Children Are Still Children

The other day my nephew asked my mother “who was the best looking baby ever?” I piped up before my mother could say anything “me of course”.  Well, Christopher was not accepting that answer and kept pressing my mother.  Since she had three of her children sitting at the table looking anxiously at her she said “all my kids were the best looking babies” which pleased us but made her 2 grandchildren laugh.

            When my parents started going to the Burns’ Christmas parties Jeanette and I would watch my mother get dressed.  She’d fuss quite a long time over her hair (God forbid that she ever go anywhere without perfect hair) and then she would put on the dress that she had made for the occasion (my mother was a fantastic seamstress) and finally she would put on her best jewellery, all Danish gold, of course.  I would then take a picture of my parents before they headed off to their annual night out.

            The next day we would get a recount of what happened at the party, how many people got drunk (everyone but my parents, of course) and who was the best looking couple there (my parents of course).  Well, my parents were an extraordinarily good looking couple, no doubt about that, but we always used to chuckle behind their backs about that comment.  Then when I was 18 I went off to Denmark to visit my family for several months.  When my mother’s father would take me around to visit that side of the family he would push me forward and boast “she looks like me and my family” the implication being that we were all next door to Elizabeth Taylor in beauty.  When I finally got home again I told my parents “now I know where you get it from.  Morfar sure isn’t shy about bragging on good looks”.

            The funny thing is that both my married sisters and my married brother would come from whatever function they had been at and say the exact same thing.  The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.  Third generation is not lagging behind in that department.  “We were the best looking couple there” has been known to fall from other lips . . .

            Modest?  And you had to ask . . . . what does this have to do with philosophy?  Humour as medicine is a philosophy, and it helps make you live longer when you can laugh at yourself.