Lies I’ll Tell My Son

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There are several moments that shaped my childhood: the time my aunt accidentally told me Santa Claus wasn’t real, when Kelly Kapowski made me realize girls could be hot, and when the 1997 Red Wings showed me what true happiness felt like. But those moments, while defining, were brief flashes in the pan that came and went.

My parents, though, they took measures to ensure that I turned out the way I am today. And by “measures,” I mean that they completely lied to me. The little white lies they told me not only made their lives easier (you’ll see), but made me a better person as well. As fucked up as it sounds, it’s made me realize that if I want to be a good father, I’m going to have to flat out lie to my kids to ensure they don’t turn out to be drug dealers or strippers. It’s for their own good.

Little Steve Yzerman deFries and William Fritz deFries III will never know what hit ’em.

“Toys-R-Us is only for adults.”

My dad told me this during my formative years and I never thought anything of it. It was like looking at a bar or a strip club — “I can’t go to that place because I’m not old enough.”

Then, one rainy day on vacation, my dad was grasping at straws for ways to entertain me and he pitched the idea of hitting up a Toys-R-Us. I responded, “But dad, I’m not old enough to go there,” before he explained to me that I was, in fact, of age. I walked outta that bitch with a brand new Gameboy Color.

“You won’t get into college unless your handicap is lower than your GPA.”

The lower the grades he gets, the more of a stud golfer he’ll be. This either ensures he’ll be smart as hell or, more importantly, be a stud golfer who goes low before the age of 18. Honestly, either works for me because both have “scholarship” written all over them.

“Video games make your hair fall out.”

Based on how stoked I was to have my new Gameboy Color, I know I liked video games way too much. I spent endless hours playing GoldenEye, NFL Blitz, and FIFA ’99 which took away from my fondest childhood memories of playing backyard football, cops & robbers, and “The Tip Game” where I purely tried to be Dino Ciccarelli while playing street hockey. The fact of the matter is, I didn’t learn how to hit buttery flop shots and endlessly juggle a soccer ball because I was constantly sitting inside playing Halo online with a headset on.

Plus, in a similar fashion to dad dick, my kid is going to look at my luxurious hair and admire it for the rest of his life. The prospect of losing it at an early age will be debilitating for him.

“The Lions won’t win a Super Bowl unless your hair is slicked back.”

This not only ensures that he’ll be cheering the Lions to their first Super Bowl, but it also means he’ll be swimmin’ in women at an early age while all of his other friends look like doorknobs with their bowl cuts. Kid might as well invest in some good galoshes for how many girls he’s going to have to sift through.

“For every selfie you take, a puppy dies.”

I don’t need Stevie Y. posting selfies to whatever form of social media is out there in 2025. Kid needs to learn at an early age that it’s better to be behind the camera than in front of it. It’s less about the photo itself and more about not looking like a self-indulgent prick.

Plus, he’ll never want anything to happen to Buck and Bear, our purebred Boykin Spaniels.

“If you swear, dragonflies will sew your mouth shut.”

This is hands down the most frightening lie that my parents told me when I was younger. My grandmother told my dad this, who in return told me this. It didn’t stop me from saying “fuck” when my sister spelled it to me only to freak out when I said it aloud at daycare, which is still bullshit in my eyes.

To this day, I’ll shank one into the woods and drop a fuck-bomb before looking over to the adjacent water hazard making sure there are no dragonflies around. Still doesn’t stop me from never laying up though.

“Left-footed kickers get all the girls.”

I don’t need my kid dealing with concussion issues because his own version of Coach Taylor never taught him how to hit correctly. What I do need? My kid to become the top-recruited placekicker in the nation only to go to Alabama and clean up on SEC babes before going pro for the Detroit Lions and becoming Jason Hanson reincarnated while I sit in a luxury box drinking Badass Beer with Kid Rock, Bob Seger, and retired Hall of Fame/Super Bowl-winning quarterback Matthew Stafford. .

Image via Shutterstock

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Will

Will (Twitter / Instagram) is the host of The Sunday Scaries Podcast.

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