Dad Jokes

I went on a day trip to Dumfries last week and hurt my ankle. I went to the hospital and asked for help. I was told “Wee sleket cowerin’ timrous beastie/O, what a panic is in thy breastie.” I’d gone to the Burns Unit.

That was a joke (though I was in Dumfries last week) but is it a dad joke? What is a dad joke? I’m not a dad but the idea is that the above should have induced a groan and/or rolling of the eyes. Why should dads have all the fun?

Come to that why shouldn’t mums have fun as well. Just checked the wonderful mumsnet site and there is this:

Why did the pirate walk the plank? - Because he didn't have a dog.

At which point I began to wonder if there wasn’t a bit more to this than first meets the eye. I went on various sites and the following is a sort of summary of them:

‘I wonder also if it's got anything to do with the typical views of parenting, where dad is the "fun parent" since mum is the one doing the everyday work of childcare and is therefore seen as boring, stuffy, unfun, etc.’

‘In addition...I think this is just a symptom of the "women can't be funny" stereotype.’

‘Quite a strong societal stereotype about moms versus dads. It's not so much a stereotype that dads are funnier, but that they're fun and more of an additional kid then another parent and that somehow is okay.’

‘This is what I think! Once I was cooking for my two roommates and two mutual friends while three of them were playing a game and not helping me at all. The fourth just walked in, stood next to me and I complained, "Well I guess I know why they call me the mum now." He said "Oh yeah totally and I'm the dad."

As the fool I am, I thought that meant I had an ally. Asked if he thought he could get them to help or if maybe I should set a boundary and refuse to cook. He laughed and said "No, I'm the dad, the fun parent!" and went to go play games with them.’.

I thought the British Psychological Society might help and here is Marc Hye-Knudsen in 2023:

‘What, moreover, are we to make of the association of dad jokes with dads? Are fathers indeed more prone to telling dad jokes, and if so, why? It might seem tempting to simply dismiss dad jokes as bad jokes, at the same time accusing dads of just having a bad sense of humour, but that would be a mistake.

When considered properly, dad jokes are an intricately multi-layered and fascinating phenomenon that reveals a lot not just about how humour and joke-telling work but also about fathers' psychology and their relationships with their children.’

And that’s as far as I’m going as it gets a bit technical after that.

I’ve read a lot of jokes while doing this and I thought I’d got immune to the ‘simple joke that is not particularly funny or original, often using puns considered typical of jokes made by older men, sometimes intentionally to annoy their children’ (Cambridge Dictionary) but this still got a chuckle. Think of it as the poem for the week:

A Duck walks into a Bar

“Got any bread?”
“No”
“Got any bread?”
“No”
“Got any bread?”
“No”
“Got any bread?”
“No, and if you ask me again, I’ll nail your beak to the bar”
“Got any nails?”
“No”
“Got any bread?”

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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