Good News!

[This cat has no sense of humor, which is a problem for all of us.]

Sandra Boynton has another album out, or almost out. Scroll down through the whole article to see BB King singing The Song of Sunday Morning–I can’t find my other shoe. I mean, that’s not what the called is actually called, but somehow the words coming out of King’s mouth are the exact replica of every single Sunday morning for me for the last fifteen years.

Truly, I mean, I’m sure your houses are all awash in Boynton board books. If you are working up your collection of children’s literature, you should not neglect this cornerstone, this solid rock upon which to build up your reading life with children. My favorite is Where’s My Binket, but I use I’ve Got a Cat Named Bob to discern the humeric inclincations of my children.

I mean, we worry so much about math, reading, character development, adulting, mental health, STEM, test scores, healthy lunches, depression. But the thing that we, and by we I probably mean you, don’t worry enough about is humor.

So neglected in modern childhood is Education to Humor. Are your children funny? What are you doing to make them funny? What strategies do you have to work on their bad comedic timing? Do they have a good assortment of jokes at their disposal? Do they know how to poke fun at themselves? Can they lighten awkward situations with a pun?

Of course, if your own sense of humor is underdeveloped, you will need to work on that first before you can deal with the terrible overseriousness of your children. And if there is one thing that children have a propensity to, it’s to take themselves deeply seriously.

And doesn’t it seem, really, that children have led the cultural way? If you go watch YouTube clips of young people shouting at other people, both angry and deeply grieved that anyone would question them, or disagree with them, or do anything but pat and console the vacuity of who they are, don’t you want to laugh? But the real remedy would be for them to know how to laugh at themselves.

This is one of the funniest and best times to be alive. When all the world is beclowning itself, you should stop and have a good chuckle, because clowns are supposed to be funny…not scary.

And now, if you will excuse me, I had better go and weep gently into my tea cup. I mean weep with laughter. Gently. Pip pip.