Has political correctness gone too far?
I have reached the age where I have become a subject of mirth for my children. I am not sure where their respect has gone, but it doesn't look to be coming back fast. My husband, who has been saddled with the name Kevin, is not called ''Dad'' any more, he is now called ''Bevan'', or ''Bev'' for short. If he is doing something particularly outrageous, heaven forbid like dressing smartly to go out, ''Bevvvvvvy'' gets brought out with great howls of hilarity.
Seeing yourself through your children's critical eyes is quite alarming. My daughter goes into near hysterics when I have conversations with myself.
Apparently, I do all the facial gestures, but no sound comes out. ''Who are you talking to Mum?'' she asks as she mercilessly rolls around the floor. She has even filmed me in such deep conversation, so she can replay and share the outrage.
I, of course, never treated my parents with such disrespect. In fact, all I can remember is the horrors my parents put me through. I went to the same high school my mother taught at - what was I thinking? I was pretty well behaved - how could I not be? Of course, one of the very few times I wagged, there happened to be a fire drill.
The next period, I was back at school, in my mother's English class when the deputy principal walked into the room and said: ''Mrs Campbell, I'm checking on some absentees, do you know where Anna Campbell was last period?''.
My mother's face lit up with delight at such a great catch. ''Mr Letts, I am not sure where Anna was last period. Shall we ask her?''
My father had his own brand of humiliation for his children. He had a ''special'' pair of denim shorts that he wore as a teenager. To his delight they still fit him, although somewhat more snugly than they probably did once. He saw nothing wrong with prancing around the house in them, with an extra swagger when we had visitors.
Once though, when we had friends around, my brother came tearing down the hallway, ''Dad's coming, Dad's coming, IN HIS SHORTS, don't react, don't react''.
Up and down the living room he pranced while we all nonchalantly continued talking. His head dropped and off he went, coming back to resume normal fatherly duties, in normal fatherly shorts.
Humour and teasing are often used as a way of showing love and affection. I remember being at my grandfather's death bed, when someone cracked a joke. It was such a relief and oddly enough, an incredibly special moment. Families have their own humour, so too do workplaces and friendship groups.
Sometimes though, that humour gets out of hand, or is just not right for a situation. I have an awful memory of visiting a meat processing plant with some very stern plant managers. As we were robing up and putting hairnets on, I jokingly said to one of the managers, who was very bald, whilst waving my hairnet around, ''guess you won't be needing one of these then?''. Stone cold silence in return - getting it wrong can be horribly awkward.
I had a conversation about when the humour goes wrong with a colleague of mine who is a known prankster. He said knowing where the lines were was a learned art, honed over many years. When we are with families and friends, we can recover and be forgiven; less so with people we don't know or who come from different cultures and backgrounds.
We do have to learn to be sensitive about what is appropriate and what is not in different situations. It is one of life's ongoing lessons. When someone is inadvertently offended, it's not OK to hammer on about political correctness and the world gone mad. Offending someone with poorly timed humour is your problem, not theirs. Contrition and a fast apology goes a long way.
-Anna Campbell is managing director of AbacusBio Ltd, a Dunedin-based agri-technology company.
