In the meanwhile, there are a few things that our parents told us that we can safely remove from the cannon of advice we give our kids:
"Don't make a song and dance about it". Absolutely guaranteed to make you a loser. There are no merit certificates in adulthood. No one is noticing your careful and diligent work, your righteously straight back and neat handwriting. If you want to get noticed and maybe even promoted, you are going to have to make a song and dance about it. In fact, in today's increasingly competitive job market, you are going to have to make a fully produced West End stage show about it with professionally written lyrics, an all star cast of post graduate qualifications and a website. You need catchy, you need loud, you need costumes, make-up and lights. Teach your kids to be showmen.
"If everybody else jumped off a cliff, you wouldn't do it, would you?" Yes, you would. When is the last time a successful person at work looked at her fellow lemmings following an executive over the corporate precipice in some hare-brained scheme and said "Nope. Not for me."? No matter how suicidal the stupid idea is, you're going over that cliff with the rest. Better to be a dead team player than a live trouble maker. This has been true since the trenches of the first world war and the first ever game of rugby league. Teach your kids to jump if the team screams "geronimo!"
"Just sit quietly and concentrate". Another non life skill. Unless you take up solo round the world yachting, you will never get a chance to use this. You will never be alone and uninterrupted for long enough. Concentration is like a stripper - it's all about the tease. Just when you think you're going to get some, there will be the summons to a meeting from someone too insecure to make a decision about donut flavours on their own, or email from the boss demanding all your attention and none of your intellect. And you'll get more of that at home. Three paragraphs into the rich fabric of the story in a good book, the clarion call for parental attention will sound forcing you to drop a mental stitch and adjudicate such ponderous matters as who had the truck first or who mouthed a naughty word at whom from under two sheets, a blanket and several layers of corrugated iron roofing. You'll be lucky to end up being able to follow the gist of a Minion meme.
"If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." Your kids will be mute for their entire adult lives. People can say nice things about each other - on Facebook. A quick "Love you hun" with a cute photo of you and your beloved is perfectly fine. Beyond that, you're an adult now! Start complaining! I have a very wise nephew who, when he was 8, asked me "why do adults always complain?" I nearly contradicted him but then found that I couldn't. in all honesty. Don't believe him? Check your next conversation and tell me how much of it involves complaining, gossiping, maligning or just getting stuff off your chest. People over eighteen who say only nice things are a bit twp. The sane and intelligent amongst us know that Hanrahan was right.
"Good things come to those who wait". I don't even have to write anything here. You're laughing already.
Good luck with that parenting gig! I know I need it.
Notes:
"twp" - pronounced something like "toop" (take the 'oo' from 'look') is a south Welsh word meaning stupid or daft. Used, I gather, to describe someone who is a bit simple.
Hanrahan is the protagonist in this poem http://users.tpg.com.au/dandsc/job/job01.htm
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