Dad jokes: Embarrassment or pedagogical tool?

In this issue, we look at research into that most middle-aged of phenomena – the ‘dad joke’. While the dads among us delight in reeling off these corny puns to our children or significant others, could they actually serve a hidden purpose, other than eliciting eye-rolls from our loved ones? A researcher at the British Psychological Society suggests that they may in fact help to prepare our children for adulthood.

While dad jokes are generally considered simplistic and corny, researcher Dr Marc Hye-Knudsen wrote in a 2023 article in The Psychologist that they deserve a little more attention.

Let’s face it – dad jokes are a bit dumb. Exhibit A: ‘I just found out I’m colour-blind. The news came out of the purple!’ If you have ever tried a joke like that on one of your kids, please take your place in the dock. However, Dr Hye-Knudsen wrote about the possible pedagogical value of a well-delivered dad joke: “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,” he wrote.

He contends that there are three levels to the dad joke: As puns, as anti-humour, and as a kind of weaponised anti-humour, with the latter to be utilised at times when we really want to annoy the offspring. He describes these puns as being “distinguished by being inoffensive puns that only violate the pragmatic norm against ambiguity and nothing else”. In other words, one of their characteristics is that they, you could say, first do no harm. It’s this inoffensive nature that makes dad jokes so irresistible to inflict on our children.

The urge to break conventions, even in humour, has a long history – one that scholars have debated since the time of the ancient Greeks.

The universal appeal of the dad joke is a testament to its longevity – while this type of joke was traditionally considered an Anglo-American phenomenon, the concept is also popular in Japan, where that type of humour is referred to as oyaji gyagu, or ‘old men’s jokes’. The Danes too have their versions, known as ‘uncle humour’ or ‘grandfather jokes’.

The author contends that fathers have a natural tendency to challenge their children in cognitive and physical development and this may serve a purpose: “Ideally, fathers’ rougher style of joking fulfils a similar function. By teasingly striking at their children’s egos and emotions without teetering over into bullying, fathers build their children’s resilience and train them to withstand minor attacks and bouts of negative emotion without getting worked up or acting out, teaching them impulse control and emotional regulation….” he wrote.

“In light of this, it is worth considering dad jokes as a pedagogical tool that may serve a beneficial function for the very children who roll their eyes at them. By continually telling their children jokes that are so bad that they’re embarrassing, fathers may push their children’s limits for how much embarrassment they can handle.”

In other words, “they show their children that embarrassment isn’t fatal.”

So, go ahead and violate the norms of humour by subjecting your loved ones to a few dad jokes. You might just be doing them a service.