds a place for stepfamilies too – there are millions of us – and we can belong to the PTA and the booster club – and yes, even the scrapbook club.

If people don’t know how to respond to us – they will get past it. But we will be there and talking about our passion for our families and how we can help build a supportive community around children.

I’m a stepmom, and I give a darn. I am sitting right here – and I belong here – because I care.

Dawn Miller writes a column on life in blended families at thestepfamilylife.com. 
Visit Dawn's blog for a daily dose of life in the blender.
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