Repaying a Lifetime of Earned Value

The Project Management Institute (PMI) describes the purpose of Earned Value as follows: “To report the accomplishments of the project, … EV is the quantification of the “worth” of the work done to date. In other words, EV tells you, in physical terms, what the project has accomplished. ’1   My parent's life work, their “project”, was raising their family. There can be no doubt that my parents used their resources to get this project successfully completed to the best of their ability. They have Earned the Value of the family they created and all that my siblings and I have accomplished.    My earliest childhood memories can only be described as idyllic. My sisters and I grew up in the suburbs just a few blocks from Huntington Village, NY. On our street, several families had kids who were our same ages so there were tons of kids to play with. In watching shows like “Our Gang”, we saw ourselves, we lived that life! On days we didn’t have school, we played outside and knew ...

 Like many people, I believe my parents are the best! They are the gold standard of what a parent should be! The absolute best, most infuriating, frustrating, stubborn, bullheaded, and yes, BEST Parents Ever!  In December of 2022, my sisters and I became aware that these two amazing individuals were struggling beyond their own capabilities to handle. Since then, my sisters and I have taken over managing their lives.  We have taken over all banking, resolved their debt, cleaned up their credit, completed some much needed home improvements, created schedules for their Doctors Appointments and managed all their prescriptions.  This couple who never gave themselves credit for how smart they actually were, have always been intimidated by technology. When we started taking over their "affairs", we found that they had minimal, in many cases no online access to their accounts. It took months just to get access and create the required IDs & Passwords to manage it all....