2020 Democratic hopeful Sen. Kamala Harris of California, who has no children of her own, is marking Mother’s Day with an account of her relationship with her adult stepchildren, who she says call her “Momala.”
Harris, 54, is seeking to neutralize rivals who include Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, 52, who has sons 15 and 10 years old and has made motherhood central to her campaign, stating in her announcement: “I’m going to run for president of the United States because as a young mom, I’m going to fight for other people’s kids as hard as I would fight for my own.”
In an article for Elle magazine, Harris describes how she began dating her future husband, Doug Emhoff, who had two children, Cole, now 24, and Ella, now 19, from his first marriage to Kerstin Emhoff. Harris, who was born to an Indian mother who emigrated to the U.S. and a Jamaican father, married Doug Emhoff, a corporate lawyer who is a week older than she, in 2014.
Emhoff tweeted a photo on Friday of Harris and her stepchildren engaged in a group hug.
??❤️❤️ https://t.co/JYqRuJRVD3 pic.twitter.com/w6gFwhzud6
— Douglas Emhoff (@douglasemhoff) May 10, 2019
Harris, whose parents divorced when she was 7, said she was initially cautious about meeting Emhoff’s children because she “didn’t want to insert myself into their lives as a temporary fixture because I didn’t want to disappoint them.” But when the time did come for Harris to meet Cole and Ella, she said they “reeled” her in.
“I was already hooked on Doug, but I believe it was Cole and Ella who reeled me in,” she writes. The term “Momala” was coined about the time of the marriage, some 18 months after the couple had begun dating.
The Jewish parenting website Kveller has suggested that her “Jewish stepchildren have given her a very Yiddish nickname,” though conceding it was “unclear if siblings Cole and Ella made the explicit connection between the endearing nickname and the Yiddish word mamaleh (which literally means ‘little mama,’ but is commonly used as a term of endearment for kids).”
Harris writes that she is “dear friends” with her husband’s first wife, who is an “incredible mother” to Cole and Ella: “She and I became a duo of cheerleaders in the bleachers at Ella’s swim meets and basketball games, often to Ella’s embarrassment. We sometimes joke that our modern family is almost a little too functional.”
She writes that when she became a senator in 2016, the “hardest part was going to be being away from my Ella.” She missed her stepdaughter’s high school graduation because it was the same day former FBI Director James Comey appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee in June 2017.
She says she “agonized” over the conflict, but Ella “could not have been more understanding.” She recounts how her Democratic colleague Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire told her: “Our kids love us for who we are and the sacrifices we make. They get it.’”
Harris concludes: “They are my endless source of love and pure joy. I am so thankful to Doug, to Kerstin, and most of all, to Ella and Cole. And as our family embarks together on this new journey — one that has taken me to South Carolina, Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio, Nevada, and Michigan in the last few weeks alone — I can say one thing with certainty, my heart wouldn’t be whole, nor my life full, without them.”
