Valentine’s Day (observed)
Two years ago, I was horrified to read at Not Quite Sure that one was expected to provide Valentines for the kids at preschool. I continued to pretend that I hadn’t gotten the memo, and didn’t worry too much about the one or two kids who did distribute them.
Two weeks ago, D’s kindergarten teacher sent home a letter saying that they wouldn’t be having a Valentine’s Day party, but that we could, if we chose, provide Valentines to be distributed. The letter said that if we did so, we should provide them for all the kids in the class (and a list was included) and that they should be pre-addressed since the teachers didn’t have time to address them for us.
As it happens, we had bought a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts last month and they had included a pack of 12 donut-themed Valentine’s, each one with a coupon for a free donut. D thought this sounded like a fine idea, so Tuesday night he sat down and carefully wrote his classmates names onto the cards and signed them all. Of course, there was no school yesterday, so the celebration was delayed. After reading the V-Day posts at Uterine Wars and On Balance, I wondered what we’d be getting back. Handmade cards with glitter hearts? Bags of candy?
As it turns out, D received one bag of candy, two Cars-themed cards, one Spiderman-themed card, and one Thomas-themed card. (All of these of the sort sold by the dozen at CVS.) So we neither upped the ante embarassingly or fell short. Does it make me a bad mommy to think that I’m going to look back on this nostalgically if we move to a better school district with more involved parents?
February 16th, 2007 at 12:48 am
Just read through all the links you posted for this entry. I am dreading the day I have to deal with this, which is just a year away. One thing I noted in alot of the writing is that people still care to much about what others think. Sending Valentines are the last thing item of importance on my list, but I know alot of Mom friends that are really into this stuff. I can barely get a card out for my spouse. So sending a dozen or more cards into a classroom is unlikely.
February 16th, 2007 at 8:19 am
After reading the links you provided, I have to laugh. At our preschool, children were not allowed to bring Valentines to class, but were allowed to make them at the “post office station, set up with paper, glue, scissors, etc.. They then “delivered them” dressed up in bits and pieces of mail carrier costumes. But, we moms did not get off the hook since we were required to make personalized felt bags to hang on their hooks to receive the mail. Each was more elaborate than the last.
We moms STILL had our little crafty competitiveness, but the children were somewhat less involved.
Is this yet another example of meeting our needs through our kids? Growing up feminist , we learned that striving and achieving, being the best is admirable. “If I can’t do it in the office, I’ll do it in the schoolroom….hmmmm.”
I personally struggle with this; it seems on a too regular basis. Did I decorate the house as well as my neighbor for each holiday? Is his birthday party going to be “cool enough?” Were our photo holiday cards creative enough?
There’s no respite! In my circle of semi-crunchy, non materialistic, Waldorf/organic friends you’d think I’d get some relief. Nope, buying is simply replaced by creating. Who can make the craftiest, most natural, most serene…most “crunchy”. Sigh, is there a way out?
February 16th, 2007 at 9:41 am
I totally hear what MCMilker is saying. I also have a semi-crunchy circle, and the “more natural than thou” vibe can be a bit much.
I have found at my daughters’ schools (one pre-school, and now a private elementary school) that there’s one set of extremely involved parents, who are often the face of the school because they’re so visible and around so much. But even at a pretty hard-core crunchy co-op, there was always another set of semi-involved parents. It can be harder to find the less-involved parents, but if you keep at it, you’ll find them. They’re the ones packing up to leave the fundraising pot-luck a little earlier than you’d expect. Or perhaps they never volunteer for events but still pick their kids up fairly reliably. Interestingly I have found that the *children* of semi-involved parents seem to also find *each other*, whatever that means. I can reliably hang out with the parents of my daughters’ closest friends from school.
February 16th, 2007 at 10:15 am
My daughter’s (fulltime) preschool exchanged valentines, and most of them were the perforated, character kind. Petunia gave Little Mermaid and Wiggles valentines (because that’s what her grandmothers sent her), decorated with stickers from our sticker box. Everyone collected their valentines in the boxes they had made at school from old Kleenex boxes cut in half and painted pink and red. There were two people who gave out candy bags (small cellophane favor bags with one or two kinds of candy in them). One girl made heart-shaped crayons for all the kids by melting other crayons down and pouring the wax into heart-shaped molds.
I may be reading too much into this here, but at Petunia’s preschool, just about everyone has two full-time working parents. A lot of the kids have siblings, and one or two live with grandparents. Several kids rely on public transit to get to school with their parents everyday. I could not imagine people coming in with the kinds of valentines described at Uterine Wars.
Everyone competing in the Natural Olympics should check out this post at The Twinkies: http://ct-twins.blogspot.com/2006/12/i-am-more-natural-than-you.html HILARIOUS.
February 16th, 2007 at 10:23 am
Our school strongly encourages valentines. We bought them at Target. I addressed the ones for my 2.5 year old, my 4.5 year old did her own. I refused to do any for the 6-month old, because that is just silly (although I have no doubt he will get some from his infant classmates). We did make valentine’s for friends and family (and their teachers). It was actually a great project. We bought blank cards and I pulled out a bunch of old lipsticks and the girls put the different lipstick colors on and kissed the cards. Came out cute and took maybe 15 minutes to do about 25 cards.
