The Ignored Market of Stepparents in Greeting Card Companies

I hate the term "broken home". I'm glad my parents got divorced, as a difficult breakup is always preferable to a long, miserable marriage. Both my parents remarried and are happy in their second marriages, and neither harbor grudges against each other for their failed marriage. My situation is hardly unique in the twenty-first century, and yet when holidays come around I always have a hard time finding that "perfect card" for my stepparents.

The scenario is always the same, each time. I'll go into a card store or the card section of a retail store and look for the stepparent cards. The selection is always lousy - oversentimental or cold and distant...those are the choices. I hate to resort to "like a mom/dad" or "friend of the family" cards, as those are more appropriate to family friends rather than an actual member of the family. Therefore I'll either get lucky and fit a suitable card, have to settle, or I'll even buy a mother/father card and write in "step" on the front.

One would think that because the demand is there, the selection would be there. Hallmark has more cards "from the pet" than "for the stepparent". I can usually count up to five stepparent cards in each category, and that's if I'm lucky. I visited Hallmark's website and used their search feature, hoping I would find more items online. Here is what I found: For "Mom", eighty-five products; "Grandma", seventeen; "Dad", fifty products; "Grandpa", eight.

"Stepmother" got one item - a birthday card entitled "Like a Mother to Me". "Stepfather" got four items, but three of them were clearly marked for "Dad", and the one that wasn't was a birthday card, entitled, you guessed it: "Like a Father to Me".

Why the cold shoulder? According to the Stepfamily Foundation, which quoted the data from The US Bureau of Census, "1300 new stepfamilies are forming every day". [1] On his website, Trinity University's Professor Michael C. Kearl (of the Department of Sociology & Anthropology), he states that Hallmark makes cards for "105 different familial relationships". [2] If that's the case, why is it that the selection is so paltry?