A Valentine's Lesson

Listen up Dad's.   If you want to have an impact on your daughters life, especially when she begins to enter the terrifying years of middle school and high school, then I would hope that Valentine's Day is not treated cynically as a Hallmark takeover of love, but rather as a special day that you can show her what a boy's love should look like. 

For as long as I can remember, my Dad spoiled us on Valentines Day.   When we would come downstairs in the morning, three bouquets of flowers, gift cards to our favorite clothing store, and some chocolates would be waiting for his girls.  (My mom always got a separate, appropriately bigger, bouquet:).  For a high school age girl, even at a Christian school, this day was full of pressure, full of wondering who would get the most roses in the school giveaway, and who might be a secret admirer that year. 

So whether he planned it to be or not, it was an incredible lesson to us girls that I have shared with Kevin to teach little Callie.  You see, when your Dad sets the standard... you tend to not search for the wrong kind of love in high school boys.  It tells insecure girls that any love they find should measure up to the kind of love that their Dad showed them. 

No surprise that my sisters and I all seemed to get that message loud and clear by the time we were half way through high school, seeing as we ALL married boys that we found there.  And they are all wonderful husbands who treat us just like our Dad did on Valentine's Day. 
So this year, because I think she's old enough to realize how much her Daddy loves her, we started the tradition with Callie.  She had a basket full of chocolates, Plat-o, and a Cinderella T-shirt waiting for her in the morning.  No need to go and search for it from one of those four year old boys in the preschool class.  She had all the love she needed right at home. 

I find that people are greatly irritated by this holiday.  Too much materialism, commercialism, and pressure.  But what would it be like if we embraced it and used it as a day to emphasize what we try to convey all year long?  Especially to our little girls.  Who no doubt will some day be hoping to get just one rose from that special boy.  Let's just hope it's the kind of boy that we hope it will be.