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by joedrago 1270 days ago
When I first heard it, it was billed as a riddle, not a joke. It only really makes sense in any way as a riddle / brain-teaser if it successfully plays on your biases of the operating room doctor being incapable of being his mother (or other father, etc). In a 1950s, old-timey-wimey, nuclear family mindset, the father is the breadwinner and the mother is the homemaker, and there is no other reasonable possibility. Anyone that was taught to think that way will hear the father dying in the car accident and then be confused when someone else can also refer to them as their son.

This came up a few years ago for the first time for me, and I tried it on my (elementary school) sons and they immediately said "uhh, its his mom, I guess?"

Anyway, I hope that clarifies things for you.

2 comments

I get that the Tesla FSD crashed once, but did it hold some king of grudge and followed him to the hospital? Or did Tesla build Skynet and it was a second Tesla and they were coordinating the attack? Was the son named Connor?
Ah I get it now. Where I live this usually the family structure and doctors etc are mostly male anyway therefore I assumed surgeon to be the father too and got very confused. Thanks for explaining.