School WhatsApp group: 67 members
Rob Beckett's school WhatsApp group has 67 members, with roughly 70% women and the remaining 30% men who never write anything.
Snapshot · Parenting Hell with Rob Beckett and Josh Widdicombe
S12 EP48: Stop me if you've heard this one before
Explore episode
Jun 19, 2026
Where this was said
The School WhatsApp Dungarees Incident
At 12:18 · chapter starts 9:48
Rob explains that his daughter's school is running personal survival lifesaving swimming lessons, asking pupils to bring ordinary clothes to practise swimming in — simulating the experience of falling in fully dressed. A parent's confused query on the group chat sparks a thread Rob can't resist joining, suggesting his daughter will be attending in dungarees and a turtleneck. One brave soul replies 'exceptional buoyancy' and then nothing. Josh suggests replying 'boys will be buoyancy' — Rob refuses. The exchange spirals into a broader observation about the inherent awkwardness of a professional comedian trying to be funny in a civilian parent group chat, which Rob compares to a trained singer at karaoke: technically competent, tonally wrong, and slightly tragic. He admits he only really uses the group when he desperately needs information, at which point he becomes a 'thirsty, dehydrated man in a desert'.
70% women on school WhatsApp group
Rob Beckett estimated that around 70% of the 67 members on his school WhatsApp group are women, with the male minority staying entirely silent.
The Comedians' Comedian Misquote
Stuart Goldsmith quoted Josh Widdicombe on his Comedians' Comedian podcast as saying 'if a joke reveals a wider truth then it is true.' Josh's reaction: he doesn't think he said it, and more importantly, he doesn't know what it means. Rob's advice: cling to it regardless.
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