20 Jokes Only Grandmothers Will Truly Understand

Welcome back to Comics Hut. There is a particular kind of humour that only arrives after a certain number of birthdays. It is gentler than the jokes of the young, but it is also sharper, because it has been earned. A grandmother has seen enough of life to laugh at the parts that once frightened her.

The Humour That Comes With Years

Ask any grandmother and she will tell you that laughter changes as you age. In your twenties you laugh at what is new. In your seventies you laugh at what is familiar — the aching knees, the forgotten names, the grandchildren who explain your own telephone to you.

What follows are twenty jokes written from that place. Some are silly, some are quietly true, and a few will only make sense to those who have lived long enough to recognise themselves in them.

#1.

My doctor said I should start watching what I eat. So now I sit closer to the fridge, where the view is better.

#2.

People ask if I have any regrets. Only that I did not buy comfortable shoes thirty years sooner.

#3.

My grandson asked what we did before the internet. I told him we went outside. He looked at me as though I had described a war.

#4.

I do not have grey hair. I have wisdom highlights, and I have earned every single one of them.

#5.

At my age, an early night means being in bed before the news finishes. At his age, it means being home before it starts.

#6.

I told my granddaughter that I had a landline. She asked how I charged it. I have not recovered.

#7.

My knees crack so loudly in the morning that the neighbours assume I am doing renovations.

#8.

I keep a list so I do not forget things. Yesterday I lost the list. That was, in fairness, on the list.

The strange gift of growing older is that the things which once caused embarrassment slowly become the best material. A grandmother is rarely laughing at herself out of unkindness. She is laughing because she has finally stopped needing anyone’s permission.

#9.

Youth is wasted on the young, but so are hard mattresses, so perhaps it evens out.

#10.

I do not need an alarm clock. My back wakes me at half past five whether I agree to it or not.

#11.

People say sixty is the new forty. My spine has not received that memo and refuses to acknowledge it.

#12.

I told my grandson I walked to school every day. He asked why nobody ordered me a car. Different worlds entirely.

#13.

Every biscuit tin in this house contains sewing thread. This is not a trick. This is a system.

#14.

I have reached the age where I read the obituaries first, purely for planning purposes.

#15.

My memory is excellent. It is simply arranged in a filing system that only I understand, and only sometimes.

#16.

I no longer argue with people. I simply nod, agree, and continue doing precisely as I intended.

#17.

My grandchildren think I am technologically hopeless. I raised four children without a mobile phone between us.

#18.

A nap is not laziness. A nap is scheduled maintenance, and I keep to the schedule strictly.

#19.

I have stopped buying green bananas. I am simply not making that sort of commitment any more.

#20.

The secret to a long life is laughing often, forgiving quickly, and never trusting a chair without arms.

Every one of these jokes carries something real underneath it. A grandmother laughs because she has survived enough to find life funny rather than frightening. If one of them made you smile, share it with the older woman in your life — she will almost certainly have a better one waiting. For more, keep reading at Comics Hut.