Colm O'Regan: An elf, a chicken and a slice of toast walk into a bar...

Children invent their own absurd rules of humour and it will most often surpass anything funny an adult can think up

Comedian Colm O'Regan could see his kids inheriting the stand-up comedy genes.

I feel a sense of fatherly pride. To see the children following in their Daddy’s footsteps and tell a joke. Maybe just like my father felt when he saw me in my little white-topped red wellingtons taking my first steps in farming. When I say ‘first steps in farming’ I mean scraping gravel with my heel, waving a stick and running away, screaming, from hens. I was a very nervous toddler, afraid of lots of things as well as hens: cattle, dogs, cattle-dogs, even banana skins.

So my children telling me jokes is already off to a better start. It started with their curiosity about Daddy’s job. “Where is Daddy going?” And in the last year – “what is Daddy doing upstairs.” Since the answer is “Telling jokes to make people laugh.” It seems only natural they’d want to have a go.

So far the genres are familiar. The Knock-Knock joke, the precise nature of the chicken’s business on the other side of the road and why someone went to the doctor. I can’t see those types of jokes ending any time soon. Maybe with the advent of GDPR we will require the explicit consent of chickens and patients before sharing their data, but the structure should stay the same.

Usually, their jokes are rooted in one standard old joke and then they run with it. So when the five-year-old told me the potato went to the doctor because it wasn’t PEELING very well. I genuinely LOLLED. What do elves learn in school? The ELFabet. Again, boom.

The elder child now understands wordplay so these days she stays within the conventions of the jokes. The three-year-old is an auteur. Difficult to work with, unpredictable. 

Years from now, the Guardian will call her an important influence in deconstructed absurdism. Their fawning profile piece will talk about how she has far eclipsed me.

That’s because she tells jokes like: “Why did Mrs Toaster cross the road? Because she wanted to see the Toast Movie.”

I certainly didn’t see that punchline coming. Or the set-up.

But I respect the craft. With the upbringing they’ve had, they’ve done well to overcome adversity. I’ve told jokes like: “I’m really upset that even though I was more qualified, the job I applied for went to someone descended from 18th-century French immigrants. It just goes to show it’s not what you know, it’s Huguenot.” So the further the apple falls from the tree, the better.

Of course, it’s nothing to do with my job. The Two are part of a long history of children telling terrible jokes. Children see jokes being told, they note the reactions and attention it gets and they want a piece of that action. They don’t need to know the rules of humour, just the rhythms. They also like being in control. They have a piece of information that the grownup doesn’t have. Adults are usually the ones with the answers. But this time, Daddy is in the dark about Mrs Toaster’s motives. And this small girl right here has the answer.

Apparently, children telling jokes is a good thing. A sense of humour is important for a child’s mental and physical development. It’s certainly good for me. Because apart from the jokes, there is the license to be silly. And surely silly is one of the best things you can do for yourself: making up words, shouting HORSEY whenever you see a horse, pretending to be The Poo-Monster. Mark my words, it’ll be the new Mindfulness. So if the time comes and they take the stage and gently take the mike from my hands and tell the world that “piggies learn the pigabet in school”, I’ll step aside.