I’ve decided to rebel. This thing called Valentine’s Day is getting on my ever-loving last nerve.
I’m not pissed that Hallmark basically made up the holiday. I couldn’t care less that it’s another excuse for my children to eat truckloads of sugar. And I’m only mildly annoyed that it’s all about consumerism: BUY THIS CUTE HEART THING! BUY THIS PINK REESE’S CUP! BUY THIS STUFFED BEAR EVEN THOUGH YOUR KID ALREADY HAS TWENTY!
What’s got my goat is that Valentine’s Day is just another chore on my “to do” list. I have small children, which means VALENTINE’S DAY CARDS. And what does that mean?
Well, I’ll tell you. It means MOMMA gets to make 40 Valentine’s.
Addressing all the hearts
The boys came home from school with notes listing the name of every child in their classes, inviting us to JOIN IN THE FUN! And if you care to participate, then you had better PRE-ADDRESS each card. There are 20 kids on each list. Clearly I’m a Scrooge, because I’m not looking forward to this.
Sure, sure, I have fond memories of getting cute, little cards when I was little. But my life would’ve been fine without them. They didn’t symbolize love. They didn’t spark friendship. They didn’t make me want to hold hands with my fellow classmates and suddenly start singing, “We are the world.” I would’ve been delighted if we’d “celebrated” Valentine’s Day simply by drawing heart pictures and wearing red shirts to school.
Now that I’m a mom with a job and two kids who have, apparently, 20 “friends” each, I think it’s time to reconsider this holiday. AND BAN ALL THE CARDS.
Creating cards from scratch
Two years ago, I was all smug and decided the boys should decorate HOMEMADE cards. No going to Dollar Tree for cards printed with cancer-causing inks for us!
We sat around one Saturday morning and I cut out hearts which the boys decorated. They lasted about 20 minutes. The first 10 hearts were full of MOMA-style artwork. The last 10 were lucky if they had a scribble scrabble rainbow. And then I bribed the boys to sign each one of them. It was painful and way less Pinterest-awesome than I’d imagined.
Buying Valentine’s Day cards
Last year, I gave in and went the traditional route: I BOUGHT cards for the boys to simply sign.
This also was not the panacea. The first 5 store-bought Paw Patrol cards were dutifully pre-addressed AND signed by my littles. Then they got their first real taste of adulthood.
Like when you buy your first house and have to sign your name 20x. And by the 19th time, your signature doesn’t even look like your signature anymore. Like you start to get paranoid that someone in “legal” will think you’re plagiarizing your own name. Because your hand starts cramping up and the beautiful cursive squiggles devolve into a million jaggedy lines that somehow resemble letters.
But I digress. And they went off to play with actual Paw Patrol dolls.
Dealing with post-holiday clean up
Can we talk about post-Valentine’s Day clean up for a minute?
All the loot the kiddos collect at school seems to morph and expand at home.
When my boys aren’t looking, I toss all their treasured cards into the recycling bin. Yet, despite my best efforts to rid the house of Valentine’s, when your children have collected 40 cards, it’s pretty easy to miss a few of them. They will not die. They will stalk you, showing up in random corners of the house to mock you at Easter.
Before you know it, you’re finding Valentine’s cards in every room of the house and their companion red lollipops stuck to the dog.
Giving out pencils
This year, my boys are older and are kinda meh about Valentine’s, even though the older one will tell you: “There’s a whole lotta lovesick going around third grade!”
I’m saying TO HELL with cards. I’m giving out PENCILS. I mean, the BOYS are giving out pencils. That I bought.
Because, hey, everyone needs a pencil.
And I’m not even asking my children to write any names on the pencils. And I don’t even know if the pencils I got have hearts on them. I just grabbed a pack off the shelf at the Target. They might have dogs or bubble guppies or basketballs on them.
Actually, I’m pretty sure they are PLAIN YELLOW PENCILS. Which is really nice of me, because I’m sending gifts to school that the children can use til they are in high school. If they don’t bother to lose the pencil before lunch or sharpen it down to a nub in 3 hours or chew off the end because they are nervous about Valentine’s Day.
The beauty of pencils a la natural, unlike CARDS, is that they are useful – and easy.
You simply send a bag of pencils to school – preferably still in the original box so your kid doesn’t accidentally spill them everywhere and lose them on the school bus.
