Your Kid is Not Funny

I don’t know much, but I know your kid isn’t funny.

How do I know? Because no kids are funny.

NONE.

This includes mine.

Don’t get me wrong; I laugh at my kid all the time. Pretty much nonstop. But that’s not because he’s funny. It’s because he’s so unrelentingly stupid.

He does funny things, he says funny things, he makes Mom and Buried and me laugh constantly. But that’s not the same thing as being funny; that’s him just being a cute, stupid little dunderhead who doesn’t realize you don’t wear buckets as hats and that the Cookie Monster’s name isn’t Gecko-gecko, and so on…

Like all toddlers, he’s a goof who doesn’t know his ass from his elbow. Such ignorance occasionally results in some funny moments, like that time he got caught reading My Pet Goat upside down. But that doesn’t make him funny.

Think about your favorite comedians. Are they your favorites because they screw up a lot and their mistakes are hilarious? No; it’s because, after some time spent trying really hard, they eventually make you laugh.On purpose. Funny requires intent; and when someone does something funny by accident, you don’t laugh with them, you laugh at them. And the word you use to describe someone you laugh at is not “funny.”

Kids do all sorts of amusing things, but they aren’t going for laughs. Mostly they’re feeling their way through everyday life by trial and error. At best, they’re going for attention. Either way, the laughs are incidental. They like it when you laugh, obviously, and they may repeat whatever idiotic thing they just did that provoked your laughter, but they aren’t deploying clever wordplay or using jokes to clue us in to deeper truths about the human condition. They are just smearing peanut butter on their face because it made Mommy chuckle.

“Funny” is the most subjective thing in the world; it’s impossible to know what someone else will find hilarious or “Big Bang Theory” (that’s my term for the opposite of funny). And since no parent can be objective about their own kids, an assertion by a mom or dad that their kid is funny could not be more meaningless. The level of subjectivity there is practically infinite. As is the lack of interest another person has in someone else’s child, no matter how “funny” or “smart” his parents say he is.

That’s not to say kids can’t be entertaining, they definitely can be. I love watching my son figure things out and make mistakes and fall on his face and accidentally pour applesauce on his lap. It’s a freaking blast. But I don’t go around telling other people how funny my son is because I’m not an idiot, and I actually remember what it was like when I didn’t have a kid.morning, routine, school, school bus, turtle, morning routine, parenting, parents, dad and buried, mommy blog, dad blog, parenthood, funny, family, bonding, father son, humor, mike julianelle

Before I became a parent, I couldn’t have cared less about the adorable, goofy antics someone else’s kid was getting up to. All I wanted to know was why this person was blocking my way to the bar to talk about the bundle of joy that essentially ended their youth.

So go ahead, enjoy your kids. Have a good time with them, laugh it up. God knows you need a chuckle or two to balance out all the whining.

Just remember: no one wants to hear about how funny your kid is because, quite simply, it’s bullshit.

If Bill Cosby couldn’t interest me in the “funny” things that kids do, you certainly won’t.


Print page

6 thoughts on “Your Kid is Not Funny

  1. See, maybe it’s true with my boy, but my girl is actually funny. When my boy called a hipster waiter a douche, it was funny, but considering he didn’t really know what he was saying, I’ll give you that one. But if I saw a comedian doing stuff my girl does, I wouldn’t ask for my money back. Maybe not a sophisticated comedian, though…

  2. Well now, I like “Big Bang Theory” funny, but I’ll allow you that opinion, we can agree to disagree there. What I will wholeheartedly agree with you on is that my kid ain’t funny. She *thinks* she’s hilarious, and that I am sadly, irreparably, stupid and oblivious to what IS actually funny. Most of the time, I’m trying NOT to ask her if she fell and hit her head or if she’s had a stroke of some kind because, well, we are supposed to be supportive of our kids, right?

    Hopefully they don’t quit their day jobs. Thanks for the great post!

    1. We can be supportive; like I said, I laugh at my son ALL THE TIME. He’s entertaining and his idiocy leads to many funny moments.

      Besides, he doesn’t know I’m mocking him, at least not until I draw penises on his face when he’s asleep.

  3. This is fantastic! I’ll be spending more time than I should catching up on your older entries. Thanks for stopping by http://askyourdadblog.com. I’ve added you to my blogroll and will be subscribing to your feed. Always nice to meet other like minded dads.

    1. Right back atcha!

      Your blog is the closest I’ve found to mine in terms of tone and topic. In fact, over the past few weeks we’ve blogged about many of the same things. You might be hearing from my lawyers. Once I get some.

  4. LOL…I am not so sure all children aren’t funny on purpose. Children can be comedic because its a learned behavior that they try to emulate and expound on it with their own rules and behaviors. It’s the times the think through to make you laugh on purpose that are comedic. My son will actually get a twinkle in his eye because he has thought things through he knows what he’s getting ready to say or do. That is when a child is comedic.

    Aaron

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.