Hi. You might remember me from when I used to write these regularly. More on that in a little bit.
Kids are magical. If you have kids, you’ve described them as magical at some point in their lives. They’re also horrifying little monsters at times, but every so often a kid does something or says something and you’re just so blown away that the only word to describe it is, “magic.”
But what if they actually were magical? Think for a moment about what it would be like if your child possessed magical powers. Go ahead. Think about it. In your head. Have these thoughts.
Did you do it? Did you imagine your sweet little child running around with a wand and a witch’s hat and turning shoes into dancing turnips or whatever? Did your brain paint pictures of Hogwarts and quidditch matches and owls bringing letters to your door and dishes washing themselves?
Because when I envision a world where either of my kids is a witch or a wizard, I don’t see Harry Potter. I don’t see Sabrina the Teenage Witch or Waverly Place or any of the already imagined magical things. And why not? Because my kids have told me very plainly what would happen if they had magical powers.
For starters, everything would be made of candy. This has been my son’s greatest wish for over two years. There’s video footage of him blowing out candles on his birthday cake and then wishing, in front of dozens of people, that the ground was made of candy. You can see the hope etched across his face as he placed the wish—he wasn’t going for a laugh; he desperately wanted to blow out those candles, eat a piece of cake, and then run through a field of Skittles and Snickers.
Our car would also travel at the speed of light. Or teleport. But also fly and turn into a spider sometimes. And our dog’s poop would be rainbow colored. These are the wishes that dance in my children’s minds, and I know this because they’re constantly saying these things out loud. Given the magical abilities to pull this stuff off, they’d absolutely do it. And I guarantee they wouldn’t think any of it through beforehand.
Does my son know what would happen to us if we put our seatbelts on, pulled out of the driveway, and then traveled at the speed of light to visit his grandparents in Maine? At the very least, we’d all die. It’s hard to imagine we’d be the only ones.
Does my daughter consider what it might take to bring a rainbow hue to our dog’s droppings? If it’s coming out with all those colors, something’s going on in his intestines. At 13-years-old, I don’t think old Otis could handle producing a rainbow doo.
I love my children dearly. I have high hopes that they will become the best among us. I also believe, without a shadow of a doubt, that my children would use magical abilities to quickly bring about Armageddon. They wouldn’t do it on purpose, of course. They love everyone and don’t want anyone to die. But what would start with grass that’s made of popsicles would quickly turn into cars that shoot lasers from the headlights to turn clouds into elephants and, before anyone knew what was going on, the Earth’s core would be a giant marshmallow and we’d all perish in tsunamis made of soda.
Children are magical. Thank goodness mine aren’t magical.
On the subject of magic, I’d like to explain why my Substack disappeared these last few months. At the start of the year, I pretended to be a much younger person and launched a TikTok account with a couple friends. It’s called The Dad Who Lived and features me playing the father or a couple of magical/paranormal children.
It was supposed to be a fun side project but it immediately got too much traction and, for the past two months, it’s the only thing I’ve been working on. For those keeping score—yes, I abandoned writing about my real kids to make videos about my new fake kids.
I have every intention of keeping this newsletter alive, it’s just going to be pretty sporadic for the foreseeable future. On top of shooting all the videos, we’re writing a book based on the character, running a Patreon for the account, and will probably launch a merch-slinging Kickstarter in a couple months. Throughout all of this, I will continue to make 40 meals a day for my real-life children, while also building them forts that they immediately break and need to have rebuilt.
And so, dear reader, while you wait for less frequent posts from the UnderFunded Father, please do check out The Dad Who Lived over on TikTok (the preferred app of Elder Millennials), and here’s a link for our Patreon if you want to really dig in, learn more, and support this content.
I’m awful sorry I was MIA for two months without any kind of notice. This has been a very unexpected turn. However, I feel like my work here somehow prepared me to be a better father to fake children in a pretend world, so I’m deeply grateful to all the readers who helped me find my real voice so I could turn it into a work of fiction.
Talk about a turn - excited for you man.