I became a father fast. I had three kids in four years. As a result, I was sucked, face first, into a world of countless child hazards. Hazards, mind you, that are accompanied with borderline homicidal tantrums, screams that hit every octave, and a brand of toddler bad attitude I thought was reserved for drug-addled rock stars and dictators of small island nations.

So if by magic, it’s meant keeping children from grievous bodily harm, dismemberment and totally-preventable-accidental-death; then I assume yes.

So, with this as context, one fateful morning in the midst of another scramble to load the children in the car, my intrepid 2 year old son made a tumble-run at top speed towards a duck pond that sits across from our home.

I caught him, of course. And while not exactly dangerous in the instant, his little run towards oblivion meant I now had yet another thing to worry about. My child drowning in the pond across the street.   

So kneeling in front of him, knowing full well that concepts such as danger, death and drowning were useless to the mind of the adorable half-wit in front of me. I tried a new angle. 

“You know, there’s a very bad fairy living in the water,” I told him.

He froze. I had his immediate, undivided attention. “What?” he replied, part in wonder, part in apprehension.

I ran with it. 

“Oh yes, a very mean fairy. She’s dirty and smells like garbage. She has long long arms and lives in the mud at the bottom of the pond. She waits for little boys to touch the water so she cam swim very fast to kiss their fingers. And when she does - poof! - the little boy turns into a frog!” I finished, with as much wide-eyed vehemence as I could muster.

“For real?” my son replied, his eyes widening.

“Oh yes,” I said. “And then, because the little boy is a frog, he needs to eat flies for supper.”

“Yuck!” my son screamed, in my face.  

Then, with the sudden zealousness of a heat seeking missile, he darted back towards the truck and his sister, yelling about the sinister, amphibian-like creature waiting in the pond for them, and how they can’t touch the water.

As days past and terror-soaked images of his little drowned corpse fading from my mind, I noticed that he only asked to go to the pond with me or his mother accompanying him. Not only that, his older sister began to warn be about the bad pond fairy as well. It was then, in my permanently semi-insomniatic, over-caffeinated parent of three kids under five state of mind, I’d stumbled into a surprisingly effective parenting hack. 

I could use fairy stories to scare my kids straight.

Fast forward to today, and a menagerie of scary fairies, each as twisted, unsettling and fear-inducing as the audience they’ve been created to help: toddlers.

So, it’s true then.

Parenting is magic.

Just not the sort you think.