Family Friday: The Things We Do...

This post is dedicated to the crazy things that parents do to look cool for their kids. I think that, even more than showing off for a romantic interest, parents are driven to jump through hoops in the hope of gaining their children's approval/pride. The words, "That's my mom/dad. He/she is the coolest," rank right up there with, "I love you." How do I know? Experience.

I was talking with one of Derrick's roommates about a video game he was playing, one that takes more time and skill than I possess. I'm mostly a casual game-player. I enjoy puzzle games, fighting games, as well as some other games that don't require skills above button-mashing. More on that in a different post. So I say to the roommate, "I haven't played that game. I'm not really much of a career gamer," and Shawn pipes right up with, "You're not much of a gamer at all."

 Shawn was born with a controller in his hand. Me... not so much.

I don't know what came over me. I had a sudden, intense, and overwhelming desire to take a game and play it until I was good enough to impress Shawn, despite the fact that I don't have the time for that kind of practice and I never had any previous inclinations toward marathon gaming.

The point of this example is to highlight one of the less common ways we show love for our children, because we definitely wouldn't behave so irrationally if we didn't love them so much.