An Ode to Parents and the MVPs of Your House

Family

My oldest friend in the world recently lost his father, a truly good and loving man whose personality and passion for the world stayed with him until the very end.  I will always treasure my last visit with him... a chance encounter while taking ARG for a walk where we got some pics of the family (his father was a professional photographer who probably loved his job more than anyone has ever loved their job).  At the time, ARG was still in her man-hater phase, but for some reason, she really liked him.  We have literally no explanation for that.  One of the few regrets I have in moving away from the D is that I can't be there for friends and family when something like this happens, and I hope that this post in some way makes up for that.

In real life, I work with families every day.  I get a lot of questions about how some of my clients end up the way they do.  And there are a lot of reasons, really.  But the biggest reason can be answered pretty easily...


Take whatever influence you think a parent has on a child, and multiply it by a million.  Actually, check that.  Multiple it by this much.

Passion

If you're a parent, want to be a parent, plan to be a parent... do us social workers a solid.  Be there.  Just be there.  You don't really even have to do all that much.  Just let your kid know you love them, care about them, and that they can count on you.  That's it.  Thanks.

Many of us have been lucky enough to have parents that go well above and beyond that, and it's not a coincidence we all turned out the way we did.  If you've met my friend who lost his Dad (we'll call him Calvin), then you'd know he's one of those lucky ones.  My friend, your parents did a damn fine job.

So about a year ago, Calvin, who is the proud father of three little ladies, made mention on the Facebooks about how their refrigerator broke down and they spent about a week without it.  He declared that "the refrigerator was the MVP of the kitchen" or something to that effect.  He was gracious enough to let us take that a step further, and we broke down the MVPs of each room of your house, and ultimately crowned the MVP of the house.  In a mini shout out Calvin's father, we are re-running that post this week.  Our continued thoughts and prayers go out to him and his family, and to those who have lost a parent too early, especially Mojo's mother and Amber's father.

Editor's Note - After re-reading the original post, and after LB's hot water heater broke one day before his in-laws were coming in town for a funeral, we realized we forgot to include a "Miscellaneous" room of the house that would include the hot water heater, air conditioner, etc.  The MVP in this category could easily vary one's situation, e.g., 9 month pregnant wife in July (air-conditioner), 2 kids under 3 with in-laws staying for funeral (LB last weekend).  Personally, I'm going hot water heater because of said child situation and taking cold showers sucks.  But just thought I'd throw that one out there, in case you thought of it when reading.

Click here for the original post.

Contact Logical Betting at logicalbetting@gmail.com and twitter.com/logicalbetting.  Special thanks to Fah T for helping boost the Twitter following and the readership.  Tweeting definitely beats working.  Oh, and my fantasy baseball team sucks.  Hasta.