The Real Mad Men

Not so long ago, I wrote about how much I enjoyed reading non-fiction books by Dave Barry.  He published a new humor book recently, titled Live Right and Find Happiness (Although Beer is Much Faster).  I got the book for Father's Day, and just finished it.

While it was another laugh out loud collection of essays, I was particularly interested in a section where Barry got semi-serious.  In a chapter titled The Real Mad Men, he wrote about how the parents of the Baby Boom generation lived their lives and raised their children differently from us modern parents.

He makes fun of how much today's parents coddle their children and worry about things, compared to how their parents rolled with the punches.  He makes the predictable comparisons in areas like sports ["If a kid played a sport, they might go to the games, but they didn't complain to the coach.....or make fools of themselves by getting into fights with other parents or screaming at the referee.  It just wasn't that big a deal to them.  It was kids paying games."] and education ["They found out how their child was doing when the child brought home a report card.....if the grades were bad, they didn't march into the school and complain that the school had failed their child.....they told their child to shape up, and they maybe even gave their child a smack on the back of the head."].

But at the end of the chapter, he makes this summary that should be required reading for most of today's parents:  "I'm not saying my parents' generation didn't give a crap.  I'm saying they gave a crap mainly about big things, like providing food and shelter.  Whereas we modern parents.....never stop parenting, making sure [kids] get whatever they want, removing obstacles from their path, solving their problems and worrying about what else will go wrong, so we can fix it for them.  Yes, we've gotten really, really good at parenting, we Boomers.  This is fortunate, because for some inexplicable reason a lot of our kids seem to have trouble getting a foothold in adult life, which is why so many of them are sill living with us at age thirty-seven."

"They're lucky they have us around."

Read More Dave Barry

I don't read as many books as I should, but when I do, I stick with non-fiction things related to history or finance or humor.  In the latter category, my favorite humorist has always been Dave Barry.  In the 80s and 90s, Barry wrote a hilarious, weekly syndicated column for the Miami Herald, which I always read because it was printed by the Des Moines Register.  At the same time, he authored many humor books that I read, some original and some a collection of his Miami Herald columns or essays.

Unfortunately, Barry dropped off my map in the late 90s when he gave up his weekly column, at which time he continued to write a variety of fictional books.  In the past several years, he's been using social media more, and gone back to writing more non-fiction again.  He's published a new humor book in each of the past two years.

With that as background, I recently took his newer books with me on a trip, and it was just like old times.  It is very, very hard to write in a way that's laugh-out-loud funny, but Barry and his books will do it.  It's impossible to fully describe his observational writing style, but he gets help from his "many alert readers" who send him crazy newspaper stories.  Among his favorite topics are exploding or flaming items (including cows, toilets, Pop-Tarts, and Barbie dolls), and the emotional differences between men and women.

He also has a few common sayings.  For example, when distinguishing fact from hyperbole, Barry frequently asserts, "I am not making this up."  Also, "would be a good name for a rock band" is a statement Barry often applies to certain phrases.  (This reminds me of a softball team I once coached, where the first name had to be a color and the nickname was an action.  Our team drew the name 'Purple Riot' which I immediately said would be a good name for a rock band.)

If you have a chance, and you want a good laugh, read more Dave Barry!