Three elderly ladies try to trump each other

Ageing parents can be so competitive when it comes to their children.

This joke is about three such ageing parents.

Three old ladies are sitting around a table playing bridge and bragging about their sons.

“My Freddie,” said Margaret. “Everyone should be so lucky to have a son like my Freddie. Once a week he brings me a huge bouquet of flowers, he’s constantly bringing me out to restaurants to eat, if I so much as hint that I want something the next morning it’s on my doorstep.”

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Then comes Gertrude, bragging about her son, Sammy.

“That’s very nice about your Freddie,” says Gertrude. “But with all due respect, when I think about the way my Sammy takes care of me, it just can’t compare. Every morning as soon as I wake up he greets me with bacon and freshly brewed coffee. Every lunch he comes over and cooks me a gourmet lunch, and every supper he brings me to his house for supper, he truly treats me like a queen.”

“WELL!” Barbara chimes in. “I don’t want to make any of you feel bad or anything, but wait until you hear about my Harry, twice a week he pays someone $200 an hour just so he can lie on their couch and talk to them, and who do you think he speaks about at those prices?" Asks Barbara with a big excited double chin smile, “I’ll tell you who he speaks about! ALL HE SPEAKS ABOUT IS ME!”

Parents excessively bragging about their children has been a long-observed phenomenon.

According to University of Pennsylvania sociologist Annette Lareua, child-centered bragging may be an outgrowth of the hothouse style of parenting that pervades our culture.

Psychiatrist Alvin Rosenfeld has a worry about this.

"Many focus on their children's achievements, rather than getting to know their kids as individuals," he said.

He continued: "The dilemma is when kids become valued only for their accomplishments - or when they live up to your fantasies of what they ought to accomplish - not for who they are as people."