Rules Kids Won't Learn In School
Oh, I know, I know; this list is everywhere and you’ve all seen it a zillion times. Well, make that a zillion and one.
For some reason, it just hit me in a good place today.
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Rules Kids Won’t Learn in School
Rule #1. Life is not fair. Get used to it. The average teenager 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 #1.
Rule #2. The real world won’t care as much about your self-esteem 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 that it’s not fair. (See Rule No. 1)
Rule #3. Sorry, you won’t make $50,000 a year right out of high school. And you won’t be a vice president or have a chauffeur, either. You may even have to wear a uniform that doesn’t have a Gap label.
Rule #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 is not going ask you how 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. They weren’t embarrassed making minimum wage either. They would have been embarrassed to sit around talking about Kurt Cobain all weekend.
Rule #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 #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 #8. Life is not divided into semesters, and you don’t get summers off. Nor 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.
Rule #9. 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 as polite as Jennifer Aniston.
Rule #10. Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. We all could.
Rule #11. Enjoy this while you can. Sure, parents are a pain, school’s a bother, and life is depressing. Something or someone is always annoying you. But someday you’ll realize how wonderful it was to be kid. Maybe you should start now.
Rule #12. If your generation behaves itself better than your parents’ generation, maybe the example will inspire the next generation to behave itself altogether.
You’re welcome.
First posted on Jan. 22, 2008, and truer every day.
April is Poetry Month: Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Annabel Lee
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
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Mamacita says: So much of Poe’s works are gruesome without the saving romantic touch, but Annabel Lee is both gruesome AND romantic, and I’ve liked it since I was a very little girl.
Sure, sure, we could parse it within an inch of its life, but poetry is never the same once it’s been dissected, labeled, and sewn together again.
Savor this one. Picture it. Sense it.
Poe’s Annabel Lee is a page of emotional macabre. Dig it.
April is Poetry Month: Eugene Field
Eugene Field (The Children’s Poet)
Little Boy Blue
The little toy dog is covered with dust,
But sturdy and staunch he stands,
And the little toy soldier is red with rust,
And his musket molds in his hands.
Time was when the the little toy dog was new,
And the soldier was passing fair,
And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue
Kissed them and put them there.
“Now, don’t you go till I come,” he said,
“And don’t you make any noise!”
So toddling off to his trundle bed
He dreamed of his pretty toys.
And as he was dreaming, an angel song
Awakened our Little Boy Blue.
Oh, the years are many, the years are long,
But the little toy friends are true.
Aye, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand,
Each in the same old place,
Awaiting the touch of a little hand,
And the smile of a little face.
And they wonder, as waiting these long years through,
In the dust of that little chair,
What has become of our Little Boy Blue
Since he kissed them and put them there.
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Mamacita says: This one still makes me cry.
I remember when I first understood that this poem was about a little boy whose heartbroken toys were faithfully waiting for him to come back, not understanding that the child was dead. I think perhaps this poem is the main reason why the Toy Story films make me apprehensive.
This poem is also why angels scared me for many years. I was so afraid that an angel would try to wake me, too.
Again, we could talk about rhyme scheme and symbolism and nicknames and references and first person narratives and quotations and the tragic fact that an awful lot of toddlers died for no apparent reason back in Victorian times.
But I think this poem is best appreciated for its very personal, very sweet, very sad, and very vivid description of a deserted toyroom full of rusting, dusty, once-beloved toys that are waiting for a little boy who will never enter that room again.
