Out of Step

Perhaps I'm in the unique position of being a copy editor who grew up with a stepparent and half sibling. But 40 years after the debut of "The Brady Bunch" you would still think I wouldn't have to spend an embarrassingly large part of my day offering unsolicited advice to the half-dozen writers who had reviewed the new Rosanne Cash album who couldn't quite wrap their computer keyboards around the singer's "modern" family dynamic. But that's exactly what happened yesterday.

Given the fact that I recently read an article about the legality of distant cousins getting married that actually went on to claim that it's always been "a gray area with cousins and half siblings"I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but do people really still not understand what a step relative and a half relative are? (For those who don't understand the bold-faced words, half siblings share a biological parent and CANNOT get married -- ever!!! Greg and Marcia were stepsiblings and thought it would have been gross and weird, it wouldn't have been illegal.)

Since I once nearly came to blows with a famous reporter who didn't understand that Bill Clinton WASN'T an "only child" (although I'm sure Roger often made him wish he were), I tried to be tactful, gently reprimanding those who referred to Rosanne's mother as her "birth mother," explaining to them that while not technically incorrect, it implies that Vivian Liberto gave Rosanne up for adoption or that some other woman was the principal mother figure in her life. (As any Cash fan knows, this couldn't be further from the truth. Rosanne grew up with her mom and sisters in California far away from Johnny and June.) I then explained that it would have been plenty clear to any reader to simply say that Johnny is her father, Vivian is her mother and June is her stepmother. (Just as Carlene is her stepsister and John is her half brother.)

While most were appreciative of my "quibble" (as one put it), they did want me to know they meant it in a "very literal sense." Fair enough.

Later, I heard back from a blogger who called June Rosanne's mother, and he explained he did it because Rosanne always referred to her that way. He compared it to calling a black person an African American if that was their preference. I completely disagreed with him on this -- I think calling someone an African American by preference is more like calling someone Mrs. or Miss if that's their preference -- especially because he did it in the same sentence as referring to Vivian as Rosanne's "biological mother." While not as bad as "birth," it has many of the same connotations when included in this context. If it's true that Rosanne expressed these sentiments about June to him, then a clearer way of saying it -- both factually (most importantly) and emotionally -- would have been something like "the passing of her mother, Vivian Liberto, her father, Johnny Cash, and her beloved stepmother, June Carter Cash" or "June Carter Cash, who was a second mom to her." What really surprised is he thought my concern about "birth" or "biological" was equal to his concern about calling someone a "step" mother. Really??? Having been the kid in 1973 who was the only one in class who had a different last name than his (remarried) mom, I would think I'd have heard it all. But this one was new to me. In cases where, say, a mother vanished when you were 2 and a stepmother raised you "as her own," maybe. In that case she really was your one and only mom. But when both mother and stepmother live till their 70s and you're tight with them both, I've never heard of someone being offended by being called what they legally and factually are. And even if they are, I'm certainly not in favor of a journalist writing something to to appease a subject even if it's not true.

Call me a quibbler all you like. But there's no substitute for accurate reporting.