Besides being the vice president of the United States and an all-around political trailblazer,
Kamala Harris is also a stepmom to model and fashion designer
Ella Emhoff . Here's what you need to know about their special relationship.
The 2020 presidential election was very stressful for everyone,
regardless of political affiliation or party. And by the time the results of the election
came in and the voters had named Joe Biden and Kamala Harris the winners, the anxiety
was out of control. It's hard to imagine what each campaign was thinking and feeling.
And it looks like Ella Emhoff was really feeling that pressure,
because in a sit-down with the New York Times, she shared what it was
like to witness the election and watch the results trickle in. She told the Times,
"When we went to see them for Election Day,
it really hit me. Seeing them is a lot different now. There's a lot more people."
Emhoff added that the notion of sharing her parents with the entire world
is really mind-blowing, but a change that she was getting used to. She said,
"It's a really cool thing to wrap your head around — because you get to share
all the great things — but it's also like, huh?!"
Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff were very aware about their impactful roles in Ella and Cole
Emhoff's lives, especially when they first started dating. Given that Ella and Cole had seen their
parents get divorced, and had to navigate their lives as the children of separated parents,
the vice president and her husband were very careful in their approach to the
Emhoff kids — so much so that they waited a long time before Harris introduced herself to them.
Harris was determined not to be introduced to Ella and Cole,
or take a significant role in their lives, until she was sure that her relationship
with their father would last. Harris wrote in an article for Elle magazine,
"As a child of divorce, I knew how hard it could be when your parents start to date other people.
So, we took it slow, and Doug and I put a lot of thought into when
and how I would first meet the kids. And that meant waiting. As we waited, anticipation grew."
Any child of a working parent knows that missing your parent's face in the stands at a soccer game,
for example, is a significant possibility. That absence was a reality that Ella Emhoff
often faced because her stepmom was Kamala Harris — then a senator from California.
Harris wrote in Elle that when she joined the Senate, Ella had just started her last year of
high school in Los Angeles, and she knew that splitting her time between her home state of
California and her career in Washington, D.C. would be really tough. She wrote,
"The hardest part was going to be being away from my Ella."
Harris' schedule got in the way of a lot of swim meets, but it was Emhoff's graduation from high
school that was the most painful milestone for Harris to miss. She wrote in Elle that her role
on the Senate Intelligence Committee — and the June 8, 2017 testimony of former FBI Director
James Comey — stopped her from attending her stepdaughter's big day. Harris wrote,
"She could not have been more understanding when I told her
I wouldn't be able to make it back in time, but I still felt awful about it."
Navigating a relationship with a new stepparent is a significant undertaking for any child,
and one that is not always guaranteed to be easy. But luckily for Kamala Harris and the Emhoff kids,
integrating their lives couldn't have gone any better.
Harris wrote in an article for Elle that a couple years into her marriage to Doug Emhoff,
Ella and Cole Emhoff came to a conclusion — the title of "stepmom" was not for Harris.
So the three of them came up with the best nickname: "Momala" .
"'Vice President' will be great, but 'Momala' will be the one that means the most."
Over the course of their time as a new family unit, Ella,
Cole, Doug, and "Momala" bonded in the cutest way possible,
and Harris credited their family dinners every Sunday as a huge factor. She wrote,
"We come together, all of us around the table,
and over time we've fallen into our roles. Cole sets the table and picks the music,
Ella makes beautiful desserts, Doug acts as my sous-chef , and I cook."
Kamala Harris' husband, Doug Emhoff, made history when he became the United States' first
second gentleman, and honestly he seems like the perfect fit for the role.
A quick scroll through his Instagram is all you need for proof. He appears to be the epitome of
the supportive spouse — he's posted photos of himself posing with Harris' cardboard cutouts
and photos with her Time magazine cover. He is, seemingly, Harris' biggest fan.
"He is exactly who he is. He's just fully
authentic and clear about the things he cares about."
And that's a dynamic that Ella Emhoff has clearly picked up on because she spoke
about her dad's relationship with Harris in a sit-down with the New York Times. She said,
"It's so insane. It's like the honeymoon phase forever. Like,
the rest of the world gets to see it on social media, but we live that."
Of course, life with Harris and her father isn't always roses — Ella Emhoff pointed out
that the house is always filled with strong people with strong opinions,
and her friends are always "grilled" about their life choices and future plans when they come over.
Kids of divorced parents will tell you that navigating their own lives and their parents'
drama is a lot, but according to Ella Emhoff, her parents and Kamala Harris really made an effort to
raise her and her brother, Cole, as well as they could. In a sit down with the New York Times,
she said that Harris and her dad, Doug, maintained a great relationship with her mom.
"They have good communication between the three of them. They are really a unit,
like a three-person parenting squad. It's really cool."
