At some point and time in our life, we have all been tempted to "take a walk on the wild side." Some may do this in the form of riding on a roller coaster, riding in a fast car, parachuting out of an airplane, or maybe trying some sort of unfamiliar and exotic cuisine. In Stepping into Accountability: What Was I Thinking?, the reader will take a fast-moving and often unimaginable journey with Chris as he unveils a lifestyle no one could have properly prepared him for. Although many people have desired to be biological parents, there aren't too many people who have desired or requested to be stepparents.
Stepping into Accountability: What Was I Thinking? covers a span of thirty years of Chris' life from his eighteen years of living in a very dysfunctional and unhealthy household to his ten years of living in a world he was totally unprepared for as a man, as a husband, and as a parent. With no prior experience as a husband or as a parent, the nine-year age difference that separated Chris and his wife only further complicated matters for them. Wanting to walk away, Chris knew he had to continue staying in this marriage for the sake of one boy who treated him as his father and for two boys who wished he never existed.
Although his love for his family was ongoing and genuine, it would not be enough to save his oldest stepson from his untimely death at the hands of an assassin's bullet. Facing this incredible and unexpected emotional void and with his marriage in disarray, Chris would eventually have to choose between staying with the woman he would have given his life for and the woman who wanted more of himself than what he was willing to give.
While much of the world for a normal and typical nineteen-year-old consists of college exams, fast cars, weekend partying, pledging their allegiance to a local fraternity and/or sorority, the latest in fashion and music, the world for nineteen-year-old T. J. Cantrell is anything but normal. After only completing three months of his freshmen year, TJ finds himself head over heels in love with a woman who is nine years his senior while helping to raise her three boys with the oldest being only nine years younger than he is.
With no prior parenting experience and with no point of reference to ask or Google, he is forced to rely on blind ambition and his childlike faith in God, who, at this point, has fought most of His battles for him. However, he has unintentionally put himself in an awkward crossroad, where he now has to put away childlike things and become a man much before he was ready to do so.
With the hope that love would always keep them together, TJ and his newfound family, within a span of ten years, will experience the ups and downs of raising three children whom he did not create, multiple job changes, two tragic and untimely deaths, marital infidelity, a house fire that took more than just their personal belongings, extreme financial hardship, unimaginable betrayal, and being introduced to a world that until now had no name. And just when it appeared their marriage was coming to an end, TJ finds the true love of his life, whom he is unable to have.
Stepping into Accountability is not a self-help book, nor is it a book that tells you how to be a better stepparent. Instead, it is a book of a very personal and oftentimes unimaginable journey filled with broken promises, unrelenting pain, heartache, poor decision-making, unrealistic expectations, and unforgivable betrayal.
What TJ didn't learn in high school or during his brief stint in college, he acquired in the school of hard knocks. All he knew was that he now had four other people, whom he has known only for three months, depending on him for parenting, nurturing, and whatever is needed to the very best of his ability. Throughout the course of this journey, he will eventually come to realize why they call it "step" parenting.
