Valentine's Day Conundrum

This week is Valentine's Day, and here I am again, scratching my head, wondering what I am going to be okay with while still allowing my kids to be "normal" kids.

My son goes to a pretty traditional preschool - and has a class party and Valentine's day exchange.  The teacher sent a list of student names home with a note at the bottom - "You can buy packaged Valentines at places such as Target, Walmart, CVS, etc."

Ouch.  I dislike this note so much - not just because it's pointing parents to spend their money in a big box store on products with licensed characters packaged up with poisonous candy - but because it is limiting the creativity of everyone involved.  This one instruction is the epitome of why my husband and I are looking at new schools for next year - Montessori, progressive, international - basically anything that limits the amount of convergent thinking.

Really?  I'm back to facing wait lists and admissions fees, all because I've realized suddenly, I don't feel comfortable in the culture I grew up in!  These are some strange times.  But I digress...

So here I am with my dilemma on the Valentine's party.  If I send my son to school, he is most certainly going to be surrounded by toxic food and candy all day.  If I don't send my son to school, I can make/buy plenty of treats to make the day special, but then he doesn't get to socialize and celebrate with his friends. 

Hmm, what should I do?

I've disliked Valentine's Day now for many, many years.  I think it is cruel to many - to the single and lonely, to the attached with expectations, to the child laborers out harvesting the cacao beans for the big box chocolatiers!  I think it is a fake, commercial holiday and makes people feel guilty if they aren't spending money.  But now, I really dislike it because it creates another hard parenting decision - when Valentine's Day is supposed to be about love, which is simple and true.

I don't want my son to miss out on fun time with his friends, so my decision this year is to send him to school.  I am instructing his teachers to remove all the candy in his mailbox - and to replace it with a few pieces of "approved" candy that I will provide.  The Valentines we are sending to school are homemade and pretty ugly and will have a single piece of organic candy attached to the back with Scotch tape.  I am going to let him eat from the school party fare - which does include some sketchy morsels (nothing with food dye in it, but low-fat milk and some cool whip) - so I'm going to lump it in my brain with the 80/20 mentality and know that his teachers will have to deal with his crazy butt after he consumes it.  (Insert evil laugh.)

Next year, we hope he's in a school that doesn't allow crap food, period.

And that's how I roll...  CM
Have a great Valentine's Day, and I hope you all feel some special love!
Jill