When your partner's ex is your biggest fan

A film producer and mother of two in California posted a short message of praise Monday after Vice President Kamala Harris' recent appearance on the "Call Her Daddy" podcast.

"Love this," producer Kerstin Emhoff wrote above a clip in which Harris and the podcast's host, Alex Cooper, discussed some women's choice not to have children.

Emhoff has been regularly proclaiming her support for Harris' presidential campaign on Instagram and X. None of which would be remarkable for a 57-year-old registered Democrat, but the woman she's supporting also happens to be her ex-husband's new wife.

"After 33 years of unwavering friendship and two amazing kids, I'm incredibly proud of this man and our blended family," Emhoff wrote in an Instagram post featuring her and her former husband, Doug Emhoff, at the Democratic National Convention.

Although Harris and the Emhoffs have spoken about their blended family in the past, Harris's candidacy for the nation's highest office has brought fresh attention to these types of familial structures, especially the idea that they can be healthy, respectful and loving.

The dissolution of a marriage is rarely painless, and staying on good terms with an ex is often considered an achievement in itself. (The Emhoffs divorced in 2009, after an affair that he had with a teacher at his children's school several years before he was introduced to Harris in 2013, on a blind date.) So to be not merely cordial with but a cheerleader for an ex's new partner, as seems to be the case for Kerstin Emhoff and Harris, has struck some Americans as notable.

The replies to Emhoff's supportive posts are reliably filled with expressions of appreciation for their positive model of a "modern family," as well as messages of baffled disbelief or disparagement. That dynamic would almost certainly assume even greater prominence if Harris is elected in November, when she would -- among other firsts -- introduce the least traditional family unit ever to occupy the White House.

The vice president -- who, along with Kerstin and Doug Emhoff, declined to be interviewed for this article -- has sung Kerstin Emhoff's praises in return. In a 2019 essay for Elle magazine about her experience being a stepparent, Harris described Emhoff as an "incredible mother" and said that they were "dear friends."

Although their marriage did not work out, actors Bruce Willis and Demi Moore are one of the more prominent examples of a successful blended family. When they divorced in 2000 after three children and 13 years of marriage, the two remained friends and continued to support each other's work, appearing together at red carpet premieres and family outings.

In 2005, Willis attended the wedding of Moore and Ashton Kutcher. (They divorced in 2013.) In 2009, Moore was present for Willis' wedding to Emma Heming Willis at his home on the Turks and Caicos Islands.

During the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, the exes isolated together with their children and posted on Instagram highlighting their bonding moments. And in February 2023, the family announced that Willis had been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia in a letter signed by Heming Willis, Moore and all of their five children.

Michelle Soto-Teall, a 58-year-old artist in Palm Springs, California, wasn't able to achieve the same dynamic in her family. After she filed for divorce from her first husband in 1999 after 10 years of marriage, she had hoped that they would be able to maintain a cordial co-parenting relationship and friendship for the sake of their young daughter.

They had attended marriage counseling in an effort to save the relationship, but she said it didn't work. After they officially split, she began dating her now husband about six months later. She believes that her moving on made her ex-husband angry, despite him dating his now wife, who also happened to be a former friend of Soto-Teall's, around the same time.

In an interview, Soto-Teall described her hope "that somehow we could just pull it together for our daughter." A 2021 study by the journal BMJ Pediatrics Open looked at how the mental health of Swedish 3-year-olds with divorced parents was affected by their living arrangements and the quality of the parent's joint custody post-divorce. The study, which included more than 12,800 children, showed that "high-quality co-parenting has been found to contribute to a positive emotional family climate and to affect child mental health and social adjustment positively."

Soto-Teall said that she and her ex-husband were unable to form an amiable relationship, which affected her relationship their daughter over the years. She is now 30, refers to her stepparent as "mom" and no longer speaks to Soto-Teall, despite many attempts at reconciliation.

When asked whether she played any role in this, Soto-Teall said she wishes she had been more open with her about the reasons the marriage ended instead of simply saying they "didn't fit together anymore."

Still, she said she feels inspired each time she watches what the Emhoffs have been able to achieve after their divorce.

"Even though it didn't work for me, I'm still glad I tried and that my intentions were good," she said. "I would say it was definitely bittersweet, but it gave me peace, in a way, to see what I dreamed of was possible."