If you are not a fan of the new hot fashion trend that is quarter zip sweaters, I may have some good news for you. And if you, like me, can’t wait to pull one on, please accept my apologies.

See, it has to do with superpowers.

But I should probably back up a bit.

Whenever groups of parents get together — and especially parents with children at different stages of development — some interesting questions come up.

Some are mundane. Like: “How do I get this kid to eat anything other than chicken nuggets?”

Or: “Please tell me this [insert random annoying phase] will end soon?!”

But others can be thought-provoking. One of my favorites? “Don’t you wish you could get to hold your baby again?”

Now, the answer to that question is: “It depends.”

If you mean: Do I wish I could be granted a supernatural opportunity to have just a few minutes, in which my teenager would magically be three years old, climb up into my lap, give a snuggle, and say, “I wuv you, daddy?,” and then fell asleep and wake up with all reset?

Who wouldn’t want that?

But if you mean: I must live with a pre-literate toddler with questionable bathroom skills and perhaps even less rationality, just to get the snuggles that still play in my memory?

Absolutely not.

Every stage of parenthood has its pros and cons.

But having been through all of the stages of parenthood, short of the empty nest, I can say with confidence: Being a teen dad is among the best.

For me, there is nothing that can compare to the ability to engage your kids on an intellectual level and actually partake in a true contest of wits, and watch your kids capacity to reason, consider, and debate grow before your eyes.

I wouldn’t trade anything for this season, when we can share true conversations about questions and topics, from those deep and meaningful to those perhaps a bit silly, yet no less stimulating.

Questions like: What is the best superpower?

The answer to that question often depends on your season in life, background, and particular procilivities. For instance, in 2025, survey firm YouGov asked Britons that question. The answers are telling in many ways.

Tops on the list? Invisibility. That was followed by by the ability to fly, teleportation, time travel and healing powers. And then came the ability to read minds or see the future.

I’m not entirely sure what we should extrapolate from that concerning our friends across the pond. But it certainly signals to me that Britons, like us, want to be left alone, want the chance to correct past mistakes, and they want to avoid traffic. That, and they are likely nosey as nobody’s business, and a bit creepy.

For my kids, the answers have varied through the years, from the ability to summon unicorns or transform into mermaids, to more lately, the more grown-up desires for the ability to tell if someone is lying or to be in more than one place at one time.

But for me, the superpower I currently enjoy the most is one I have been blessed (or cursed) with for virtually my entire life: Never being cool.

See, when you’re a parent of teens, you get the non-creepy chance to hang around in places occupied by other teens. This presents the golden opportunity afforded to few others, besides middle and high school teachers: The chance to induce eyerolls - or, even better, panicked expressions, accompanied by some semblance of the phrase: “No. Please don’t.”

Some parents might cringe at the thought of their teen children and their friends reacting this way.

I, on the other hand? Practically impervious to the sly slings of Gen Z and Gen Alpha disdain.

It wasn’t always this way. Back in the days of yore, as a young man riding around on my dinosaur, loving many materials now at the heart of geek nostalgia, the quips from the cool kids could cut deep.

And few moments were more disheartening to younger me than those times when I would latch onto a fashion trend, only to have it slide into the “Out” category seemingly the very next day.

That ability to put a stake through the heart of promising fashion trends is one that has stayed with me to this day.

It’s why, for instance, I fear my longtime love of the quarter zip sweater has already doomed the current rage surrounding the functional fashion choice to a lifespan more akin to a moth’s.

But while an adolescent curse, this absolute lack of “drip,” as the kids might say, is one that has well equipped me for the current stage.

After all, with no reputation to defend, it preserves swaths of bandwidth to just be dad, without shame or irony, and the volume to soak in the fleeting time we have with them still here at home, sharing conversations and arguments, laughter and tears, and yes, even that occasional, loving snuggle, with no other powers required.