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August 28, 2024 12 mins

With Father's Day just around the corner, Justin & Kylie go head to head in a battle for gold in the UFC (Ultimate Father Comedy) before stepping back in time to discover the origins of the comedy equivalent of comfort food: the "Dad Joke"! 

Humour can be a quick and easy way to build connection with your kids; but don't just rely on a good dad joke to get the fun flowing! Learn what else you can do to help your kids feel seen, heard, and valued this Father's Day and beyond.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
It's The Happy Family's Podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just
wants answers.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Now, it's Father's Day, this coming Sunday in Australia, and well,
I'm excited about it. I love Father's Day. I love
it when the kids come and climb it a bed
and give me hugs and wrestle me and push me
out of the bed. Father's Day is a day where, hopefully,
if your family is doing well, you can really celebrate
the days in your life. And you know what Dad

(00:32):
always says when you say what do you want for
Father's Day? He always says nothing. I don't want anything.
I just want to have some nice quality time with
the kids, nice feet or two and that'll be about it.
Let's keep it low key, let's keep it relaxed. That's
a hint, by the way, a big hint from me
today in The Happy Family's Podcast, it's a two parter.

(00:53):
Part one, we're going to look at the history of
dad jokes and Kylie and I have a little bet going.
The bet is that I'll be a to make Kylie
laugh more than she'll be able to make me laugh
with three of the very best dad jokes that we've
been able to either recall from our growing up or
that we've been able to find as we've scoured the internet. Incidentally, Kylie,
did your dad have a classic dad joke that you

(01:13):
used to hear over and over again?

Speaker 2 (01:15):
No, I don't think my dad was ever into dad jokes.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
Well, I have a few. I got them from my
dad and I've passed them down to our children and
I'm hoping that they will pass them to their children.
My favorite one driving along the road honk the horn.
The kids say, why'd you honk?

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Dad?

Speaker 1 (01:30):
And I say, saw a cow? Say kiddo, to which
they reply, what's a cow say? And I laughingly respond,
move been doing it for well, I've been doing it
for twenty five years with our kids, but my dad
from the time I was a kiddo. That was the joke.

(01:52):
And the other one, the other classic dad one, is Hey, Dad,
I'm hungry, to which Dad replies.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
You don't look hungry.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
I believe you said that. That's not what Dad saying. See,
this is why you're a mum, not a dad. Every
dad who has a child who says Dad, I'm hungry
or Dad, I'm bored, Dad looks at the kid and says, Hi, hungry,
I'm Dad. I can't believe that you've missed that one.
This is going to be a long podcast, so okay,
So Part one we're going to talk We're going to

(02:21):
talk about the history of dad jokes. Part two we're
going to talk about creating connection with your kids if
you're a dad or you know what, just creating connection
with your kids, but especially in light of Father's Day.
So would you like to know, Kylie, the history of
dad jokes?

Speaker 2 (02:37):
Whether I do or not, I'm going to find out.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
So dad joke has been around. I mean, a dad
joke is just to play on words. It's a pun,
it's cheesy, it's intentionally meant to transgress or violate some
sort of language convention. But it's also really safe and
it just shows that dad's got some humor or whoever's
doing the dad joke has got that little bit of humor.
The classic joke, which is not really a dad joke,

(03:01):
but the classic joke, why did the Chicken cross the
road to get to the other side? Guess what year
that was first published?

