[delichon]

That's why you have an emergency backup child for redundancy in case of failure of the main child.

[cap11235]

Remember, they're cattle, not pets.

[NordStreamYacht]

Ah, the Spare. You must be British royalty.

[ButlerianJihad]

I had to go look it up, because in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Voldemort orders Cedric's murder with: "Kill the Spare!"

It turns out that Cedric, being superfluous to the "Resurrection Ritual" and Voldemort's plan of revenge, is actually a spare. In fact it was unexpected that two boys get through the whole thing with the Portkey and all. Harry was the only one who was supposed to end up there with the Death Eaters in the first place, so Cedric's appearance was quite unfortunate for everyone involved.

But Cedric's "spareness" certainly didn't have to do with expendability as far as his Dad was concerned, which you can clearly understand once his Dad gets going in the mourning for his death.

[scelerat]

Riight! I was wondering why some people had more than one. Like, I wonder that every single ever-loving day

[lotsofpulp]

I don’t know if you’re being serious, but I wanted at least two so they had another kid to play with at home, and hopefully be on good terms with a family member they can relate to into their old age.

[scelerat]

only slightly serious. children are a joy! right? right??

[mrkstu]

Children are human beings, and are the full range of what humans are. When small, the fun of it is seeing them unfold into that fully formed version- sometimes painfully, sometimes joyfully.

[mynegation]

The only people who find this joke funny don’t have any children.

[D13Fd]

Six kids here, I use the “we needed some backups” joke all the time.

[projektfu]

Sounds like a game of Paranoia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_(role-playing_game)

[delichon]

My dad told it to me. I was the second backup.

[ahazred8ta]

There's a star trek fan who has a primary dog and an emergency backup dog. There's also the british 'heir and a spare'.

[coldtea]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72rU64yq-zU

[tmseidman]

Third string

[procaryote]

You can have humour and children at the same time...

[coldtea]

Or people who have a sense of black humor. Never heard dads make dark puns and jokes of similar nature?

[marton78]

As a father, this is false.

[bdangubic]

10000% false (another father) :)))

[renewiltord]

I think I’m between the comments here. I think it’s funny to say we have a spare but I also think it’s not as funny to say “oh you have a spare”. It’s like a fat guy can joke about his fatness but you can’t.