I've Got....Males!

A new stepfather's tale of love and imperfection By Terrance Armstrong
From Today's Parent, Reprinted by Reader's Digest, October 2004

We first met when we were 19. It was love at first sight...for me. Jenna was already in a relationship, one that would eventually lead to marriage. The most I could hope for was friendship. And I held on to that. For almost two years, we got together weekly for dinner and a movie.
Then we moved to different cities. I eventually married and divorced, but always held Jenna in the back of my mind.
Fast forward 17 years. I'm surfing the Net, and my mind drifts to her. I enter her name - and get a hit! If this is the same Jenna, she's moved back to the city where we first met. I stare at the name for a heart-pounding moment, then take a chance and e-mail her.
In the afternoon I check my messages: there's a response. I click on the message and read, "Terrance! I tried to find you over the years. I'm so glad you e-mailed me."
Then comes daily correspondence, and revelations. Her marriage, like mine, had ended in divorce. She tells me that if she had known how I felt, maybe things would've been different.
The inevitable day arrives when I travel to see her, our first face-to-face meeting in 17 years. When I get off the plane, there she is, as beautiful as I remembered. We embrace, holding each other in a way I had only dreamed of.
In 2002, I become a father. More specifically, I become a stepfather. Did I mention Jenna has two children? Boys, ages 16 and 11. They're wonderful young men, full of life, talented and outspoken.
We like each other. I know that. And there are times when I think they may have grown (or are growing) to love me, and I them. But I tiptoe around these boys, searching daily for my place in their lives.
I remember sitting down to my first meal with them at the kitchen table. They each had their spots, with one end of the table left open for me. I stood for a moment, imagining them gathering for dinner each day with that one vacant setting. I blinked away tears and told myself they'd been waiting for me. This is where I should be.
I found time alone with each of the boys that first weekend, seached for common ground. I told them how their mother and I met. Told them I loved her deeply. I examined their faces for any sign that they might perceive me as some sort of threat. It took everything I had not to drop to my knees and beg them to like me.
On the final day of that visit, I asked the boys the big question. Like a man proposing marriage, I cleared my throat and asked them what they thought of us being a family. They both said the liked the idea. I wanted to hug them, I was so happy. But I didn't. Instead, I said something like, "Okay then", adding a manly pat on their knees.
I'm a roll-up-my-sleeves kind of guy. Got a problem? Let me solve it. "I'll make this house tick like a Swiss watch", I promised, and Jenna gave me plenty of rope. Thankfully, she cut it just as I was about to hang myself.
In the first couple of months of our marriage, I was a man on a mission: barely a day went by that I didn't change or fix something around the house. I rearranged furniture, renovated a storage area into a quiet place to do homework, and introduced regular family meetings and a weekly family night.
My first decree was to introduce The Chart. I'd noticed what I felt was a disproportionate amount of housework being done by Jenna. We're all equals, I reasoned. Using my computer, I made a list of every chore, from sweeping the floor to cleaning the toilet. I hung this on the fridge. Beside it I hung another chart with everyone's name. This chart came with a magic marker. The idea was that every time you did a chore, you wrote its number beside your name.
I held a family meeting to unveil my new system. "This way," I explained authoritatively, "at the end of every week we can add up our chores to see that we're all sharing the duties equally." After a round of blank stares, Jenna came to my rescue. We would give it a try.
Things went fine for the first few weeks as everyone noted their chores on The Chart. Feeling I had to lead by example, I made sure my numbers were always the highest. It became a competition no one could win.
The first signs of tension started to show. Arguments erupted between the boys and me, and sometimes with Jenna. First it was about housework, then homework, then bedtime and even table manners. Jenna gently warned that I was pushing the boys too hard. I suggested she was babying them.
Dylan, 16, started to spend more time in his room, and Alijah, 11, who loved to camp in front of the TV, suddenly enjoyed the great outdoors. I was losing them, but I was convinced it wasn't anything I'd done. After all, wasn't it me who made the house run like clockwork? Wasn't it me who was always there with a suggestion or an answer to a question, even when no question was asked? And didn't I always express a keen interest in their friends, girlfriends, video games, everything?
I felt disliked and started to resent it; maybe the boys were ungrateful, a little spoiled. My father had run our home like a boot camp, and didn't I turn out fine? I just needed to be tougher, I decided.
And then, the complaints came at me, tsunami-style, rising slowly until I grasped that I was way in over my head. This time, Jenna wasn't backing me up.
With relationships in the house strained to the breaking point, I waved my white flag. I admitted I didn't know what I was doing. "I'm not father material," I cried to Jenna. "I'm sorry," I said, "but I think it's time for me to go."
Jenna could have told me I was a quitter. Worse, she could have told me I was right and helped me pack. Instead, she said no one expected me to know how to be a father in a few short months, that it would be okay, that it would just take time, that we'd all learn together.
We started over, which was difficult. It meant admitting to the boys that I didn't have all the answers. It turns out it wasn't news to them.
I'd neglected to notice that my boys were really quite wonderful young men. It wasn't until I'd stopped trying to be what I thought a father should be that I even paid attention to who they were, and, for that matter, what their needs were. I'd neglected to ask them what they needed from a stepdad. Asking that simple question was the first step to the friendship they both said they had wanted from me since I'd first walked through the door.
It's taken me this long to understand, as well, that Dylan doesn't want or need the same things from me as Alijah.
Until recently the answer to my panicked question, Why am I doing this? had always been that it was because of my love for Jenna. That was the driving force, and always will be. But recently I've come to realize I am now here for another reason, too.
Alijah and Dylan are part of the rewards that come with this role. It takes time, and Jenna said it would. I waited 17 years for her to say she loved me, after all. I can wait a while until those words come from Dylan and Alijah.