I can see why people get all fuzzy and romantic about their children and their children's future, but these people are just going to end up crippling their chil

I can see why people get all fuzzy and romantic about their children and their children's future, but these people are just going to end up crippling their children for lack of realistic ideas about real skills to learn. Let's set aside questioning the notion of whether or not there even can be one universal set of skills that guarantee success merely through some conformance to a Platonic Ideal of Humanity for a second, and begin to construct a somewhat harsher, but more realistic, list. 1) Shutting up and getting to work--Yes, your mommy thinks you are special, and you think your kids are special, but nobody else does. Whether you're in service of a crappy manager inside some sucky megacorporation or trying to pry cash out of fickle customers, the only thing your gatekeepers care about is what you can do. So, do it. Turn off Facebook. Turn your phone off. Write your damned code or design your damned bridge and deliver it. Or push your resume around. Just turn off the distractions and make yourself go. 2) Conform--Again, Snowflake, you're one among a million lower-case-s snowflakes. Get over it. Go along to get along. If your so stuck on yourself that you can't dress down like a slobby developer when working with slobby devs, or put on banking attire if you code at a bank, then you're going to make people uncomfortable and make things worse for yourself. Go ahead, feel smugly superior about it as you do it, but do it. I'm sure they are all mindless automatons, but you can do it out of a conscious choice. Just remember, they can kill you, but they can't eat you. Snowflake. 3) Perform while depressed or discouraged--You're not a hothouse flower. You are an employee. Or an entrepreneur. You're a name to you and your friends, but your a number to somebody who's between you and a promotion. Or your next paycheck. You're not always going to be happy, and you're still going to have to meet your obligations, still going to have to provide value to someone or make progress to a goal that provides value to someone. Take a pill or drink a beer or cry on a shoulder, but don't stop performing until you can afford it. 4) Recognize bullshit--And recognize that it's everywhere. That's not a moral judgment. It's just the way it is. It's easy to spot in the obvious places, like advertisements, but not so easy in others, like when someone is blogging about the wonderful things they're going to instill in their children that the Bad Old Education System just won't for some reason. Everyone wants to blow smoke up your ass. Especially your parents. Especially parents who want to view themselves as enlightened friend-peer-guides to their crotch spawn. You're special, but not more special than Daddy's ego. Not really. 5) Watch out--Look out for number one. I don't mean to not play on a team. Just recognize that it's play, that it's a thing you do for certain reasons. Everyone else on the team is in the same situation, whether they realize it or not. Are your skills a threat to someone else on the team? Watch them. Be careful around them. Be a little paranoid while maintaining some perspective. It is not at all uncommon for someone of either gender to trump up a harassment claim to neutralize a rival. (Among many other stupid and counterproductive things.) Don't be paranoid, but be aware and smart. That's a start. You get those things down, and "Problem solving", "Compassion", and "Tackling projects" will seem like the stress-free child's play that they are. Good luck out there. You're gonna need it.