So true...

From: glen@substance.abuse.blackdown.org 
Subject: Some rules kids won't learn in school. 
To: 0xdeadbeef@substance.abuse.blackdown.org 
Date: Fri, 06 Mar 1998 13:22:52 -0500 

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Forwarded-by: Daniel Rogers                     

Some rules kids won't learn in school                         

Text By Charles J. Sykes                     

Printed in San Diego Union Tribune                             

September 19, 1996  

Unfortunately, there are some things that children should be learning in school, 

but don't. Not all of them have to do with academics. As a modest back-to-school 

offering, here are some basic rules that may not have found their way into the 

standard curriculum.  

Rule No. 1: Life is not fair. Get used to it. The average teen-ager uses the phrase, 

"It's not fair" 8.6 times a day. You got it from your parents, who said it so often 

you decided they must be the most idealistic generation ever. When they started 

hearing it from their own kids, they realized Rule No. 1.  

Rule No. 2: The real world won't care as much about your self-esteem as much as your 

school does. It'll expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about 

yourself. This may come as a shock. Usually, when inflated self-esteem meets reality, 

kids complain it's not fair. (See Rule No. 1)  

Rule No. 3: Sorry, you won't make $40,000 a year right out of high school. And you 

won't be a vice president or have a car phone either. You may even have to wear a 

uniform that doesn't have a Gap label.  

Rule No. 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait 'til you get a boss. He doesn't 

have tenure, so he tends to be a bit edgier. When you screw up, he's not going to 

ask you how you feel about it.  

Rule No. 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grand-parents had a 

different word of burger flipping. They called it opportunity. They weren't 

embarrassed making minimum wage either. They would have been embarrassed to sit 

around talking about Kurt Cobain all weekend.  

Rule No. 6: It's not your parents' fault. If you screw up, you are responsible. This 

is the flip side of "It's my life," and "You're not the boss of me," and other 

eloquent proclamations of your generation. When you turn 18, it's on your dime. 

Don't whine about it, or you'll sound like a baby boomer.  

Rule No. 7: Before you were born your parents weren't as boring as they are now. 

They got that way paying your bills, cleaning up your room and listening to you tell 

them how idealistic you are. And by the way, before you save the rain forest from 

the blood-sucking parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the closet in 

your bedroom.  

Rule No. 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers. Life hasn't. In 

some schools, they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. 

Failing grades have been abolished and class valedictorians scrapped, lest anyone's 

feelings be hurt. Effort is as important as results. This, of course, bears not the 

slightest resemblance to anything in real life. (See Rule No. 1, Rule No. 2 and Rule 

No. 4)  

Rule No. 9: Life is not divided into semesters, and you don't get summers off. Not 

even Easter break. They expect you to show up every day. For eight hours. And you 

don't get a new life every 10 weeks. It just goes on and on. While we're at it, very 

few jobs are interesting in fostering your self-expression or helping you find 

yourself. Fewer still lead to self-realization. (See Rule No. 1 and Rule No. 2.)  

Rule No. 10: Television is not real life. Your life is not a sitcom. Your problems 

will not all be solved in 30 minutes, minus time for commercials. In real life, 

people actually have to leave the coffee shop to go to jobs. Your friends will not 

be as perky or pliable as Jennifer Aniston.  Rule No. 11: Be nice to nerds. You may 

end up working for them. We all could.  

Rule No. 12: Smoking does not make you look cool. It makes you look moronic. Next 

time you're out cruising, watch an 11-year-old with a butt in his mouth. That's what 

you look like to anyone over 20. Ditto for "expressing yourself" with purple hair 

and/or pierced body parts.  

Rule No. 13: You are not immortal. (See Rule No. 12.) If you are under the 

impression that living fast, dying young and leaving a beautiful corpse is romantic, 

you obviously haven't seen one of your peers at room temperature lately.  

Rule No. 14: Enjoy this while you can. Sure parents are a pain, school's a bother, 

and life is depressing. But someday you'll realize how wonderful it was to be a kid. 

Maybe you should start now.  

You're welcome.