It’s probably not the sort of response they were expecting when the school gave my son a commemorative coin to mark the Queen’s 90th birthday.
Still. Five year-olds say the funniest things.
Of all the things about being a parent, I’m going to stick my neck out and say that ‘watching your children first discover the rudiments of a sense of humour’ is one of the most rewarding – and fascinating. Some sort of process obviously goes on: here, once he’d surmounted that moment of doubt that I might be laughing at him and not with him, he was delighted with his one-liner. Now, the doubt is mine: has he picked up on the black humour of the inappropriate juxtaposition between the celebratory gift and his stated cynical intents? Or have I simply taught him that saying horrible things about elderly ladies is funny?
If he IS starting to discover his own sense of humour then that would be great, and I can finally lob his ‘Mr. Tumble’s Big Book of Jokes’ in the bin.