Valentine’s Day is a waste of time and I tend not to celebrate it in any meaningful way. I don’t require my husband to bring me gifts or take me out for dinner. Valentine’s Day is about a month and a half from Christmas and exactly a month before our wedding anniversary. We can celebrate love any other time of the year and we won’t have to fight a crowd. We might say “Happy Valentine’s Day” and hug, but the celebration ends there. Usually, for my kids, I plan an experience in the time around Valentine’s Day, like a trip to the indoor water park or another fun event.
I don’t need a holiday for my husband to show me he loves me. He does that when he makes me a cocktail with fresh squeezed juice on Saturday nights after I have served drinks to half of the city for two nights in a row. I feel the love when we stand in the kitchen supposedly cooking but instead we are watching a TV show on the kitchen computer, and he starts to rub my back. When I call him as he leaves work late to pick up soymilk and he does so willingly, I know he loves us. As he works the computer at every one of my kids swim meets I see how he supports their endeavors. When he sits on the couch with the boys one under each arm watching Dragon Ball Z, and he grins a blissful grin at me when I enter the room, I see the love.
Sometimes he looks at me over the neck of his guitar as we play together in the band and I know we still have that fire. I especially feel his love on cold winter nights as we lay in bed snuggled close together each of doing our own thing on our tablets. The memory of him giving me the leather jacket off his back during our first few months together as a gift has me remembering where it all started.
I really don’t need Valentine’s Day to tell my kids I love them. I show them when I sit like I am at this very moment, at swim team, which practices five nights a week for months on end. I fight for their needs with schools, specialists, and mental health agencies. I take them to museums, events with friends, and off the cuff adventures. I laugh at their silly jokes and sometimes we are downright ridiculous. Finally, I am tough on them when they need to learn I am firm with boundaries.
I know Valentine’s Day is fun for the kids. We fill out the cards for the class, they adore having a reason to binge on candy, and I bake for the class. I would never disparage the holiday for them but personally I don’t feel a pressing need to make a huge deal out of February 14th every year.
This year, the holiday lands on a Saturday. We actually have a babysitter but an old friend’s band is having a reunion show. We are going out with our band mates and friends and hear some harder, faster, louder music. To me, this is the perfect way to spend Valentine’s. After over twenty years together I find myself fortunate to find loving gestures in every single day.
I think for my kids, modeling a positive loving marriage will benefit their lives much more than making a huge deal out of Valentine’s Day.
Cover Image Courtesy Matt Faisetty
Jo-Ann Rogan, 48, is the lead singer of the punk band Thorazine and bartends in Philadelphia at the legendary McGlinchey’s Bar. She started her blog, Punky Mama. in 2006. She is married to the guitarist from her band and they are the parents of two wild red head boys with diverse special needs.