Not only do you not have to SIGN the pencils, you don’t even have to attach one of those cutesy, personalized poems that were all the rage in preschool. (If you can’t live without one of those, here you go: Roses are red. Pencils are fun. I like you, friend. You’re #1!)
Banning the cards
This year, join me in the rebellion. And BAN THE CARDS!
Give your child a choice: “Honey, I’m going to Dollar Tree today. And I will buy you: A) cards for YOU to sign BY YOURSELF, or B) Pencils for you to SIMPLY hand out.”
Oh, Hell, don’t even give ’em a choice. It’s pandemic times. Tell them the cards are on back order due to supply chain issues in China. And then go buy the pencils.
Now pencils won’t totally solve the post-holiday clean up situation, but at least when we collect them, we can save them in a safe space and pull them out in the fall when it’s BACK TO SCHOOL SUPPLY LIST SHOPPING! Mischief managed.
Handing out pencils for Valentine’s Day might actually redeem the “holiday” for me. And my boys still get to experience the joy of giving.
I guess I’ll give Valentine’s Day another try.
Share your own tips and tricks for how to survive Valentine’s Day with kiddos below or on Facebook at MothersRest.
Photo credit: Rinck Content Studio on Unsplash
ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS
I am loving the conversation this started on Facebook. Check out all the comments mommas posted…
I personally love them but I’m very thankful my sons teacher does a book exchange so all I have to do is wrap one book and she asks that they do not exchange individual treats.
I hate the Valentines Boxes we have to create. That is my least favorite school project.
I’m clearly the odd one out cause I love it 😆 as a prior teacher and mom I love making them with my kids and as a teacher loved seeing the students so excited to pass them out/receive them!
Just spent 30 mins taping blow pops to 50 Valentine’s Day cards. 😳😩🤦♀️
I’m in the minority here. I LOVE it!! I let the boys pick a theme (Sonic this year) and then I design the cards, we stuff the bags (assembly line style), I help the boys sign their names, and then staple to the bags.
There are a lot of mom-duties that I really dislike but vday cards (Halloween and Christmas too) I absolutely love. 🥰
I gave my husband and 5 year old the cards, and class name and let them figure it out! I’m still resting from Christmas planning lol
I hate the ones that end up basically “requiring” participation, and the parents to do something, more than the children. I love the ones that inspire creativity and appreciation among the classroom!
I love Valentines! We hand make them each year. It’s a sweet and fun craft that my boys still love to do.
I had my kid address her classmates in her handwriting; great writing practice. Taking the time to show others that we like them and care about them is a value I’d like for my daughter to have.
My kids go to a school that doesn’t do it and I actually miss it. I grew up in a house with a single mom who always made Valentine’s Day special and sweet. I don’t see it as forced romanticism and frame it as a reminder that life is short and you should tell people you care about them. Sure, you should do that every day, and Hallmark makes money off of it, but I appreciate the pause in the midst of daily life and particularly now in this long season of hard days.
We usually print the cards out with the kids name on them, no “to,” and my kids both have dysgraphia so writing their name that many times is tough, but they help assemble the card and the little treasure that goes with it. Opening their valentines brings them so much joy!
I just made a post about this. I strongly dislike Valentine’s Day. This is what I wrote:
So I’m just going to come out and say it. I hate the tradition of exchanging Valentines at school. I don’t even want to get into the Hallmark holiday aspect, and the marketing of love and affection, which should be free and expressed every day.
But why is my elementary school kid being forced to give a cutesy card expressing love to classmates she/he may or may not like?
And don’t get me started on the messaging on those mass produced store-bought cards? Love you bunches? Love bugs forever? Be Mine? Why is that even appropriate? Why are we forcing children to express ideas of romantic love at this kind of an age? And why is the school system endorsing this? And further, I think this can have a very negative effect on a child’s self-esteem – kids compare, take things to heart.
Why not, as my wise husband suggested, have your children send blank cards on which they write one nice thing about each classmate. That’s an exercise that both the giver and the recipient feel good about, and that’s what schools should be suggesting.
Because even if you’re not friends with someone, even if you *think* you might not get along, if you push yourself to stretch and acknowledge one positive trait, one kind thing, that might be a way to to build a new friendship. That’s what Valentine’s Day *should* be about.