• LINDA WATSON
At my ten-year-old’s request, I loaded my Rolling Stones tunes onto his iPod.
“I had no idea you liked the Stones,” I said.
“Sure. I like all that old-fashioned music,” he said.
“What do you mean, ‘old-fashioned music’?”
“You know,” he said defensively. “Music from the 1900s.”
• MEG DIETRICH
Our three-year-old daughter was making up a poem when she asked us what rhymed with stop.
My husband said, “Think of something that’s cool and refreshing but that Mom and I don’t let you drink.”
Our daughter knew the answer: “Alcohol!”
• JUDY BERKSETH
* * *
Do you know what you call those who use towels and never wash them, eat meals and never do the dishes, sit in rooms they never clean, and are entertained till they drop? If you have just answered, “A house guest,” you’re wrong because I have just described my kids.
• ERMA BOMBECK
“I’m considering a run for class president. Do we have any skeletons in our closet I should know about?”
My thirteen-year-old nephew thought his “gangsta” outfit–low-riding pants and exposed boxers–made him look cool. That is, until the day his five-year-old cousin took notice. “Nathaniel,” she yelled out in front of everyone. “Your panties are showing.”
• LINDA MCLEMORE
Our six-year-old daughter, Terra, has a need to ask questions . . . lots of questions. Finally, one day, my wife had had it.
“Have you ever heard that curiosity killed the cat?” my wife asked.
“No,” replied Terra.
“Well, there was a cat, and he was very inquisitive. And one day, he looked into a big hole, fell in, and died!”
Terra was intrigued: “What was in the hole?”
• HECTOR BERNASCONI
“Where is Pearl Harbor?” I asked my fourth-grade history class. “Here’s a hint: It’s a place where everyone wants to go.”
One student blurted out, “Candy Land!”
• KARA SILVER
My two sons, Jake and Austin, are a handful. So I wasn’t surprised that Dad looked frazzled after we took them to a football game.
“It will be a cold day in #@%* before we come to another game,” he muttered.
“Did you hear that?” Jake shouted to Austin. “Grandpa’s going to take us to a game in December!”
• DREW SPECHT
While my three-year-old grandson was attending a birthday party, his friend’s father sneaked off to take a shower before work. Halfway through, the father heard a tapping on the shower door, followed by the sight of my grandson peering in. Looking around the stall, he asked, “Is my mom in here?”
• BILLIE CREEL
My sister got a call from her son’s kindergarten teacher. When he’d gone in to check on little James in the bathroom, he noticed the boy was using a urinal. “That’s odd,” my sister said. “We never taught him how to use a urinal.”
“I could tell,” said the teacher. “He was sitting in it.”
• ESTHER OLCHEWSKI
Up on the screen at our local multiplex, the star whispered to his female costar, “I want you to be my mistress.”
“What’s a mistress?” my eight-year-old granddaughter yelled out.
Then the man gave the woman a passionate kiss.
“Never mind,” my granddaughter said.
• LOIS WILKINS
“Daddy,” said my eleven-year-old daughter, “I think I want to join the Army.”
“Baby,” I answered, “I think the Air Force would be a better option for you.”
“But I don’t want to be a pilot.”
“You don’t have to be a pilot,” I told her. “There are other jobs in the Air Force.”
Her answer: “I don’t want to be a flight attendant either.”
• RICHARD STEELE
* * *
Any kid will run an errand for you if you ask at bedtime.
• RED SKELTON
Adults are always asking children what they want to be when they grow up because they’re looking for ideas.
PAULA POUNDSTONE
My mother taught for eleven years at a day-care center. One winter afternoon she was trying to show a young boy how to zip up his coat. “The secret,” Mom said, “is to get this piece of the zipper to fit in the other side before you try to zip it up.”
After struggling with the zipper for several minutes, the boy sighed and said, “Why does it have to be a secret?”
A concerned police officer approaches a boy who is crying in front of a newsstand. “What’s wrong?” the cop asks.
“Superman isn’t out yet!” says the boy.
“I’ll handle it,” the cop assures him. “Hey, Superman!” he shouts. “Come on out! We won’t hurt you!”
• SOURCE: FUNNY IN CROATIA SURVEY
My five-year-old grandson was looking through some old photos when he noticed his grandfather in his Marine dress blues.
“What kind of costume is that?” he asked.
“That’s not a costume,” his grandfather growled. “Men have died for that uniform.”
The boy looked up and said, “So you stole it, then?”
• ARLETTA LEHR
Our family was dazzled by the sights and the bustling crowds during a visit to Manhattan. “This is the city that never sleeps,” I told my eleven-year-old daughter.
“That’s probably because there’s a Starbucks on every corner,” she observed.
• LINDA FOLEY
* * *
Now that I’m a parent, I understand why my father was in a bad mood a lot.
• ADAM SANDLER
My cousin always “borrows” money from her older brother’s piggy bank, which drives him crazy. One day, she found the piggy in, of all places, the freezer. Inside was this note: “Dear sister, I hope you’ll understand, but my capital has been frozen.”
