And get this, he thinks it’s funny! Yeah, what nerve, what pomp!
These are short and, hopefully, entertaining stories on raising children from my perspective as a work-at-home dad.
They may provide some insight on parenting. Or not. I’m still trying to figure out how to raise my three kids.
So read on.
There are stories on:
- Autism
- Raising a family as expats in Argentina
- Bringing up kids in a high-tech world
- Parenting techniques that may not work
- And some that totally backfire
- Trying to remain a youthful father – and decent surfer – without looking totally not cool
- The pitfalls of trying to get back in shape in your 40s
- 101 ways my three children have tried to worm their way out of trouble and get me to buy them candies
- Toilet training gone rather scientific
- Kids’ pranks that could very well stop your pulse for a few beats
- Gross things that kids do
- The inevitability of stepping in dog shit in Buenos Aires and my failed experiment to clean it up
- How to make money the hard way
- How to stay married (and in love) as a harried parent
- How to choose a name for your house
- How to win at the game of tag
- Those times when youthful wisdom makes total sense
- Doing nothing and loving it
- Letting your kids play out front
- The lengths you will go to please your kids
- And more …
I also write some super-short vignettes that can be funny on Facebook.
If you like what you see, you can get the stories by email:
About me
A self portrait that’s meant to be cool but probably isn’t.
My name is Charles Newbery.
I started writing these stories in 2008 when I was living in Pinamar, a beach town with a pine forest in Argentina.
Hence the name, Pine Tree Paradise.
I make my living as a freelance writer, mostly as a reporter. You can read more about what I do on my freelance writer site.
I am the youngest of five. I grew up in Brentwood Glen, an upper-scale neighborhood on the Westside that we managed to bring down a notch. We rode skateboards, threw things where they shouldn’t have been thrown, and played punk rock, noisily and incoherently. A neighbor lobbied to have us evicted. But we stayed. We matured. And now we’re all-around good people with a tinge of rebel.
I got my B.A. in English from UCLA. I wrote my final paper on Shakespeare, and several essays on his works before that. He’s still one of my favorite writers. I studied Borges, Dickens, Chekhov, Hemingway, Joyce and many other writers. I read a lot. I wrote a lot. Funny, I’m still doing the same today.
After university I took a year off to travel to my father’s Argentina and my mother’s England, meeting aunts, uncles and cousins on the way. I took detours to surf in Mexico, Ireland, Scotland, France and Portugal, and to head inland to Poland, Russia, Italy, Bulgaria and Hungary and elsewhere. I learned a lot about how to get by with little money. I fixed surfboards for cash, helped put on an art exhibition in Dublin, and slept in a tent when things got tight. It was a great experience.
I moved to Argentina in 1994, where I started working as a journalist and writer.
Since then?
You can read a lot about it on this blog, in particular the growing older section.