Ella Emhoff also chatted about the process of her parents' divorce
and how the entire journey brought her closer to her dad and brother, saying,
"It definitely, for the three of us, was really bonding. And I think we do have that sense of
like, we made it through the random apartments, figuring out the dynamic of it being just us."
As a presidential and then later vice-presidential candidate,
Kamala Harris spent a lot of time on the road, making appearances and debating with
her primary opponents — all of which took away from her time with stepdaughter Ella Emhoff.
Emhoff explained while on a Zoom interview with Glamour magazine that Harris made a real
effort to keep in touch while she was on the road, no matter how busy her campaign schedule got.
As she put it, Harris would call her and leave sweet voicemails for her to listen to. She said,
"It'll just be something sweet like, 'Hi, I was just thinking about you,
hope your day is good,' And then I call back!"
This one really shouldn't come as a shock, but Kamala Harris has had a massive impact on Ella
Emhoff and her own political involvement — it would be pretty hard to have the vice
president as your stepmom and not be at least interested in politics. Emhoff told the New
York Times that she and her brother, Cole, were interested in politics since they were young,
and they got more involved when Proposition 8 was on the California ballot. Of course,
things have changed since then. Emhoff told the Times,
"Now this is like, we're really in it.
We're learning the behind the scenes. We're learning policy."
While chatting with Glamour, she said that she was met with a massive amount
of anxiety when her stepmom ascended to the second highest office in the land. She said,
"I think it was also that intense wave of realization and anxiety that,
'Wow, I'm not looking at this from the outside. I'm looking at it from the inside. This is all
happening to me too.' I felt extreme love and excitement, but also a little bit of shock."
When Kamala Harris met Ella Emhoff for the first time, she was anxious. She wrote in Elle that
she had "butterflies in her stomach" when she met the Emhoff kids at the Reel Inn seafood
restaurant near the Pacific Coast Highway, one of the Emhoff kids' favorite spots. But,
as she recalled, Emhoff and her brother "could not have been more welcoming."
The calm, natural dynamic that Harris experienced was reciprocated by Ella Emhoff,
and while chatting with Glamour,
Emhoff said that she had felt as if she had known Harris "forever." She said,
"I think when we met her, I was about to go into high school,
so I was in an equally intense time, but for different, more angsty reasons.
It felt serious when [my dad] was just talking about her, because I could hear it in his voice.
When we did meet, it all felt so natural that it wasn't even a big deal."
It's crazy for us to think about Kamala Harris in any other role than
politician — she's become known for her iconic side eye, her intense questioning
while she was on the Senate Intelligence Committee, her presidential campaign, and,
of course, her historical nomination and inauguration as vice president.
But to Ella Emhoff, Harris has just been her stepmom,
all while the rest of the country got to know her as a senator and as a White House hopeful. It's
still an aspect of Harris' life and identity that Emhoff is familiarizing herself with, and
she spoke about it during a Zoom interview with her brother and her dad for Glamour. She said,
"Sometimes I feel like I'm just getting to know her as a politician because I've
spent so much time getting to know her as just my stepmom."
Her father even told his kids during the interview that Harris used to
ask him if his kids really knew what it was that she did for a living. He said,
"I would say, 'Yes, but they don't care. They care about you.'"
While Kamala Harris was out endlessly campaigning,
the separation was apparently really tough for her and Ella Emhoff to endure. Emhoff told Glamour,
"I think it's even harder that this is all happening during COVID because
not being together during all of this is hard. We can Zoom,
and we do have a Zoom every weekend, and we talk a lot. But it's not the same."
"Hi! I made it!"
"Hey Ella!"
"You made it."
"Proud of you!"
Harris herself pointed to just how tough it is to be away from her stepkids in Elle magazine,
but she credited her husband, Doug, his ex-wife, Kerstin,
and the kids for their support. She wrote,
"They are my endless source of love and pure joy. I can say one thing with certainty,
my heart wouldn't be whole, nor my life full, without them."
"We love you, Momala!"
Regardless of your personal politics, it was remarkable watching Kamala Harris take the oath of
office, becoming the first woman, the first Black American, and the first person of Asian descent
to become vice president. And the monumental occasion and the impact of her political career
are aspects of her stepmom's life that Ella Emhoff is very aware of. Emhoff told Glamour,
"Separating her familial relationship to me, I think it's super long overdue. It's
so empowering to see someone who's so sure of herself and is not going to back down."
She went on to say how much she admires Harris' "assertiveness"
and the ways in which her stepmom is not scared of a challenge. She told the magazine,
"I hope it will open up the floodgates for a lot more women and especially women of color to just
run and then hopefully make it to the top. I think that we've needed someone like her to come along."
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