I barely remember him.

My first stepfather came a couple of years later, and lasted a few years, but he played very little influence in my life. My mother refused to let him discipline me, even when I clearly deserved it. Although he never treated me badly, we never bonded, either. He was just that guy who lived with us.

My second stepfather came when I was almost an adult, we got along fine, and I eventually came to love him dearly, but he probably had little influence on my character development. Like my first stepfather, my mother did not allow him to take any active role in disciplining me.

I partially agree with your conclusions. I was definitely a little Cuban Momma's boy, until I came back from the Navy. You would recognize the type immediately, think: Marco Rubio, baby-face and all. But I think the "feminist single mother" stereotype is so rare, at least in my generation, that it is hardly a factor. My own mother was not a Marlo Thomas/Mary Tyler Moore career girl, she went into the lower end pink-collar work force because she had no choice, it was brutal economic necessity, not a political or social decision. She was not a cheerful go-getter, she was a grimly determined Worker, with a capital W. It had a totally dominating, even devastating, effect on her life, aging her before her time, and a profound influence on mine. No matter what I did for a living, or how much education I had, or how much money I had in the bank, I always thought of myself as working class, not middle class.