Valentine’s Day in Our Family

13 Feb 2011 2 Comments

by Heather in Random Tags: Valentine's Day

This post grows out of a conversation that Pete and I had recently about Valentine’s Day.  We discovered we have some strong feelings about it and thought we’d throw it out there on this blog.  Partly for discussion, partly to add to the greater discussion on parenting, and partly because this blog is where we hash out some of our opinions or thoughts about parenting.  You know, Pete and I considered subtitling this post “The post in which we hurt people’s feelings or piss people off.”  So, here goes…

The first Valentine’s Day that Pete and I had together we agreed ahead of time that we wouldn’t do anything special to celebrate.  We told ourselves that we were expressing our love enough every day and we didn’t want to participate in a Hallmark holiday.  However, when the day actually came I got the urge about midday that I couldn’t let the day pass unmarked.  Maybe I drank the Kool-aid, maybe I accepted the Hallmark brainwashing, maybe I thought it was fun to have a day where we’re required to say “I love you,” who knows.  In any case, I sent Pete an email with three bulleted lists.  The headings were “I love you when,” “I especially love you when,” and “I even love you when.”  He sent me back a similar email and, thus, a tradition was born.  Each year our Valentine’s celebrations are limited to our Valentine’s emails. 

So why did I include that story in a post called “Valentine’s Day in Our Family”?  Two reasons – (1) to share with you how we celebrate because I think it’s pretty cool and (2) to show you that two people who actively reject the premise of Valentine’s Day have been suckered in enough to participate.  Since the middle ages Valentine’s Day has been associated with romantic love.  However, in the 20th century the scope of Valentine’s Day has been expanded to include children, teachers, friends, etc. with, in my opinion, the concerted effort of the greeting card industry, likely with the backing of the chocolate industry.  I, for one, dislike being manipulated by marketing (although it’s hard not to be), a trait shared by Pete.  Sure, maybe I’ve thrown the proverbial baby out with the bath water, but that manipulation has made me inclined to reject Valentine’s Day altogether.

When Pete and I were talking about Valentine’s Day this weekend I was pleased to find that we are on the same page – Valentine’s Day is about romantic love, not familial love.  With that as a jumping off point it was just a short step to our another point of agreement – we will not be celebrating Valentine’s Day with the Stinkerdoodle.  It’s not that we don’t love him, quite the opposite in fact.  It’s that our love for him is parental, not romantic.  To us, there is a clear and important difference between parental/familial love and romantic love.  There is a boundary between the two that is good and should be respected.  Kids don’t need to be a part of everything that parents do together.  To be honest, we discovered that we both find it kind of inappropriate when non-spouse family members give each other Valentine’s cards and gifts.  It just seems like a crashing of boundaries… to us.  (Let me revisit our usual disclaimer about judging… we are NOT judging you if you celebrate Valentine’s Day in your family and with your children.  We’re not going to think less of you if you do celebrate.  We don’t think you’re inappropriate.  We’re just not comfortable with it in our family.)

I know that I sound clear and certain about our decision but, I assure you, there is a fair dose of waffling there too.  I mean, come on, there are a lot of cute ways to celebrate.  The Stinkerdoodle’s daycare had a fun celebration on Friday and he came home with a bag of goodies and a cute hat.  I appreciate the work that went into putting that together and the fact that the kids had a great time.  When I’m in the store I won’t deny that there are some cute goodies that are tempting to bring home (but there’s a lot of crap too!).  I guess what I’m saying is that, yeah, Valentine’s celebrations are everywhere and we’re not going to keep the Stinkerdoodle from participating in them.  However, he will never, never, never get a Valentine’s Day card or goodies from Mama and Daddy.

As a side note, many countries around the world celebrate a Children’s Day, often on June 1st.  I have a feeling that we may make that part of our family celebrations.  We’ll have Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and Children’s Day… that feels equitable and appropriate.  Valentine’s Day?  Not so much.

Stinkerdoodle looking adorable in his Valentine's hat

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