You need to make the function pluggable, that means, to support child themes, the functions in parent theme should use: if ( !function_exists( 'function_name' )) { function function_name() { //Stuffs } } You should have seen a PHP Error message if you have [debugging enabled][1]. **EDIT:** The below code snippet if to answer your other question in comment. function modify_read_more_link() { global $post; return '<a class="more-link" href="' . get_permalink( $post->ID ) . '">Your Read More Link Text</a>'; } add_filter( 'the_content_more_link', 'modify_read_more_link' ); [1]: https://codex.wordpress.org/Debugging_in_WordPress