Kamala Harris inauguration as vice-president will be a first in more than one title: First Woman Vice-President. First Black woman. First woman of Indian descent. This is without counting another milestone close to being crossed: that of his family.
When Vice President Kamala Harris takes on this role and, surrounded by her loved ones, break so many barriers, millions of Americans will take stock of a larger version of the American family – a family that could help soften rigid and politically acceptable conceptions of family dynamics or gender roles.
His family is ready for this moment. Meena Vice President Kamala Harris, her niece, has recently wore a “Vice President Kamala Harris Aunty” T-shirt – Aunt Vice-President. Her stepdaughter Ella Emhoff, a fine arts student in New York City, will wear an outfit (she has chosen a dress) that she herself will have knitted. Kerstin Emhoff, the mother of Mrs. Harris’s stepchildren – yes, she and her husband’s ex are friends – could slip a strand of sage into her handbag; she is certain that the Capitol would need purification.
And her husband Doug Emhoff will, of course, be by his side – a proud husband, a husband who will support the Vice President Kamala Harris, who is likely to take pictures of his wife, and who is also about to make history by becoming the first Second Gentleman (he now has a Twitter account to testify).
The family has long been the cornerstone of American values; one of the few people agree on, explains historian Nancy F. Cott. It is also important in politics. We have seen how the First Ladies, by the mere fact of being kind, are likely to boost the popularity of politicians, according to a study by the political scientist Laurel Elder. Wives of politicians are often said to be “humanitating” candidates. And an extended family is also powerful – and has the potential to normalize and even reverse trends.
“You must bear in mind that people are modelling on these institutions,” says Chasten Buttigieg, Pete Buttegieg’s husband, who approached Vice President Kamala Harris’s husband at the start of the Democratic nomination race. “They are so much more than politics.” Mr. Buttigieg notes that as a companion, he could talk about what made her husband “funny or charming or loving or exceptional” in a way that others could not.
For women, a public family life is often even more important: it counterbalances the perception of “durth” that women politicians can convey. For Susan Douglas, a professor of communication at the University of Michigan, to focus on motherhood can “soften” the image of a politician when she has to address topics such as, for example, war, or prosecute people in her responsibilities.
Which, of course, it shouldn’t have to do. But such expectations may mean that the room for manoeuvre to stand out from a narrow family view is very narrow – making the Vice President Kamala Harris-Emhoff family all the more significant.
“It’s striking,” says Ralph Richard Banks, a law professor at Stanford University who wrote about race, gender, and family models. “In a way, they touch the different characteristics of the American family and its evolution.”
Some will say that they reflect the current situation of Americans. Today, about one in six married couples is interracial, a figure that has been rising since 1967, as is the number of married interfaith couples, according to the Pew polling institute.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica, was raised with Christian and Hinduist practices, while her husband, who is white, grew up frequenting Jewish summer camps or holiday camps. (At their wedding, Ms. Harris took part in the Jewish ritual of breaking a glass.)
She married in her 40 percent – beyond the average age of first marriage for women in the United States, even though that age is growing steadily.
Mr. Emhoff was divorced and had two children from his previous marriage. His children are among a quarter of children in the United States who do not live with both biological parents, according to Census Bureau statistics, the Census Bureau. Mrs. Vice President Kamala Harris had no children. Many Americans do not have one, as the fertility rate is historically low. She often says that being “Momala” for her stepchildren is the role she “makes most to heart”.
“We have more choice,” said Professor Banks. “This is a change at the level of society but is not necessarily as visible in the spheres of power.”
A large mixed family
In her acceptance speech at the National Democratic convention last August, Vice President Kamala Harris spoke of her mother Shyamala Gopalan Harris, an immigrant who arrived as a teenager in California with the dream of being a cancer researcher, and who raised Kamala and her sister Maya after divorcing their father. For a long time, they were all three. When Maya was 17 pregnant with her daughter Meena, they became four.
“My grandmother and aunt were second mothers for me,” said 36-year-old Meena Harris, who has the same birthday as her aunt. (Maya Harris, along with Kamala and Doug Emhoff, declined requests for interviews for this article.)
Mr. Emhoff was born in New York City and grew up in New Jersey and the suburbs of Los Angeles. He is the son of Barb and Mike, a homemaid mother and shoe designer who recently created a Facebook group called “Grandparents for Biden,” the grandparents for Biden.
He was married for 16 years to Kerstin Emhoff. They had two children: Cole, 26, and Ella, 21, named after John Coltrane and Ella Fitzgerald.
Kerstin described former couple Emhoff as a fairly traditional: Doug was in charge of finances, they did domestic affairs. Both worked full-time. “This was part of our bond – we were each ardently dedicated to our careers,” she explains.
