If you don't recognize the sentence from my title, you did not grow up in Utah during the 1990s. I did. I have that sentence engrained on my brain.
I remember as a kid rotating between being inspired and being horrified by the sentence. Sometimes it would motivate me to "be a better sister/daughter/whatever" and sometimes I would be like "Do I have to spend more time with them???"
Now I'm an adult. I am actually a full grown adult, thank you very much. Boy, am I glad to be an adult! (That's a whole post for another day).
The wild thing is, exactly one month ago today, I got my own family. On December 21, 2025, I married my husband. It was a very normal Winter's Solstice with two trans men eloping in Vegas after having dated less than 3 weeks. To make things more interesting, we drove home from Vegas to tell his 3 kids they had a step dad all of the sudden. (The wedding was completely unplanned. We drove to Vegas to see the Blue Man Group. We just also got married.)
I am not a fool (probably). I was aware that signing up for being the step dad for 3 kids would be a lot.
For a man with zero biological children, I have spent an irregularly high amount of my life taking care of children. I have 3 younger siblings. I remember changing my youngest brother's diaper when I was like 7. I helped watch over him a lot when we were kids. When my mom was done having kids, my sister started, adding more kids into my life. Then more siblings started having kids. At the age of 12, I started babysitting for neighbors. I regularly watched up to 8 kids at a time throughout my teenage years. I have taken care of niblings for weekends, over night, supported family through surgeries, etc. and I've watched friends kids throughout my adult years as well. I even was a nanny at one point.
Long story short, I was wise enough to know that signing up to be a step dad would be an adventure that would be a lot of work.
This is the moment that most people say "It's more work than I thought it would be." Except it's not. It's not more work than I thought it would be.
But also, I'm exhausted.
Today was our one month anniversary. My husband and I both wanted to go to bed the moment the 8 yo went to bed. I knew that if I did, I would sleep like shit and regret it, so I've made myself stay up, but good god am I tired.
The good news is, my new little family really, really likes me. I know at some point, I'll stop being the shiny new toy and reality will hit and I'll hear something like "YOU'RE NOT MY REAL DAD!" Which, fair. I'm not. But I also am. Because family isn't about blood for me. It's about who I want to spend time with. And I show up for these kids every single fucking day.
The 8 yo tried to get under my skin the other day. She said "I prefer my [biological] dad." My response was "Okay." You could see her deflate. What she had hoped would bother me did not in the least.
What she doesn't know is that I made a deal with myself when I agreed to be a step dad. I wasn't going to put any of my own hopes on the kids as expectations. Yeah, I'd love to be more than just the dude who married their Pops (what they call my husband). But I am very aware that they are kids who have two biological parents who they have relationships with. They have their own experiences and interests that pre-existed my involvement in their lives. They are going to have all kinds of feelings about me being in their lives. Some days I'll be their favorite. Some days, they will resent me. But I'm just going to keep showing up and keep loving them.
The two oldest have spent the last few days trying out different nick-names for me. Dad is the dude who provided sperm. Pops is my husband. So what am I? I have given them two ground rules on what they can call me.
- It needs to be respectful. No derogatory names or insults.
- It cannot be, or include, one of my brothers' names.
I had initially just given the first ground rule until a nickname was floated that included one of my brother's names and I was like "Nope. I can't do that."
Options so far have included: Pops 2.0. Loli-Pops. Pops-scicle. Papa (insert various additions). They were getting more and more ridiculous on the way back from the library yesterday. I think they wanted to see how far they could take it. The thing they are going to figure out pretty quickly is I am dead serious that as long as they are respectful, they can call me almost anything they want. For me, silly isn't disrespectful. I'd love for them to have some silly nickname for me.
The other thing they also will figure out over time is I can play whatever role they need in their lives. Which means today, I was a teacher and friend for the oldest, an invested listener for the middle, and someone to be silly with for the youngest.
It is also interesting for me to see how much more of a relationship I already have with these kids than I did with my own dad at their ages. Even though I've been in their lives about 2 months (not as a dad, just in general), I have spent more focused, invested time with them on a regular basis than I got from my dad until I was 14 and went to the school he taught at. (As an adult, I'm not sure that time with my dad was actually good, but that's for my book, not for this blog post.) I ask them questions. I listen to them. I validate them. I don't excuse poor behavior, even when it's mine. I also teach compassion and grace and that we're all humans trying our best. They get real, vulnerable interactions regularly.
It turns out the Mormon church wasn't completely wrong.
Family is about Time.
**I will be launching a blog titled "Ask a Trans Man" sometime shortly. If you want to submit a question, use this link: https://forms.gle/toXV81A4obaBYTDU8
***Want to help us escape a state trying to ban our rights? Donate to my paypal now! https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/XGGBW2YFYKQGU