This is part 2 in a series that explores the origins of Jokes to Offend Men. Beginning in the broadest sense, last week I talked about my early run-ins with the patriarchy, namely a 13-year-old boy with crusty hair named Brendan Holmes.
This week I’m back to talk about another early and enduring influence, my family. And this time the influence is positive! As I wrote in the acknowledgements of the book, I thank my family for showing me how to find the humorous silver lining in every situation. The subtext there is that things growing up weren’t always good, but (mostly) they were funny. This survival skill that has served me well, it’s also made me some very good friends. Humor was how my family communicated, it’s what bonded us, and yes it’s also what enabled our avoidant tendencies but hey, we tried.
My parents would tell you they are not particularly creative people (though they are very proud to have somehow raised creative kids). Before they retired, my mom worked as a special education teacher and my dad operated an industrial printing press in a factory that manufactured labels for consumer packaged goods (most memorably, shampoo labels.) They had physically demanding jobs that they did not get paid enough for and when they came home they still had to deal me and my brother.
Naturally, the grievances of the day would spill into the nighttime. But instead of pure, anger, my dad found a to make a funny story out of each workplace indignity (something you could argue is the thrust of the joke book). For example, being asked to be on the company’s safety committee by a manager who was never around and did not actually care about the safety of their employees. My dad would tell stories about him and his coworkers heckling the manager. I wanted my dad to be the hero of the story. It delighted me.
(Note: My dad did not work at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant and his boss was not Montgomery Burns, but since I actually never visited him at the factory, in my imagination, they are one in the same.)
Reflecting on it now, class was a big theme in a lot of my early understanding of humor. Through my dads’ eyes, I saw it as a way to take back some small amount of power from the establishment. He often laughed at the absurdity of the situation he was in, because what else could he do? You could argue, uh several other things, probably healthier things, but these are the tools he had and what he passed on to me.
My mom is an exceptionally empathetic person with a profession that reflects that. She dedicated her life to helping toddlers with special needs, readying them for eventual entry into their town’s school system. Like my dad, she also understood the unfairness of life and regularly worked with parents navigating an uncertain future. She loved the children, she loved their parents, but I’m sure it was heavy.
So you take that, combined with the deep insecurity of just being a first-generation woman who came of age in the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, in an extremely patriarchal culture that valued men (including her two brothers) over women, and it would be surprising if you weren’t incredibly self-loathing. Mix that with humor and you get…self-deprecation, ladies and gentleman. The bedrock on which I stand.
Since therapy, I’ve come to understand the limits of self-deprecation, namely that it’s not great for your self-esteem. But! I’d rather of had parents who could laugh at themselves instead of take it out on me. Is that the alternative? I don’t know.
Years ago, in the early days of the internet, my mom and I booked a little rental cabin in Maine for our annual summer vacation. It was dicey but we had faith. Except when we got up there, an 8 hour drive later, the place was a dump, completely misrepresented on the website. One cabin had recently burned down and the charred remains haunted us as we drove past. That whole trip was foggy, we couldn’t see anything. On our last night we saw Seabiscuit?? lol. It was terrible, but we laughed about it. We still laugh about it.
About me: I’m a Brooklyn-based writer, deeply inspired by the 18 years I spent growing up in the Connecticut suburbs during the 90s and early 2000s. My first book, Jokes to Offend Men, is out this October. Pre-order now!