• SOURCE: FUNNY IN CHINA SURVEY
My daughter loved the picture frame her five-year-old son bought her for Mother’s Day. She found a photograph of him and replaced the cat photo that came with it. Landon became upset: “Why are you putting a picture of me in there when I bought you a picture of a cat?”
• LORI FEENEY
When my ex-Marine father-in-law was at my house, our six-year-old neighbor came by to play with my kids.
I asked her if she knew who he was. She looked up at him with her big blue eyes and said, “I don’t remember what his name is, but I know he used to be a submarine.”
• JANELLE RAGLAND
My cousin, a teacher, asked her young students, “Why should you never accept candy from strangers?”
One girl knew. “Because it might be past the sell-by date.”
• CHARLOTTE PRIMROSE
A neighbor finds a young boy sitting on the stairs crying. “What’s the matter, honey?” she asks him.
“It’s my father,” the boy says, sobbing. “He hit his finger with a hammer.”
“Then why are you crying?” she says. “Because first I laughed!” he answers.
• SOURCE: FUNNY IN SERBIA SURVEY
Our friends Dave and Kristen have a precocious three-year-old. One day, Kristen chided Alayna for calling her by her first name.
“Stop calling me Kristen,” she said. “I want you to call me Mommy, not Kristen.”
Alayna looked confused. “But Dave calls you Kristen.”
• BELVA MEEKER
YOUTH IS WASTED ON THE YOUNG
Like all growing boys, my teenage grandson, Jermon, was constantly hungry. I went to my refrigerator to find something he might like to eat. After poking around a bit and moving the milk and juice cartons, I spotted a bowl of leftover chili.
“Hey, Jermon,” I called out excitedly. He came running into the kitchen. “Look! I found some chili.”
Struggling to be polite, he said, “If you’re th
at surprised, I’m not really sure I want it.”
• MARILOU FLORES
When my neighbor’s granddaughter introduced me to her young son, Brian, I said to him, “My grandchildren call me Mimi. Why don’t you call me that too?”
“I don’t think so,” he retorted, and ran off after his mother.
Later I was asked to babysit for Brian, and we hit it off wonderfully. As he snuggled up to me, he said, “I don’t care what your grandchildren say. I love you, Meanie.”
• MARILYN HAYDEN
Being a teenager and getting a tattoo seem to go hand and hand these days. I wasn’t surprised when one of my daughter’s friends showed me a delicate little Japanese symbol on her hip. “Please don’t tell my parents,” she begged.
“I won’t,” I promised. “By the way, what does that stand for?”
“Honesty,” she said.
• LINDA SINGER
As a dental hygienist, I had a family come in one day for cleanings. By the time I was ready for the father, he informed me I had a lot to live up to. His six-year-old daughter kept commenting that a “very smart lady” was cleaning their teeth today.
The father said she kept going on about my intelligence until he finally had to ask what she was basing her opinion on.
The little girl replied, “I heard people in here call her the Dental High Genius.”
• BARBARA GIVENS
“Donny and I are taking a year off to volunteer for the Pizza Corps.”
I overheard my nine-year-old son on the phone with a friend discussing a computer simulation game. The game involved creating a family, a house for them to live in, and so on. My son, an old hand at the game, gave this warning: “Whatever you do, don’t get kids. They don’t bring in any money, and all they do is eat.”
• NICOLE KAULING
What advice do I tell my grandson? I listen to him.
ROBERT HAYNES
My older son loves school, but his younger brother absolutely hates it. One weekend he cried and fretted and tried every excuse not to go back on Monday. Sunday morning on the way home from church, the crying and whining built to a crescendo. At the end of my rope, I finally stopped the car and explained, “Honey, it’s a law. If you don’t go to school, they’ll put Mommy in jail.”
He looked at me, thought a moment, then asked, “How long would you have to stay?”
• TRINA REES
Nothing seems to dim my thirteen-year-old son’s sense of humor. And he’s certainly not above being the butt of his own joke. Shortly after he was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder (ADD), he threw this at me: “Hey Dad–how many ADD children does it take to change a light bulb?”
“I give up,” I said.
“Let’s go ride our bikes.”
• RICHARD HURD
The orthodontist and his assistants were removing my ten-year-old son’s dental appliance. Because it was cemented to his upper teeth, they had to use some pressure to release it. When it finally popped out, three of his baby teeth came out as well.
My boy was horrified when he saw the gaps. “Well,” he said to the staff gathered around him, “Who do I see about getting dentures?”
• KIM JAWORSKI
My friend Esther told me about her son’s fifth-grade career day, where the children were asked, “Who knows what a psychiatrist does?”
Esther’s son replied, “That’s someone who asks you to lie down on a couch and then blames everything on your mother.”
• CARLA GATES
I was not thrilled with the idea of letting my clueless thirteen-year-old son babysit his younger sisters, even though he begged me to.
“What about a fire?” I asked, referring to my No. 1 concern.
“Mom,” he said, rolling his eyes, “I’m a Boy Scout. I know how to start a fire.”
• JO WALKER
My nine-year-old and I passed a store with a sign that read “Watch Batteries Installed–$5.”
He seemed confused: “Who would pay to watch batteries installed?”
