By David Simmons
As I walked down the soi to our place
in south-central Bangkok the other day after emerging from the taxi
that had brought me home from work, my daughter cruised up on her
bicycle. Pointing to the moon, she said, “It’s nearly full. The
full moon is tomorrow, for Loy Krathong. Loy Krathong is always on
the full moon.”
I suppose a competent dad would have
said something like, “Is that right? Loy Krathong happens on the
full moon?” and complimented her on her knowledge. But I’m not a
competent dad, so I simply replied, “Yes, I know.”
She immediately launched into what has
become a sort of traditional parry between us: “How do you know?”
she asked. “I know everything,” I replied. “Oh yes, you know
everything,” she laughed, and rode off on her bike.
It’s funny how we use humour to
compensate for our weaknesses. I don’t think I can really be blamed
for not knowing how to be an award-winning parent; I didn’t try it
for the first time until I was in my 50s, after nearly a lifetime
dedicated solely to self. Kids are pretty good at dealing with their
parents’ inadequacies, though, and my daughter has learned to use
humour as a survival tool.
Like most kids nowadays, she learned
how to search the Internet before she could read, and I showed her
how to find Mr Bean on YouTube. Not long after that, I introduced her
to one of the great developments of civilization: Monty Python’s
Flying Circus. “The Ministry of Silly Walks” remains one of
her favourites.
My own introduction to humour was a bit
less gentle. When I was very young, after hearing the term “sense
of humour”, I asked my mother what it was. She replied: “Something
you don’t have.”
It’s not surprising, then, brought up
by a woman whose wit consisted of stilettos and sledge-hammers, and
nothing in between, that when I finally did develop a sense of
humour, it was largely as a defence mechanism. A small, skinny, shy,
spotty and bespectacled kid through most of my school life, I was an
obvious target for bullies, but my wit (including, during one stage,
satirical cartoons drawn on classroom blackboards signed by “The
Mystery Humorist”) served to fend them off quite efficiently. I
even managed to befriend some of them (bullies are lonely, too).
Once we survive school and enter
adulthood, we find that all the world’s a tragicomedy. Canadians
understand this better than most, living in a land that is at once
the most privileged on Earth and the most ridiculous. Its three
northern territories alone cover a third more land area than India,
six times that of France, yet only 100,000 people live there. We muse
endlessly about how different we are from Americans, but 90% of us
live within 150 kilometres of the US border. Our climate is so bad
that we travel a lot to warm places, where we see poverty and
injustice, and we return home with gratitude and understanding of how
fortunate we are – and turn up the thermostat. It’s not by
accident that we spawned the likes of Bob and Doug McKenzie, John Candy and Jim
Carrey – or Pierre “Fuddle Duddle” Trudeau.
Even for those of us whose existence is
relatively privileged, life is an obstacle course, littered with
challenges some of which cannot be overcome. Parenthood is one of
these. My daughter’s success, if she achieves it, will be her own
doing, not mine.
But though I can do very little to
prepare her for what lies ahead, at least she knows already that when
we fail, the best we can do is have a good laugh, and move on.
