Adults ‘joking’ with kids

DEAR MISS MANNERS >> Since the birth of my daughter five years ago, I have become aware of a tendency in adults, especially older adults, to treat children as the butt of jokes, often demanding a response. When we had to call a tow truck last year, the driver repeatedly ribbed my daughter about crashing the car, jokingly pretending she was the driver. When she later asked me how she should have responded, I had no idea.

When she was a toddler, her own grandfather seemed to make fun of the fact that she ate anything at all. I really couldn’t explain why he thought it was funny. When she ate, he would just go into a mock chewing routine and laugh.

We witnessed some adults teasing a 4-yearold for allegedly having the same name as a princess (though not one we had ever heard of). They kept asking, “Where’s your crown?” until she stated that she didn’t have one and walked away.

What are adults hoping to extract from children with lines like these? How on earth are children meant to respond?

GENTLE READER >> Why anyone feels the need to tease people or state the obvious is beyond Miss Manners, but clearly this phenomenon is not confined to children. Unfortunately, they just tend to be easier targets for amateur comedians.

However, as your last example demonstrates, children generally lack the filter to censor themselves when asked silly questions, and are therefore mostly capable of adequate defense. When the children are old enough to control these impulses, a parent would do well to teach them the “weak smile” (closed, upturned lips accompanied by a serious stare). While technically polite, when done correctly it conveys the proper amount of weariness to halt further unwanted teasing. This gesture will undoubtedly get them through myriad unfunny and unwelcome quips and conversations that, as humans, they will likely have to endure for a long time to come.