13 Hilarious Stories That Prove Parenting Is a Joke

For my wife and me, knowing how to raise a child was a lot easier before we actually had one, and we could just sit back and mock other people’s parenting skills. But ever since we dipped our toes into parenthood, we’re the ones getting the dubious looks.

Over the years, I’ve learned a lot. Primarily, that raising a kid is no laughing matter. That said, in celebration of both Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, I’ve collected a bunch of jokes that sum up the parenting experience pretty well. From hilarious parenting fails to awkward “birds and the bees” talks, these laugh-out-loud stories are guaranteed to add a dose of humor to your day!

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Parenting comes with worry

The first thing you learn is that parenting is synonymous with worrying. A young couple has their first child. Their joy slowly turns to concern, however, when for three years the child never utters a word. They hire speech therapists, doctors and psychiatrists, but the boy simply refuses to speak. Then one morning when the child is 5, he looks up from his breakfast and says, “My oatmeal’s cold.” The couple is stunned. The man finally speaks. “Son,” he says, “why have you waited so long to say something?” The kid shrugs, “Up till now, everything’s been OK.”

Like father, like son

One reason we worry is that we have no clue what we’re doing. Parenting is the ultimate DIY project. As Jon Stewart put it: “Fatherhood is great because you can ruin someone from scratch.” Here’s an example: A delivery driver knocks on a door, and a little kid—holding a beer and puffing on a cigar—answers. The driver asks, “Are your parents home?” The kid takes the cigar out of his mouth and says, “What do you think?”

Don’t opt out of discipline

Ours was not a strict household. But when discipline needed to be meted out, my wife was judge, jury and executioner. A mother asks her young sons what they want for breakfast. The first little boy says, “I’ll have some @#$%^& pancakes.” The mother angrily sends him to his room for cursing. She glares at the other little boy and asks, “What do you want for breakfast?!” The second boy says, “Well, I sure don’t want the @#$%^& pancakes!”

The birds and the bees

My wife also did time as the resident zoologist. That’s why, when it was time for our young daughter to learn about the birds and the bees, I sloughed the job off onto my wife, then went to the next room to watch the game, turning up the volume a bit more with each “EEEWWW!!!” and “GROSSSSSS!!!”

The unfortunate farmer in this joke didn’t have the same option: A farmer is helping one of his cows give birth when he notices his 5-year-old son standing at the fence, taking in the whole event. Thinking it might be time to broach the whole birds-and-bees topic, he asks, “Well son, do you have any questions?” “Just one,” gasps the wide-eyed boy. “How fast was that calf going when it hit the cow?”

Dad jokes

Honesty is great … except when you’re on the receiving end. One thing that takes some getting used to is just how uncensored young children are. A little girl is rifling through the family photo album. She stops turning pages and asks her mother, “Who’s the good-looking guy on the beach standing with you with all the muscles and the curly hair?” “That’s your father,” the mother says. “Really?” asks the girl. “Then who’s the old, fat, bald man who lives with us now?” But we dads have a way of getting back at our kids—the cornball joke.

• What do you call an alligator in a vest?
  An investigator.
• How do you know when your clockis still hungry?
  It goes back four ­seconds.
• How did the hacker escape the FBI?
  He ransomware.

Michael Witte for Reader's Digest

Mom jokes

Mom jokes, on the other hand, tend to confirm just how tough the job is.

• You know you’re a mom when you understand why Mama Bear’s porridge was too cold.
• Licked a dark smear off my finger and then thought, Phew, it’s chocolate.
• Mom’s recipe for iced coffee: Have kids. Make coffee. Forget you made coffee. Put it in the microwave. Forget you put it in the microwave. Drink it cold.

Spoiled or spoiled

As parents, we love our children enough to turn a blind eye to their foibles. A young father takes a seat on the bus next to an elderly man and plops his 1-year-old on his lap, just as the little boy begins to wail and fidget. The old man glares at the kid before remarking, “That child is spoiled, isn’t he?” “No,” says the distracted father. “They all smell this way.”

Michael Witte for Reader's Digest

Shark 101

The main job of a parent is to keep your brood alive. The second is to teach them the ways of the world. A shark and his son see some people swimming. “First let’s swim around them with our fins barely showing, and then we can eat them.” “Why can’t we eat them now?” the son asks. The shark replies: “Because they taste better without all the poop inside.”

Baptism gone wrong

When teaching fails, we turn to our faith. Toby’s mother stops to watch her son, Johnny, read the Bible to their cat. Isn’t that sweet, she thinks. But an hour later, she hears a terrible racket. She runs out the door to find Johnny stuffing the cat into a bucket of water. “Johnny, what are you doing?” she asks him. “I’m baptizing Muffin,” he replies. “But cats don’t like to be in water.” “Well, then he shouldn’t have joined my church.”

Too much water

Yes, being a parent is a wonderful experience, especially for those who don’t care for sleep. Max the camel walks into his parent’s room at 3 a.m. and asks for a glass of water. “Another one?” says his groggy father. “That’s the second this month.”

Who’s the favorite?

It’s difficult to admit, but in a multi-child household, there is often that chosen child. Yesterday, my mother asked me to hand out the invitations for my ­brother’s surprise birthday party. That’s when I realized he was her favorite twin.

Broken marriage

Being a child isn’t always easy either, especially if your parents split up. “What’s a couple?” I asked my mother. She said, “Two or three.” Which prob­ably explains why the marriage ­collapsed.

Parental coping

Through it all, we love our children. And during the toughest moments we develop coping skills. When my daughter was born, we video­taped the birth. Now, when she makes me angry, I just hit “rewind” and put her back in.

Why trust us

Reader’s Digest has been telling jokes for more than 100 years, curated and reviewed over the last 20 years by Senior Features Editor Andy Simmons, a humor editor formerly of National Lampoon and the author of Now That’s Funny. We’ve earned prestigious ASME awards for our humor—including comical quips, pranks, puns, cartoons, one-liners, knock-knock jokes, riddles, memes, tweets and stories in laugh-out-loud magazine columns such as “Life in These United States,” “All in a Day’s Work,” “Laughter, the Best Medicine” and “Humor in Uniform,” as well as online collections such as short jokes, dad jokes and bad jokes so bad, they’re great. You can find a century of humor in our 2022 compendium, Reader’s Digest: Laughter, the Best Medicine. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.