October 13, 2010

What Every Teenager Should Know

Give this to all the teenagers in your life

RULE 1
Life is not fair - get used to it.

RULE 2
The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.

RULE 3
You will not make 40 thousand dollars a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice president with fancy car* until you earn both.

RULE 4
If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. He doesn’t have tenure.

RULE 5
Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger-flipping. They called it opportunity.

RULE 6
If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes: learn from them.

RULE 7
Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

RULE 8
Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the lightest resemblance to anything in real life.

RULE 9
Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off, and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.

RULE 10
Television is not real life. In real life people actually go to jobs.

RULE 11
Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.

From Charles Sykes book, Dumbing Down our Kids

12 comments:

Prairie Mother said...

Right on!!!

Anonymous said...

Rules 1-11... It's not fair... from Kevin the Teenager.

Allison said...

This list is hilarious - and true!
~Allison
Fit&Fab Living

Sophie said...

Funny list! What do your kids think of it!

Anonymous said...

This is awesome. Do you think my 2.5 year old would understand? Feeling like I am going to need these for her someday!!

The Mom O Blogger said...

I would have to agree I thought pretty much like this when I was a teenager. My seventeen year old thinks a lot like this also. I emailed this to her.

John and Deb Barker said...

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MySaggyButt said...

I love this list! My sister is a single mom and her boy is 17 next month. Although he's a great kid, I wonder sometimes if he has any concept of the real world beyond Facebook...:) Great blog!

Kellie said...

I'm thinking my 20 year old could use this list too. She comes home from college in the summer and thinks she's on vacation....umm, no, get a job girlie! Welcome to adulthood! Great list, thanks for sharing it

Heather said...

Love this list!

ShicSavers said...

Completely True!!

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Deb Chitwood said...

LOL! Great list! I think it's difficult for teenagers to understand what the world is really like - and this is a notable introduction!
http://LivingMontessoriNow.com