"My Teenage Son's Goal In Life Is To Make Me Feel 3,500 Years Old" and Other Thoughts On Parenting From Dave Barry

by Dave Barry

Dave Barry isn't just funny. His hilarious syndicated newspaper column and numerous best-selling books have sparked the kind of adulation that's often reserved for rock stars or world leaders. His wit cuts right to the core of life's absurdities.In "My Teenage Son's Greatest Goal in Life Is to Make Me Feel 3,500 Years Old" and Other Thoughts on Parenting from Dave Barry, Dave shares his hopes, fears, and insights about his own stint as a father. "Most people make babies out to be very complicated, but the truth is they have only three Mood Just about to cry. Mood Crying. Mood Just finished crying."

Genres: Humor, Nonfiction, Parenting

112 pages, Hardcover

First published March 15, 2001

About the author

Dave Barry is a humor writer. For 25 years he was a syndicated columnist whose work appeared in more than 500 newspapers in the United States and abroad. In 1988 he won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. Many people are still trying to figure out how this happened.
Dave has also written many books, virtually none of which contain useful information. Two of his books were used as the basis for the CBS TV sitcom "Dave's World," in which Harry Anderson played a much taller version of Dave.
Dave plays lead guitar in a literary rock band called the Rock Bottom Remainders, whose other members include Stephen King, Amy Tan, Ridley Pearson and Mitch Albom. They are not musically skilled, but they are extremely loud. Dave has also made many TV appearances, including one on the David Letterman show where he proved that it is possible to set fire to a pair of men's underpants with a Barbie doll.
In his spare time, Dave is a candidate for president of the United States. If elected, his highest priority will be to seek the death penalty for whoever is responsible for making Americans install low-flow toilets.
Dave lives in Miami, Florida, with his wife, Michelle, a sportswriter. He has a son, Rob, and a daughter, Sophie, neither of whom thinks he's funny.

Reviews

[Brett · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've been a Dave Barry reader since I was in middle school and thought his syndicated columns were the funniest thing I've ever read. As I've grown older, I have to admit that, while he still hits from time to time, I do not find him nearly so hilarious as I did when I was younger.

This book is a total cash-in. There's no new writing in it, only two or three sentence bits taken from his previous decades of writing and packaged together in this tiny volume. It doesn't say anything at all about parenting, and it never gets anywhere near coherent enough to be genuinely funny about what it is to have children or try to raise them.

I would guess that Barry had little or nothing to do with the selection of material, and it was entirely composed by some intern in a publishing house who had to go back through all his other written material and try to strain out anything related to his kid. Maybe it was sold exclusively in hospital gift shops so uncles could give a present to their nephews with newborns. It's a lazy thing that shouldn't exist, but maybe it bought Dave a new outboard motor or something.

[Beverly J. · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is one of the worst pieces of crap I have ever endured.

[Mike Addiego · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious

With his usual sarcasm and wit, Dave Barry does it again. Multiple laughs per page! A funny read from a funny man!

[Jeanette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very short snippets of life with a son. Some of these were hilarious. Others were just okay.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Dave Barry, but this was just a cheap knock together of quotes, many of which needed full context.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Laughable

Another great read by Dave Barry. I've read quite a few of his books and enjoyed them all. If you like to laugh and won't be offended by slightly dated humor read his books. Go now and buy them. I can wait. I can truly relate to so much of what he writes because of when I grew up. I did, really.

[Mayda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even if you aren’t a parent, you will appreciate the humor in this little book. It runs the gamut from babies to teenage sons, and all the problems that occur between those ages. Babies have one very large gland, known as the drool gland, and teenagers have one great desire, to go as fast as possible in whatever vehicle is available. See the world through Dave Barry’s eyes - it’s a trip and a half.

[Shawntelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read it in an afternoon--it's a collection of snippets on parenting apparently taken from columns and other pieces by Dave Barry. As usual, he manages to sneak an insight or two into the often sophomoric humor.

[Clare · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good one from Dave Barry. Perhaps it is the fact that much of what he talks about in the book I could relate to, having 3 sons myself. The one segment about how they play video games had me laughing out loud.

[Madeline McEwen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Always ready for a giggle.

[Jacquie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly, when I got this book I was under the impression it was a humor book. It did have few things in it that were a little funny, but overall I wasn't super impressed with it.

[Claudia A Tanner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good Read

Dave Berry is fun. Interesting hilarious outlook on life. Makes me smile. I'll read a gain.
Word word word word

[Ushasi Basu · Rating 2 out of 5]

It should not have been sold as a book since it only contained excerpts, a paragraph from here another from there. Considering how witty Dave Barry is too, this was below par.

[Graham Bates · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderfully funny book with absolutely zero parenting advice. In other words, the most perfect book on parenting if ever there was one.

[Whistler's Mom · Rating 3 out of 5]

A full-frontal attack on the over-population crisis.

This book was published in 2001. So why am I reading a "topical humor" book that's older than any of Jeffrey Epstein's girls? First, while I stick to my claim that I've forgotten more than most people will ever know, the fact remains that I HAVE forgotten a lot of stuff. Second, the "joys" of parenting haven't changed since the dawn of mankind. Each generation believes that its brilliant parenting will produce children who won't drive them crazy, then lives to regret their optimism. Third (and this should go first) it was on sale for $2.

Frankly, this book doesn't deserve the three stars I'm giving it. It's a sloppily put-together collection of bits from the author's long-running newspaper column. Was Dave desperate for money? Did he "owe" his publisher a book and lacked the time or inclination to actually write new stuff? Or did his publisher assign a low-level, poorly-paid hireling to read the back columns and pull out anything vaguely related to parenting? It's surprising, but even successful writers have little control over that happens to their material once it's in the hands of the publishers.

It's a skimpy one-hundred pages and no effort was made to put the pieces into recognizable order. The author's son is a middle-school student on one page, regresses to being a baby or toddler on the next page, then morphs into a high-school kid two pages over. Watch out for whiplash.

There's no introduction and no ending. Even the title is awkward and unfunny. It was thrown together and it suffers from lack of care and professionalism. It speaks well of Barry's talent that the book is an enjoyable read in spite of itself. There are lots of chuckles and a few belly laughs. If you can get it cheap, I can recommend it.

[Dave Lieberman · Rating 2 out of 5]

It really hurts to rate this book with 2 stars. I have read around 10 Dave Barry books and have really enjoyed them all. They always make me laugh. I have to say, there were things in this book that made me laugh as well and that's why I did not give it 1 star! So, what's wrong with the book? First of all, it's very short (in fairness, I could have seen that by looking at the page count so that's on me). The biggest problem I have with this book is that it's more like a notebook of brainstormed ideas that could be made into a book. The 'chapters' are very short...like a paragraph or two. The ideas don't really seem to be complete. Then there's the organization...in one part he's talking about toddlers then goes on to a few more topics then comes back to toddlers then a few more topics and then back to toddlers. There just does not seem to be any organization. Knowing that Mr. Barry can do so much better, this book was a real disappointment. If you want to read something by Dave Barry, pick something else...he is worth reading-just not this book in particular.

[Helen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed these funny anecdotes about parenting a boy.

I don't understand why the Goodreads list has this at 112 pages, when my edition online only had 39 pages!

[Daniel Oster · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another hilarious Dave Barry book about parenting

[Jorge Montes · Rating 1 out of 5]

The "Dave Barry Quote A Day Calendar": The Book

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

The little blurbs were not long enough to do justice to Dave Barry's true genius.

[Meredith · Rating 2 out of 5]

Could have used some editing to avoid repetition.