Canadian Fathers Lean On Their Funny Bones To Get By As Parents

Toronto, ON - According to Hallmark's first ever Fathers and Funny Bones survey, Canadian dads may not be as funny as they think they are.

Ninety-two percent of Canadian dads claim to have a good sense of humour. While family members also give dad a high humour rating, seven out of ten sons and daughters maintain they are funnier than dad and more than four out of ten say dad is simply "not as funny as he thinks he is".

Over four out of five dads surveyed said that when it comes to parenting it's very important to have a sense of humour. In fact, three-quarters say they rely on their sense of humour to get by as a parent. Yet, sons and daughters may underestimate the importance dad places on his funny bone-- just 43% feel that dad uses his funny bone to navigate through his day-to-day parenting perils.

The survey results also shows that many dads feel it is important for them to have a good sense of humour, because:

• Often they are at the hockey rink at 7:00 am on Saturday morning (56%)
• Often they are thought of as the local branch of the money tree (76%)
• Dad BBQs with his toque on (50%)
• They think bonding with dad has something to do with duct tape (39%)

Everyone loves a good joke but dads seem to love their own jokes the most as 75% of dads say they laugh at their own jokes. Of the dads who do crack jokes:

• Two thirds sometimes forget how a joke goes once they've started to tell it and 58% have forgotten the punch line
• Nine out of ten said they sometimes tell corny jokes and the majority of sons and daughters agree
• 84% of dads confess that their jokes have bombed, although kids tend to be less critical of dad's joke-telling abilities (74%)

While the majority of dads surveyed (78%) lean on their funny bones to get by as a parent, sometimes they do so in interesting ways. Fifteen per cent say that when they're talking to their kids about difficult subjects they most identify with Homer Simpson, while ten per cent are more like Dr. Phil. The appeal of Springfield's dysfunctional dad was most prevalent with younger fathers aged 18-34. Amongst this group more than one-quarter identified with Homer.

These are the findings of an Ipsos-Reid poll conducted for Hallmark Canada from April 17 to April 20, 2006. The poll was conducted online with a randomly selected sample of 1,011 fathers, 761 grandfathers, and 470 adult children across Canada. With a sample of 1,011, the results for fathers are considered accurate to within 177 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had the entire Canadian population of fathers been polled. The margin of error will be larger within regions and for other sub-groupings of the survey population (e.g. +/- 3.5% for grandfathers; +/- 4.5% for adult kids). These data were statistically weighted to ensure the sample's regional composition reflects that of the actual Canadian population according to the 2001 Census data.

For more information on this news release, please contact:
Shelley Edwards
Vice President
Ipsos Reid
416.324.2900
[email protected]

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