Speaker 2 (03:10):
Well, it was Well and Sully around when I was
a little girl. Well and truly Yeah, so I'm going
to say the nineteen.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
Fifties, eighteen forty seven, what yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean,
the history of jokes is fascinating. But over time, dad
jokes have become increasingly popularized, especially into the nineteen hundreds.
In the twentieth century, dad jokes went from they weren't
just corny punchlines. They actually became cultural currency. And this

(03:38):
idea of building puns in one line is into predictable jokes.
But that's the point. The point of dad joke is connection,
not complexity. The whole idea of humor is to draw
people towards us. And then in the nineteen eighties, the
dad joke became a thing. It became a badge of uncoolness.
But here's the twist, the uncool became unstoppable. And now,

(04:04):
if you're fast forward to today, dad jokes are literally
a cultural phenomenon, their memes, their merchandise. They're the glue
that binds generations. Why because in a world that's obsessed
with being edgy, dad jokes are just this beautiful, welcome
dose of wholesome, predictable humor. It's the comedy equivalent of
comfort food, and we cannot get enough so that is

(04:26):
my very brief history of dad jokes after doing I know.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
You say we can't get enough, but I definitely had
my fast share.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
You're so funny. Where is your sense of human Okay?
Three dad jokes each, three dad jokes each. You go first.
The whole object is to get me to laugh. You go,
then me, then you, then me. Okay, I'm ready. You're
laughing and you haven't even killed any one yet. Let's
hear it.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
What do you call cheese that isn't yours?

Speaker 1 (04:55):
I don't know, natcha cheese, nutcha cheese that was that
was really bad, but your delivery got a really big
smile out of me.

Speaker 2 (05:06):
You're harsh.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
You want to hear my one?

Speaker 2 (05:08):
No, not really.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
I'm reading a book about anti gravity. It's impossible to
put down. You're trying to hold it in. I can
tell by the look on your face. Okay, go again.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
Okay, what do you call a person who never farts
in bubblo?

Speaker 1 (05:26):
I can't believe you're asking me a question. You call
a person who I'm laughing already and I haven't even
heard the answer.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
A private tutor, A private tutor.

Speaker 1 (05:40):
A private tutor. The question was funnier than the answer.
I think you have to have an American accent for
that one. Not working for me. I told my wife
she was drawing her eyebrows too high. She looked surprised.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
You're so bad. So good?

Speaker 1 (06:00):
All right, come on, last one, last one? Yep? Do
you sound like you want to keep this going? All
of a sudden? Was the Sandwick because the sea weed?
I remember that one from when I was about eight.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
I never heard that one. Okay, well, I have to
have another one because you already near that one.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
No, no, no, no no.

Speaker 2 (06:17):
I think the scarecrow went an award.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
I was outstanding in its field, all right. Last one,
last one. I'm afraid for the calendar. It's days a number.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
Boom boom.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
Oh gosh, gee, you literally cannot laugh at any of
my jokes. I think that's so funny. What about our ceilings?
You like our ceiling? I mean, I'm not saying it's
the best in the world, but sure is up there.
Did you hear about the cheese that went to the gym?

Speaker 2 (06:43):
It got shredded? I kept your day job, all right?

Speaker 1 (06:47):
After break, we're going to talk about how you can
build connection with your kids. This Father's Day. All right, Kylie,
the jokes were a dismal failure, at least on my part.
I thought I thought I picked some really good ones.
I really liked my dad jokes. You didn't like them
at all. Did you hear about the kidnapping at school?

Speaker 2 (07:10):
What kind of dog come from the bathroom?

Speaker 1 (07:12):
Let's first to be talking about other stuff here, Boodle,
Oh that's gross. Did you hear about the kidnapping at school?

Speaker 2 (07:20):
It was?

Speaker 1 (07:20):
Okay? He woke up. You're laughing at that one? You
like that one?

Speaker 2 (07:24):
No, I'm not laughing, all right.

Speaker 1 (07:27):
So so stop reading. We're doing a podcast here. We
need to talk about building connection. We need to talk
about building connection with kids. I'm going to go over
a couple of things real quick. You can add some
color where you want. We're going to wrap this one
up nice and quickly, because we talk about connection all
the time. First of all, definition connection means feeling seen,
hurt and valued. Okay, that's what we're looking for. How
do you build a relationship that feels connective, That is,

(07:49):
that feels like you and your children are both feeling seen,
hurt and valued in that relationship. Kids love to im
quality time together that is it, playing sports, going for hikes,
playing board games around the table or card games around
the table, cooking together, watching a movie and talking about
it afterwards. Playing push Dad off the bed, which is
what the kids have really started to enjoy with me lately,

(08:11):
when we used to play it years ago, and then
phones got in the way, and we've got rid of phones,
and all of a sudden, things are so much better.
Quality time, Quality time, t Im. That's how love is spelt.

