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The stay-at-home dad: The family superpower draft

by TYLER WILSON/Coeur Voice Contributor
| December 1, 2021 1:00 AM

The typical Wilson Family Party features a few constants, mostly food related — Cheetos, salami and cheese and Ritz Crackers. My kids are easy to please.

Another staple: Some sort of interactive game…. We’ve played Name That Tune (also known as Dad Frightens the Children with his Unnecessary Knowledge of 90s and 2000s-era Pop Music), we’ve busted out Apples-to-Apples Junior, and we’ve tried Telephone, which ended with multiples kids inserting the word “farty” into the original messages.

In celebration of the long holiday weekend, or more specifically a celebration of Dad hauling the Christmas tree out of the garage in a timely manner, we had another Wilson Family Party complete with Cheetos, salami, etc. This time, however, my 8-year-old son started a conversation that transformed into a three-hour event filled with intrigue and fierce debate.

He asked us, “What superpower would you want?” Then, as a follow-up, he asked, “If you could have TWO superpowers, what would they be?”

This became a thing. If we’re talking two superpowers, then we might as well talk THREE or FOUR superpowers, and if we’re a family of six superheroes with four powers each, how could we make it so we balanced out to be the most powerful superhero team in the history of the universe?

And so began the Wilson Family Superpower Draft.

With four kids comes a whole lot of Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) and fights over the most desirable superpowers, my wife and I established a custom draft — we made a list of 20 distinct superpowers (with some minor overlapping here and there), then wrote down everyone’s name on a piece of paper and mixed them together in a bowl.

Full disclosure: We actually made a list of 19 superpowers, then added a “Wild Card” slot, or a Power-to-be-Named Later, as a way of covering our bases in case we didn’t think of an obviously important one.

For Round One, we drew names out of the bowl and every participant could choose one of the 20 choices no questions asked. For Round Two, we reversed the order of Round One, meaning the person who chose sixth would then get the seventh pick, the eighth spot went to the person who drafted fifth, etc.

In Round Three, we threw the names into the bowl and picked randomly again, BUT the selection was subject to a majority approval from the group as a way to balance out the powers, so that, for example, the person who chose flying wouldn’t then pick metal power or telekinesis (as both basically allow for flying, and if you don’t know what I mean, watch an “X-Men” movie).

In Round Four, Mom and Dad discussed how to divy up the final powers as a way to balance things out even more. Appropriately, my 6-year-old daughter, a Wild Card in real life, obtained the Wild Card/Power-to-be-Named Later card. We might regret that.

Otherwise the draft worked out beautifully, as every kid ended up with at least two of their preferred options. Even I got what I wanted — 1) Healing power (as a hypochondriac, I won’t need to worry about anyone in the family getting too hurt or sick), 2) Metal control (I’m MAGNETO!), 3) Plant growing control (I promise not to be as villainous as Poison Ivy) and 4) Rewind/Fast Forward/Pause Power, also known as the Zack Morris Power.

Other highlights of the draft:

• My 4-year-old was obviously the easiest to please — Super speed, super strength and the power of weather (which also allows for flying — see “X-Men’s” storm). He actually didn’t want that one at first, until he realized he could make it snow. He also got recycle power, which will take too long to explain in this space.

• My 10-year-old daughter only cared about building a collection of powers that best matched Violet from “The Incredibles” movies.

• My 8-year-old son REALLY, REALLY wanted Multiple Power, the ability to copy himself and be multiple places at once. It was his first suggestion when we came up with the initial list, and he wanted to draft it in the first round. I convinced him to hold off until Round Two, because nobody else wanted that power, obviously. He chose Portal Power in Round One, then promptly snagged Multiple Power in Round Two. I don’t know if I can handle even two of him, let alone a potential army of 8-year-old boys.

• My 6-year-old Wild Card chose Spidey Powers first… a real surprise, honestly. She also made herself Invulnerable in Round Three, which is fine because she acts like that anyway.

• My wife mostly chose all the “responsible” powers — Premonition, Mind Reading and Download Learning Power (also known as Matrix Power). I guess I have “responsible” traits too, like healing and plants/crop production, but I took those for totally selfish reasons. I want to make cool vines!

After the lengthy draft, the kids wanted to build “scenarios” for our Family of Superheroes to solve. It all started to sound a little Dungeons & Dragons to me, and, look, that’s totally fine, just not at 11 o’clock at night.

But I can see us doing the exact same draft, just with potions and magic. Better stock up on salami and Cheetos.

• • •

Tyler Wilson is a freelance writer and stay-at-home dad to four kids, ages 4-10. He is tired and foolishly didn’t include “Alert Power” in the Family Superhero Draft. He can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com.