Children as Agents, Targets, and Intermediaries of Family Humour

Abstract

The paper focuses on the humour produced by, aimed at, or referring to children in family communication. It seeks to establish which roles children play in family’s humorous communication, and how these roles reflect their agency in the interactions with parents. The research results show that much of family humour is generated by children either consciously or unconsciously. Many of children’s idiosyncratic words that provoke laughter when they are originally uttered can go on to form long-standing jokes in family folklore, sometimes losing some of their humorous flavour but still being cherished by adults as children grow up and stop using them. Plenty of family humour is also generated at children’s expense. This aspect of family humour highlights the different power dynamics between children and their parents, some of whom tend to playfully tease their children to a greater extent than they do each other. However, when parents do laugh at one another, children may be mentioned as a point of reference: being compared to a child often means being a target of family humour. Humorous family folklore does not only assign children the roles of subjects, objects or intermediaries of jokes. It is also used by parents didactically, helps families to bond and can both reinforce and challenge power dynamics in family interactions. Finally, by referring to children metaphorically in family jokes, adults maintain the generalized image of children that exists in popular imagination.