• DEB MORRIS
As a dentist, I recently tried out a new chocolate-flavored pumice paste on my patients. No one liked it except for a six-year-old boy. While I polished his teeth, he continued to smile and lick his lips. “You must really like this new flavor,” I said.
“Yep,” he replied, nodding with satisfaction. “It tastes just like the time I dropped my candy bar in the sandbox.”
• JEFFERY K. LEIBFORTH, DDS
IT’S A KID’S WORLD
“Kids say the darndest things.”
My two sons and I were on our first white-water rafting trip. Just before a particularly nasty-looking stretch, the guide asked if anyone would like to swim the rapids. I was relieved when my seven-year-old passed, but dismayed to see my nine-year-old raise his hand. I opted, naturally, to go with him, and, safely outfitted in life jackets and helmets, we overcame our fears and swam that stretch of the river.
Later, as we changed into dry clothes back at camp, I felt such pride at what my son had accomplished that I put my arm around him and said, “You know, son, if you can swim the rapids, you can do anything in life.”
“Cool!” he exclaimed. “Can I drive home?”
• TOM GILLESPIE
The night before I was to have major surgery, our nine-year-old son became worried.
“I’m scared, Mom. What if the doctor makes a mistake?”
I calmly explained that the doctor had years of experience and mistakes were unlikely.
“But what if he does?” Jeremy persisted.
“Then he’d be in a lot of trouble,” I gently teased.
“You mean we could sue him,” Jeremy brightened, “and I could get a new bike?”
• ARLENE M. RAUTIAINEN
My grandson, Carsen, was born with strabismus, an eye disorder. At the age of two and a half, he could speak but he was still too young to identify letters. The eye doctor therefore presented him with an eye chart made up of familiar objects such as a ball, a cat, and so on.
When the optometrist pointed to a simple drawing of an automobile, Carsen turned red with embarrassment and said he didn’t know what it was. This was surprising because Carsen was a car fanatic and took pride in knowing the makes and models. He also had a large collection of matchbox toy cars.
The perplexed doctor knew the boy could see the image because he had already identified much smaller objects on the chart. “I’m sure you know what this is,” he said.
With a soft stammer, Carsen answered, “Porsche?”
• GERALD JAKOVAC
* * *
Just go up to somebody on the street and say “You’re it!” and then run away.
• ELLEN DEGENERES
When I was a little kid we had a sand box. It was a quicksand box. I was an only child . . . eventually.
STEVEN WRIGHT
When my daughter was seven months pregnant with a baby girl, she took my four-year-old grandson Filipe with her for an ultrasound. She explained that he was going to see his baby sister in mommy’s belly. At the doctor’s office, Filipe looked on radiantly while the ultrasound was made. When they arrived home, his mother, tired, sat on the sofa.
Filipe said: “I want to speak to my baby sister.”
“Speak then,” his mother replied.
“Okay,” he said. “Open wide.” He then called into his mother’s gaping mouth: “Hello, sis!”
• HENRIQUE QUINTAS
We recently had to take our five-year-old son to the emergency room for an injury to his wrist from playing rugby. While we were waiting to see the doctor, a nurse came and asked if he had any allergies. I replied that he didn’t have any.
“But Mom!” my son piped up. “I’m allergic to salad!”
• REBECCA KIRK
When his two front teeth fell out within days of each other, my six-year-old son, Joey, was delighted by a quick and profitable succession of visits from the Tooth Fairy. However, the novelty of having a wide g
ap in his smile quickly paled. Not long after, while my husband was tucking him into bed, he found two coins under Joey’s pillow. When he asked what the coins were for, Joey replied firmly, “I want my teeth back.”
• KAREN RITCHIE
We took our children to a restaurant named The Captain’s Table. Our eldest wanted to go to the bathroom, but soon returned confused and embarrassed.
“Couldn’t you find the way?” I asked him.
“Yes, I could,” he replied on the verge of tears, “but I don’t know if I’m a buccaneer or a wench.”
• TRACY FRY
Friends of ours were just finishing their dinner one late-spring evening when suddenly they heard the chimes of the first ice cream truck of the season. Their nine-year-old son jumped up from the table and raced to the front door, hollering to his sister: “I’ll go stop the truck. You stay here and beg.”
• IRENE SWANTON
When my youngest son started school, I brought him to the optometrist. He was very quiet on the way over, so I asked if anything was worrying him. He stoically replied, “I was just wondering if it hurts when they take your eyes out to examine them.”
• LOUISE FRAPPIER
* * *
I had the worst birthday party ever when I was a child because my parents hired a pony to give rides. And these ponies are never in good health. But this one dropped dead. It just wasn’t much fun after that. One kid would sit on him and the rest of us would drag him around.
• RITA RUDNER
We recently brought our four-year-old daughter along to a doctor’s appointment for my wife, who is expecting. The doctor placed a monitor on my wife’s stomach, and we could hear the sound of a heartbeat.
“That’s your little brother,” I told our daughter.
“I know!” she replied. “Those are his footsteps.”
• TOM ALBIG
SCHOOL
DAYS
“I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about EVERYTHING.”
Reader's Digest Funny Family Jokes Page 6