I’ve known for many years now that dyslexics (or those with ‘reading/spelling de-coding impairment’ – or whatever you want to call it) don’t get on too well with sarcasm. They tend to hear and perceive everything literally; especially when they’re kids. As the child gets older, the ability to pick-up faster on sarcasm increases, but it seems that this is certainly one form of humour – apparently the ‘lowest form’ – that tends to be rather unhelpful for dyslexics.
Bit of a bummer then, that my daughter ended up with us as parents.
But, hey – recently, it seemed to me that my early-teen daughter seems to have mastered the art of sarcasm at last. She’s been whipping it out in relation to anything and everything, including my fantastic dress sense, her father’s happy-go-lucky nature and her little brother’s aptitude for patience and maturity. So much so, that I’ve recently felt that I’ve been able to let my guard down a little bit, myself. But now I have to concede that I was perhaps wrong to do this.
Witness a conversation of this week – between my other half and me, and our daughter – who wasn’t meant to be involved, but who came downstairs – to check to see if there happened ‘to be any Doritos lying around’ (the usual euphemism for earwigging).
ME: Yeah. To be honest, the reason I dumped the ‘Literature’ side of my degree was because I couldn’t be doing with all of the ‘hidden meanings,’ in everything that we had to read. All of that sub-textual stuff – half of it was made up by randy lecturers, I reckon. Sex-obsessed!
HIM: Yeah, I can imagine. I mean, you were at Birmingham University. My home town. It has that effect on people.
ME: Yup, Birmingham – what an aphrodisiac effect. Anyway – that lot … those lecturers, they just read sex into anything and everything. Eurgh. They did my head in, they really did. It was all about Freud. Ruined my enjoyment of the reading list…. that Freud – he has a lot to answer for.
DAUGHTER: (deciding to chip-in). Freud? Who’s Freud?
ME: Oh … Freud. You know Freud. Surely you know Freud!
DAUGHTER: No. Or I wouldn’t have asked. Who is he?
HIM: Come on … you know Freud – ‘course you do!
DAUGHTER: No. I. Don’t! Who’s Freud?
ME: (Appalled that she doesn’t know who Freud is. And that she has hi-jacked my fascinating conversation). Freud? Well …
HIM: ‘Course she knows!
DAUGHTER: I don’t! Who is he?
ME: (am getting exasperated as trying to make several packed lunches, pay the milkman and sort the recycling out, all at the same time) – oh … flippin’ Freud. Just some bloke who lived on our street.
DAUGHTER: So – what’s the big deal about him?
HIM: Well, Freud – just saw ‘sex’ in everything, didn’t he?
ME: Yeah – tell him that you prefer a sausage roll to an omelette and he’d have your sex life totally sorted out for you.
HIM: Yeah – he was the most famous of all the psychoanalysts or whatever you call ‘em. You know about psychoanalysis?
ME: Or psychiatry, or psychology…
DAUGHTER: Yeah, yeah – ‘course I do.
ME: Well, Freud was kind of the leader of it all – the inventor of modern psychoanalysis, if you like. So, all over the world – everyone knows who he is. An entire industry was based on his findings. One of the most famous people ever.
DAUGHTER: Really? And he grew up on the same street as you?
There was a moment of silence. Thankfully, followed by a good laugh – after the penny dropped. So, I allowed my daughter to scoff the Doritos – as long as she promised never to study literature at university – and I was then humbly reminded that “sarcasm is the lowest form of humour and not in line with your usual positive parenting techniques.”
Not sure if that was sarcasm or not.
(photos – courtesy of Pinterest)