This site was inspired by an assignment that I received from one of my daughter’s teachers during her senior year of High School. This was a new approach to school right from the outset. I do not recall having signed up for homework when I registered my daughter for school. And I sure do not recall my father ever completing assignments sent home by my teachers. Being a contemporary Dad, however, I put all of that aside and considered the assignment.
I was asked to write down advice that I would give to my daughter as she went off to college. I gave the assignment more than a little bit of thought. I considered writing my daughter a letter that would try to anticipate all of the problems and issues that might come up and providing solutions to those problems. I rejected that course of action because it did not appear to serve any real purpose and because I did not think I was qualified to anticipate all of the problems a young college woman could anticipate. I also was repeatedly drawn to a set of fairly simple rules I had shared with my daughter from an early age. Most of them were crafted from specific circumstances that likely had little or no application to daughter’s life but in a strange way, they all seemed applicable not just to her life at college, but also to her life beyond college. Best of all, the rules were quite familiar to the Princess.
There is a great deal of wisdom crammed in to the Nine Rules. The rules sound quite specific in many cases but with a little imagination (some of which I have tried to inspire) the rules are really very broad and will apply, with a little friendly bending and stretching, to all kinds of difficulties we face every day. I offer them for your use and enjoyment. I hope they make one of your more difficult moments easier to resolve or at least that they give you the opportunity to, as I have, laugh at myself and my own problems as a highly evolved coping mechanism.
