What is the purpose of Valentines day? How does it differ for men, women, and children? How can we best utilize the day, transcend the myths and social conditioning, and make it a day that supports our relationships?
I feel that the most important Holy-day is actually our birthday, or our partners, friends and children’s birthdays. A birthday is the supreme celebration of our existence. I think it is very valuable to learn to receive and celebrate your birthday and also to honor others appropriately on their birthday.
Most of us don’t even know who Saint Valentine was, but we have been trained to think that this is an additional day of the year where our love-ability is measured. Valentines day has become another day where the words, gifts, and time spent, demonstrate if we are loved or not. Children look at what classmates wrote in their Valentines cards and this is part of the social pecking order that has caused both joy and pain. If our partner or lover pays a lack of attention to us on Valentines Day we will likely feel hurt.
For starters then, lets value the people we value on this day. If we don’t have a lover or partner then we can boycott the day or use it to honor another kind of friend or family member.
It is fair to assume that February 14 has grown to hold more value to women than to men, just as an elaborate wedding might be more important to women also.
So how can we celebrate this day in a way that honors our relationships? How can we re-appropriate it for our own purposes, and let go of the negative pressures that tend to come with the Hallmark holiday? My main suggestion is to think of how you can honor some of the standard expectations and also begin to create your own rituals that might have greater meaning. For example, as a heterosexual man I don’t think it works for men with partners to just dismiss the day as a marketing sham and not celebrate it. I think it is important to “Man up” and treat our beloved as special in some way. It is fair and somewhat inevitable that a woman would measure her partner’s care or availability by the way he honors the day. It might also be an important measure of the health and vitality of the relationship.
Although I am placing more pressure on men to celebrate Valentines Day appropriately, I also suggest women relax this pressure a bit, and give men some latitude for how they celebrate it. Think of all the heart shaped pendants sold in our history. Sometimes these may have been valued, others they missed the mark (like not finding the clitoris), but at least they were an expensive attempt of showing care and love :-). It is hard for men to figure out what would be the right demonstration of love, so sometimes they give too much, others they never try. Regardless, lets all get better and teaching our friends and partners what we need and value this year.
I think men care about Valentines Day too. They may not admit it, just like they may never need or want anything on their birthday, but they do. I am pretty sure they don’t value flowers as much as the average woman but they do need to feel recognized. I recommend a cheesy heart shaped box of chocolate or a simple gift like a shirt. I also recommend a hand written card. Just as it is best to write a woman a card instead of letting Hallmark “ghost write” it, the same would apply for men. Perhaps my most prized possessions are the notes my kids have written in birthday and fathers day cards. I am not that good at celebrating my own birthday, but as I have gotten better at it, I have actually remembered to ask for hand written cards. When my kids as me what I want, I usually say, “I am not sure… a handwritten card.” Hallmark cards are fine as long as you also write in them.
I am wondering if the readers would agree that the “home run” is not Roses every year unless it’s your favorite flower. Would most women probably prefer something hand written (extra credit for poetry), a favorite flower, (another gift if your partner is prosperous) and some time and nurturing touch? And, what would people without partners prefer, to ignore the day? Or go out with friends? One of the things I have done when I was single was go skiing alone. I have even dined out alone on Valentines Day. Lets take Valentines Day back and give it our own meanings.
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