I was hooked on thinking that Lincoln's stepmother somehow gave him just the right juice he needed to become our great president. In Pulitzer Prize winner David Herbert Donald's biography of Lincoln, we are told that Lincoln describes his home as a sorry place before the arrival of Sarah Bush Johnston, and that he always spoke of her in the most affectionate terms. Donald also reports that in matters of blended families, Sarah, who brought three children of her own to the household, was a genius. She treated her own children and the Lincoln children with absolute impartiality. Sarah sounds like a saint in my book.
Stepmothers have a strange place in our culture.
We know they exist, but we're not comfortable with good ones, yet. It's as if we think that by allowing for good stepmothers, then we must condemn the natural mothers. Somehow we have to make room for the idea that children can have more than one strong positive female presence in their lives, and that no presence need take away from the other. I'm not saying we need a Hallmark event to legitimize the role, but just think of the power we give our children when we lavish them with the strength of many women. So, on this February 12th, I will honor Sarah Bush Lincoln, for loving and encouraging the curious and restless young Abe, helping him grow up to become our eloquent and courageous President in the devastating time of the Civil War.