It's Valentime!

It’s Valentime again, as my 6-year-old calls it.

He does not look forward to Valentime – he agonizes over it. I also remember agonizing, but I thought that was a girl thing. Apparently not.

When I was young, there was the stigma of looking in your Valentine bag and noticing who in the class had skipped you. If there was a year when I made a special Valentine for a boy and got one back from him in my bag, it was a good year. If it wasn’t a good year, at least I had chocolate to console myself with. Things are different now.

First, you have the healthy foods policy at school, which prohibits candy and treats. The PTO fundraiser is selling cookie dough, but you’d better not bring any of that stuff to school. Even though my child isn’t overweight according to a letter the nurse sent home, there will be no chocolate and no candy hearts at school. I can send in fruits and vegetables, or granola, or office supplies.

Kids can now buy Valentines depicting any TV show, movie character, or super hero they want. In some cases, I find the characters on Valentine cards humorous. Batman is a dark, tortured man with deep psychological issues, and seeing him surrounded by little hearts is kind of jarring. Nothing about The Incredible Hulk screams “Valentine’s Day” to me. I’m skipping the Toy Story Valentines, because “sending a Woody” to someone might get my son sent to the principal.

The array of characters available on Valentines presents are another problem, as he points out. “Should we get Disney Princess ones for the girls and Pokemon ones for the boys?” He’d rather send Valentines only to the girls, but that’s against the rules.

There’s a rule in schools now that you have to give a Valentine to everyone in the class if you’re going to give out Valentines. While this does protect the kinds of hurt feelings I used to have happen, there doesn’t seem to be much sincerity or purpose to kids just trading pictures of SpongeBob and Dora the Explorer. I might have been disappointed sometimes, but it made me appreciate the Valentines I did get, all the more.

I suggested that we make our own Valentines, because it’s more meaningful. My son did not balk at the idea of making his Valentines, but he wouldn’t allow the use of glitter, lace, or doilies. He is making notes with drawn and colored hearts. He decided to write “Be My Valentine” on the ones for the girls and “Thank you for being my friend” on the boys’.

It’s a fascinating social commentary how even in the first grade, there is pressure to like the opposite sex and have the opposite sex like you. Valentime at his age has morphed into this weird jumble of jockeying for social status and demonstrating your capitalist allegiance to a certain fictional character. Valentime at my age becomes internet lists of “Gifts Women Will Love” for Valentine’s Day, which couldn’t be further off the mark.

This is a teachable moment I’m using to show my child that if you appreciate your friends and loved ones the way you ought to every day, there isn’t really any need for Valentime. You don’t need an excuse to tell someone you like them. You don’t have to buy presents and cards and food to find ways to show you care.  (Though, I might buy my husband a box of Toy Story Valentines, just in case.)

Heidi McDonald lives in Edgewood with her family. "Mom's Corner" is a new column on parenting that will appear each Wednesday right here at the Forest Hills-Regent Square Patch.