The children were in primary and middle school when their parents separated and Doug moved into a nearby apartment. They lived with their father every other week – nicknamed the “Palazzo Crew”, the Palazzo team, named after the building he resided in, and learning to manage for themselves what their mother had before.
Most nights, they went to the catering shelves of the supermarket Whole Foods bought sandwiches until Mr. Emhoff decides that the family should feed better. They started by trying to do the cooking themselves, before very quickly finding a better solution, says Mr. Cole: home-cooked dishes that were delivered to them on the doorstep.
This was the arrival of large-scale delivery apps. Blue Apron, a catering service with home delivery, did not yet exist. Rather, it was a “situation of the genus Craigslist,” says Mr. Cole. “It was just ordinary spaghetti Tupperwares with a little bit of red over that someone was bringing us — saying something like, ‘It’s home dinner, guys.'”
The family likes to tell how Mrs. Vice President Kamala Harris – known for her culinary skills – changed all that. Over the years, says Cole, he saw his father become “a good cook”.
Host of the nation
Mr. Emhoff is set to become the first male member of the very small group of spouses of the White House – a role that has no job description, salary, or official duties.
Traditionally, First and Second Ladies play the role of hostesses: they choose the sets for the annual holidays, president of lunches, submit a family recipe to the “First Lady Cookie Contest,” a biscuit contest made by the First Ladies organized annually by a women’s magazine.
Many First and Second Ladies have embarked on larger missions and a specific policy: In recent years, they have worked for children’s literacy (Laura Bush), healthy eating (Michelle Obama), and military families (Jill Biden). Melania Trump has launched a “Be Best” campaign to combat harassment.
But tacit rules remained. Namely: Stay on your path. Eleanor Roosevelt, who played an important role in implementing the New Deal’s policy, was told that it was better for her to “stink her knitting,” and that sentiment persisted.
Professor Elder, who teaches political science at Hartwick College and is co-author of the book “American Presidential Candidates Spouses”: the idea that Americans prefer spouses who actively support their partners (it’s new), but who do not leave their supporting role (this is traditional). “Americans are very divided on whether they should even have a career – and they certainly do not want them to be political advisers.”
“Seeing a man assumes this role is surprising, exciting and a little confusing because it challenges long-standing misconceptions,” she said.
For his part, Mr. Emhoff – who, for many of the Democratic primaries, had stuck to her phone case “The Place of a Woman is in the White House” – seems to have no problem playing a husband’s role in solidarity. To a nine-year-old who asked him last fall what he would do if his wife became vice-president, he said, “I’m going to do what I still do … I’m going to support her.”
And if he has not yet announced what he will work in Washington – we just know that he is considering teaching at the Georgetown University School of Law – he recently met with a historian at the Library of Congress to better understand the role of the Second Partners over the past.
Authenteating Vice President Kamala Harris
When their “great reconstituted family,” as Ella describes it, will meet this week in Washington, D.C., it will be the first time in more than two months that they will all be together.
The last time was during the election week, in a house in Delaware where the news ran on the screens, and Mrs. Harris kept saying it — at least at the beginning, “That’s great, right? Isn’t it good to be here? Isn’t it great to be all together?”
They spent time playing, karaoke, cooking – and waiting anxiously for the official results of an election that would propel their family unity into even more visibility. “One evening, we all started dancing,” recalls Mr. Cole.
In other words, it was an ordinary family that spent time together – waiting, full of hope, for history to be fulfilled.
Until then, brothers and sisters Cole and Ella had managed to lead an almost normal life without evokeing too much around them who their family was, or who they were about to become.
Now that the bubble has burst, there are things that they still need to get used to.
Like, for example, igniting CNN and seeing their father’s face. “I’m like, ‘Wait, it’s not your place there.’ But maybe what if?” said Cole. Or, for Ella, suddenly having tens of thousands of Instagram followers who are interested in things like her new tattoo, or, on TikTok, a video of her discovering the taste of a McDonald’s Filet-o-Fish.
They find it funny that there is a ‘DougHive dedicated to their father’ – a pun on the name of BeyHive fan club BeyHive – and that people wonder how he spares his form when he’s on tour.
“The thing I like best,” said Cole, “is that if you scroll Doug’s Instagram, you see the progress from basic dad, with 10 followers — with a selfie taken very close to the face — the one that has hundreds of thousands of followers, and does that really well.”
Doug will remain “Doug” for his children – a habit taken when they were small and over-aweal to be abandoned today.
Ms. Harris is still “Momala” for her stepchildren and “Auntie” for her nieces, nephews, godchildren and goddchildren. And Meena Harris learned never to try to call her aunt “Kamala.” “She will turn her head too hard to say, ‘I am Auntie, and I don’t want you to call me Kamala.'”
Anyway, says Meena, she has a new nickname: Madam Auntie V.P. “My Aunt V-P.”
Also read this news: Bill clinton age of President of the United States