The following list of “rules” is often attributed to Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and tends to circulate by e-mail or through social networking sites. It’s actually 11 of the 50 rules from the book 50 Rules Kids Won’t Learn in School: Real-World Antidotes to Feel-Good Education by Charles J. Sykes, and it might be a good dose of reality for your adult kids.
Rule 1: Life is not fair. Get used to it
Rule 2: The world won’t care as much as your school does about your self-esteem. It’ll expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself
Rule 3: Sorry, you won’t make $60,000 a year right out of high school. And you won’t be a vice-president or have a company car. You may even have to wear a uniform that doesn’t have a designer label.
Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you get a boss. He won’t have tenure, so he’ll tend to be a bit edgier. When you screw up, he’s not going to ask you how you FEEL about it.
Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping. They called it opportunity
Rule 6: It’s not your parents’ fault. If you screw up, you are responsible.
Rule 7: Your parents weren’t as boring before you were born as they are now. They got that way paying your bills, driving you around, saving for your education, cleaning up your room, and listening to you tell them how idealistic you are.
Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers. Life hasn’t.
Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. And you don’t get summers off.
Rule 10: Television is not real life.
Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. We all could.
And here’s another one of the 50 rules that doesn’t appear in the list that circulates on the Internet: Someday you will have to grow up and actually move out of your parents’ house.