Keep Your Sense of Humour
Parents need to be strong, flexible, resilient, wise, fair, patient, consistent, understanding, forgiving, tolerant, compassionate, mind readers – you can probably think of more qualities to being a reasonably good parent. Wisdom? I am still waiting for that to come. Then again, I tell myself that is the criteria of true wisdom.
An essential quality to add is having a sense of humour – and being able to keep it. Although, there is that
old joke that goes something like, “If you can keep your sense of humour – you don’t really understand the situation”. My mother used to say, “You might as well laugh as cry”. Later, when times were tough, I used to say, "As long as I still
have my sense of humour, all is not lost”. My childhood having been what I refer to as a ‘hard row to hoe’, I do tend to have a serious disposition so my sense of humour is not always obvious.
My daughter used to tell me that I didn’t have a sense of humour at all. Later, as she matured, she informed me that I had developed a sense of humour, but what did really make me laugh was when she added that I had acquired my sense of humour ‘FROM HER'!! Then, when I thought about it, perhaps there was some truth in that, because as she matured, I had become more relaxed around her. I recall an occasion when we were at a local hospital ER after I had a silly incident with a
motorbike. I was hobbling along the corridor to a bathroom, with my dangling jeans half cut off me, leaning on my daughter for support. There we were in the hospital corridor, like a pair of giggling schoolgirls – and it dawned on me that my daughter had never before heard me really laugh.
Parenting is a serious, responsible role, but we should never forget that we need to share a laugh with our kids. We need to be responsible role models, but we also need to be role models that teach them to see that life can also be
fun and if we can see the humour even in tough situations, ‘all is not lost’.
An essential quality to add is having a sense of humour – and being able to keep it. Although, there is that
old joke that goes something like, “If you can keep your sense of humour – you don’t really understand the situation”. My mother used to say, “You might as well laugh as cry”. Later, when times were tough, I used to say, "As long as I still
have my sense of humour, all is not lost”. My childhood having been what I refer to as a ‘hard row to hoe’, I do tend to have a serious disposition so my sense of humour is not always obvious.
My daughter used to tell me that I didn’t have a sense of humour at all. Later, as she matured, she informed me that I had developed a sense of humour, but what did really make me laugh was when she added that I had acquired my sense of humour ‘FROM HER'!! Then, when I thought about it, perhaps there was some truth in that, because as she matured, I had become more relaxed around her. I recall an occasion when we were at a local hospital ER after I had a silly incident with a
motorbike. I was hobbling along the corridor to a bathroom, with my dangling jeans half cut off me, leaning on my daughter for support. There we were in the hospital corridor, like a pair of giggling schoolgirls – and it dawned on me that my daughter had never before heard me really laugh.
Parenting is a serious, responsible role, but we should never forget that we need to share a laugh with our kids. We need to be responsible role models, but we also need to be role models that teach them to see that life can also be
fun and if we can see the humour even in tough situations, ‘all is not lost’.