It’s a harsh adjective. “Step-motherly” in any language means unfair, neglectful, even cruel.

After a recent interview, I questioned myself on why I had used the word “stepmother” when talking to actress Kiran Joneja about her equation with husband Ramesh Sippy’s children from first wife Geeta.

But we all know Shabana Azmi is so comfortable with Javed’s children that she calls Farhan her favourite betu and they’ve all come together on stage several times. Including a lovely evening when Shabana and Farhan took turns reading excerpts from a book on Javed Akhtar.

Kareena Kapoor may have starred in We Are Family (2010), a remake of Hollywood’s Stepmom, where her husband’s children quietly referred to her as dayan. But in real life, Sara and Ibrahim have no such nicknames for their father’s second wife. In fact, they happily attended the Kareena-Saif marriage and made a quartet of siblings with Taimur and Jehangir.

Perhaps only Arjun Kapoor and Anshula took a long time to get used to Sridevi’s presence in their father’s life, especially when their mother was alive.

Kiran herself has handled the situation with elegance. All three of Ramesh’s kids call her by her name. There’s no confusion, no room for any of them to call her “mom”. “They have their own mother,” said Kiran.

The Cinderella interpretation of stepmother has seeped into all cultures, making it seem a harsh word to use. But there are a lot of examples that defy the popular connotation of the word.

Everybody is aware of how Shammi Kapoor’s second wife Neila, 10 years younger than him and who loved children, made a promise to herself that she would not have a biological kid of her own. First wife Gita Bali had succumbed to smallpox in 1965, leaving behind eight-year-old Aditya and four-year-old Kanchan. Four years later, Shammi’s new bride decided the kids had seen enough of life without a mother. Neila was “mom” to both kids right away but on the day Neila stepped into Shammi’s house as his wife, “Kanchan was apprehensive and Aditya was so nervous, he was breathing heavily.” Over time, after seeing Shammi’s girlfriends come and go, the kids realised that this new lady had stayed on, she didn’t leave like the rest. In fact, for the first year, “mom” stayed home, not accompanying her busy husband on outdoor shoots. Also, there was a little-known incident when Shammi had asked Neila if she’d wear a solitaire ring that belonged to Gita. “Of course, I’ll take it as prasad,” she’d said to him. Shammi had given Kanchan the ring and told her to give it to mom. Neila not just wore it but also told everybody that Kanchan had given it to her. It was a warming point that culminated in Kanchan writing Neila’s name as her mother on her college admission form. “Because you’re the only mom I know,” she said to Neila.

Less known is the story of actress Swapna, who worked in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam films, including Anil Sharma’s Hukumat and the Jackie Shroff starrer Teri Meherbaniyan. Her husband Raman Khanna is best recalled as Shabana Azmi’s first hero in Faslah (1974). When Swapna married Raman, he had two pre-teens Abhimanyu and Ananda, whose mother had left them and gone away. Swapna was weeping like brides do during bidaai but the two kids were welcoming. In fact, Ananda even said, “Didi, why are you crying? We’re all going home together.”

Swapna became mom to Abhimanyu right away. But it was only after Ananda got married that her husband said, “From today, Didi becomes Mom for Ananda and me.” Not just mom. The headline in an article by Ananda was, “I love my stepmom the best.”

On replaying all these stories, I now feel it wasn’t harsh on my part to use the word stepmom in my conversation with Kiran Joneja. It’s the dictionary that needs to broaden the definition.