February 16th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
okay, i’m really cranky today due to being up late last nite, so take this post for what it’s worth.
but whenever i read about all this hyper-parenting stuff, the only thing i can think is: if these parents have this much time on their hands that they can be worrying about outdoing each other on the valentines treats they make for their kids school party, why the frak aren’t they spending it doing something that is actually going to accomplish some good in the world, like volunteering for any of a myriad of worthy causes? and i don’t mean the PTA at their local, affluent, over-funded school district.
sorry, but i spent last evening at a public commission hearing where a gov’t board i sit on listened to applications for funding from local non-profits who do human service work (in the old days, they called these things “charities”) and was absolutely blown away by the dedication & commitment of these foks who are either volunteers or work for pittance wages. (this is why i’m tired, was up late last nite. figuring out how to divide a tiny pie into a bunch of teensy slices is not the easiest thing). and then to read something like this, competetive valentines making amongst suburban parents, well. it really rubbed me the wrong way.
especially since you, elizabeth, are someone that i hold in such high esteem, for all the good work that you do. don’t get me wrong, i’m not criticizing you for making this post. what i’m saying is that i hate hate HATE that you are feeling this sort of pressure. i just think it’s reflective of some pretty screwed up values.
and one last thought. as far as moving to a “better” school district. i’m not sure what it is where you live that makes for a better district, but it sounds like you’d be setting yourself up for living somewhere where your children may be getting taught lessons that are in direct contradiction to your values. is it worth the increase in academic performance for that? this is a genuine question, btw, not a criticism. it’s an issue i struggle with over whether or not to send our little N* to private school or not. fortunately we have a few years before we have to make a decision.
February 16th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
I manage to squelch my obsessive crafting tendencies for children’s projects through three factors 1) an utter lack of time. I’d like to do it, but I run out of time. 2) a daughter who does not like things done for her. I once tried to convince her that she should say that she wrapped a present (which was not up to my crafting standards), because then everyone would think it was a great job (from a 4 yo, no less). She said, no mommy, wouldn’t that be lying? Mind you, I was mostly joking, but really, she’s not going to let my work pass as hers, either. 3) the cognitive knowledge that it’s bad to do yor kid’s work for them, even when it’s crafting valentines.
In defense of valentines, I have to point out that my daughter kept her pre-school valentines for a year. She’d go through them, remembering each kid who gave them to her. She thought they were special, and the specialness really was the “love” she saw in them, not the craftiness, or the specialness of the valentine itself.
bj
February 16th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
I love to make handmade cards for friends and family. I have a thoroughly technical engineering job and it’s my only opportunity to exercise that other side of my brain. I find it incredibly enjoyable and relaxing. For Valentine’s day, I bought my daughter a box of Disney princess cards from Target for $3 because I was afraid that if I sent in little homemade cards that I made, someone would judge me as being one of those mothers who did such things to one up the other parents. I just give away my cards to people who know me well enough to know that I do it for joy rather than recognition.
February 16th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
V.H. — Oh please start sending your cards around. I’d feel worse about the social pressure squelching passion than about social pressure making some folks make home-made cards when they’d rather not.
I am a serious amateur photographer and have a camera that gets stares when I bring it around. It’s a professional camera with a professional lens. I have indulged in my passion for lenses, and I love taking photographs. I sometimes worry that people think I’m “showing off”, but when it comes down to it, I care about the photography than I do about the perceived snobbery.
bj
PS: Now, I think a different question is when our kids are supposed to do it, and when we’re supposed to. I made the invitations (on the computer) for my daughter’s b-day party (she turned six). In the future, I’d like her to make her own.
February 16th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
My son’s preschool sent a note home asking each kid to bring in valentines for each kid in the class. We weren’t supposed to put the kids’ names on them, though since most 3 year old can’t read. My husband Gary (who went to high school with you)wrote our son’s name in the “from” section on each Cars valentine from CVS. The kids all decorated bags at school. When I was going through the cards he received later with him, I noticed that some parents were like us and left the “to” section blank while other parents had written in cutesy little messages like “To my special preschool valentine” etc.
February 19th, 2007 at 9:38 am
Yeah – I also tend to notice differences in the way parents “handle” the support role in their children’s lives. I was aware of the bar on the bday party front recently when my son opted to join forces with a friend who apparently put a lot of pressure on her parents to invest in the “sweet 13” party.
When thoughts that make you uncomfortable emerge, do you ever think about the messages you might unconsciously be conveying to your kid(s)? I try to compensate by putting a little extra energy into recognizing my son’s demonstrations of individuality.
Hugs,everyone. As a friend of mine reminds, you can’t do it wrong!
Nan
February 19th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
We are lower-the-bar parents ourselves, and generally try and have parties at home. Nan, you have triggered me to make a pitch for one of the all time great kid birthday stories: Birthday at Buddy’s: http://www.outerlife.com/2005/01/birthday_at_bud.html. When you read this, try and avoid having a mouthful of hot coffee.
On the Valentine’s front, each kid gets a pack from the supermarket to fill in his/her name and take to school. My boys tend to brutally unpack, discard the cards, and harvest any candy which came their way. My girl looked at each card, asked me who it was from, talked about how nice it was and how much she liked the kid who gave it to her…
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:59 am
At our son’s (public, very crunchy) elementary school (he’s in 1st grade) every kid has to bring in valentines for every kid in the class. The class decided that all the cards should be homemade. I honestly did not see this as some kind of competitive-mother set-up. Although perhaps I’m just clueless about these things? In any case, we didn’t want to spend a whole lot of time making 31 cards, so we opted for a potato-print heart. My husband (the family artist) carved the heart into the potato, I handled the paint, and our kids plunked the spud on the papers. Quick and fun. S got a real assortment of cards, from ones made on the computer to extra fancy lace doily types. He still keeps his valentines from kindergarten. I’m hoping he’ll turn out to be a romantic.