If Channing Tatum Was Your Dad, He’d Braid Your Hair and Feed You Upsetting Sandwiches

By Kase Wickman

He may not have a dadbod, but Channing Tatum is really leaning into the whole dad thing. In a recent appearance on Today With Hoda & Jenna in support of the latest installment of his Sparkella children's books, Tatum talked about his "really good relationship" with his 10-year-old daughter, Everly.

"I didn't plan to be a single dad, that was not in the cards or in my planning at the least," he said, referencing his split with ex-wife Jenna Dewan, which was announced in 2018 and finalized in 2019. "I was pretty nervous."

His parenting philosophy, he said, is "just trying to get by. Just like every other parent, you’re just trying not to mess your kids up, but you know you’re going to."

Maybe Tatum, like many before him, assumed he'd be "not like the other parents," considering his inner child is, after all, on full and proud display. But no matter how much you dance to "Pony," parent talk comes for us all.

"When I knew I was going to have a kid, I was like, ‘Alright, I’m probably going to be the parent—I plan to be the parent—who was probably going to get her in more trouble than I kept her out of,’" he said. "And then as they kind of get older, you start to realize, ‘Oh, I have to set boundaries.’"

Boundaries. Sounds like someone's been keeping up with their Dr. Becky.

In his cover interview with Vanity Fair earlier this year, Tatum said of his split with Dewan, "When you're actually parents, you really understand differences between the two of you. Because it is screaming at you all day long. How you parent differently, how you look at the world, how you go through the world."

Of the divorce, he said, "It was probably exactly what I needed. I don't think I would’ve ever done the work, I think, on myself in the way that I had to do the work on myself to really try to figure out what next. And really, it just started with my daughter. I just dropped everything and just focused on her. And it was truly the best possible thing that I ever could have done. Because in the alone time that I have with just me and her, we’ve become best friends."

We’ll take a brief pause here to collect ourselves. He may have said that Jason Momoa is the "bigger daddy," but come on.

Back on Today, Tatum revealed just how all-in he is on being a hashtag girl dad.

"I was like looking up YouTube on how to braid her hair. I didn't want to be the dad who was bringing her to school looking like she had just slept on the street," he said.

The one place he draws the line, apparently, is when it comes to porcelain dolls. "I do not mess with porcelain dolls. They just, they’re freaky, things that have real eyes," he said. "Barbies are fine, I’m fine with Barbies, they’re innocuous."

He also revealed his go-to sandwich on the morning show: "Peanut butter, jelly, and Cheetos. Not Flamin’ Hot." Presented with a take on his masterpiece, he even offered a critique, ever the thoughtful dude: "Usually it wouldn't be this many Cheetos, and more jam."

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