Speaker 2 (08:20):
Just the other day, I was talking to her eldest, Chanelle,
who just acknowledged that.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
And she's in her mid twenties now with her own
child and husband like living her life.

Speaker 2 (08:30):
She actually just mentioned that she thinks that each of
her siblings, including herself, just crave time with you because
it's such it's almost a novelty. Mum is there all
the time, she's in the kitchen, she's you know, kind
of doing all of the running around a lot of
the time.

Speaker 1 (08:48):
For it is worth I get in the kitchen and
just some running around as well. But your point is
that dads are often often less present than mums, not always,
but often less present mums.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
And it just made me think about my experiences as
I was growing up and the acknowledgment that spending time
with dad was a novelty, but it was also the
thing that I longed for the most.

Speaker 1 (09:11):
One of our friends, Rob, he passed away. I don't know,
like ten twelve years ago. Now he wasn't I think
he'd just reached fifty or he wasn't quite fifty. But
I remember distinctly. Rob used to make a point of
sitting on the couch with nothing to do whenever he could, Like,
he just sit down on the couch in the living room.
And it wasn't because he was lazy. It was because
he knew that the kids would walk through the living

(09:33):
room and see him there, and they'd come and sit
beside him and start talking. He didn't intrude on them,
but he made himself available. And because we're going back
that far, phones weren't really an issue, and so the
kids would they'd walk through the living room and see
him and say, oh hey, Dad, and he'd say watch
up to and then come and sit down and he'd
have that one on one time. He was just so present.
And I wrote about it in one of my books
because I was so impressed with that second thing emotional connection, listening,

(09:57):
actively listening, showing interest, asked him about their their friends,
their interests. I guess that's an extension of what I
was talking about with Rob. And the third and final
thing that I want to highlight. I mean, we could
talk about so many things outdoor adventures and family traditions
and just being involved in their lives and participating in
school assemblies and things. But the last thing that I
want to highlight kind of brings our podcast full circle,

(10:18):
and that is finding opportunities to laugh and have fun.
The more I've been thinking about this over the last
couple of months, following on from a seminar that I
ran where I was asked this question, how do I
connect better with my kids? There's all these really sensible answers,
but I feel like the best connections happen when we
just are enjoying one other's company, when we're laughing, when

(10:39):
we're telling bad jokes, when we're wrestling, when we're having fun,
when they're smiles in our faces, and we're just fully
in the moment, fully present.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
I read an article recently and I shared it with you.
I can't remember where I read it or.

Speaker 1 (10:53):
Even overload of information a lot.

Speaker 2 (10:55):
Of all the details, but I do remember the acknowledgment
that the bonding that takes place between a mother and
child is that of a nurturing and as mothers nurture children,
you get this massive dose of oxytocin on both sides.

Speaker 1 (11:15):
All that bonding.

Speaker 2 (11:16):
Yeah, But for dads and kids, it's not the nurturing
where they receive that oxytocin boost. It's when they have
fun together. It's that energy of coming together and laughing
and wrestling, and it's the physicality of that relationship that
increases the level of bond.

Speaker 1 (11:36):
So as we head towards Father's Day this weekend, for
our Australian audience, at least, we really hope that there's
lots of laughter, there's lots of play, there's lots of bonding,
and that you have a wonderful day. Thanks so much
for listening to the Happy Families podcast produced by Justin
Ruland from Bridge Media. If you'd like more information about
how to make your family happier, we've got this really
cool newsletter, free advice, evidence based, reassuring and pointing you

(11:59):
in the right direction to make families stronger. Sign up
for it at Happy families, dot com, dot au hm,
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