The Sydney dad whose day care survey answers become a viral hit speaks exclusively to Woman’s Day about how his humorous, light-hearted joke turned into a worldwide debate.
When Ben Duigu was asked to fill out a personality survey on his 11-month-old daughter Emma, the answers were both truthful and amusing.
“To be honest I’m flabbergasted by how this erupted on the internet,” Ben said.
The dad was asked by his daughter’s day care centre to fill in the survey, which asked for Emma’s goals, strengths and interests.
Answering candidly, under Emma’s interests he listed “firmly gripping dog’s hair” and “dawn, every morning, without fail”. Showing off his funny side, he also listed his daughter’s life goals as “to walk, eventually” and “inflict sleep deprivation on my parents”.
“I think it’s important to provide some context on this though. It really was intended only for the wonderful people who look after my daughter. I could take the liberty of being humorous with them and was silly specifically because we have a great relationship and they didn’t need answers to the questions, as they already knew them,” he said.
“I figured they needed a laugh with all that crying going on – and that’s just the leaving parents! I’m relieved to say that my intended purpose was successful. They had a good laugh.”
The questionnaire was published by a family friend on Reddit and has already received over 1000 comments.
“When day care, completely seriously, asks my friend to answer stupid questions on behalf of his 11-month-old daughter, it is inevitable that stupid answers is what they’ll receive,” the friend wrote.
Although the new father’s survey answers were meant in good humour, it quickly drew negative backlash, along with the positive.
“Now I’m completely reeling at how a small, little joke intended to make a few lovely people at day care laugh, has both entertained and apparently offended a large number of people around the world. The laughter is enjoyed, the infamy a little less so,” he said.
“I’m sympathetic to a lot of the negative comments and agree with most of them. Yes, there are funnier people out there. Yes, it wasn’t what a lot of day cares want to see from parents. And yes, I can’t spell.”
While it’s clear that this quick-witted parent had no intension to offend we had to know what his wife, and mother of his daughter Emma, thought about all the commotion he caused.
“Emma’s mum suffers through this on a regular basis so it was water off the ducks back for her. She’s just waiting for the day Emma’s more mature than me and she has solidarity with putting up with me. This should be in around three years’ time,” he joked.
Check out the honest and hilarious answers in the completed form above.
