The Year Without a Valentine

I’m experiencing fourth grade at a new school through the eyes of my 10-year-old boy. And it isn’t always pretty.

He’s feeling Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing most days when he rolls into the passenger seat in the afternoon car line. I try logic. As in, “They say you’re disgusting? Why? Your breath doesn’t stink. Your clothes are clean. You wash your hands more than any of them.” His dad hears the tales and just says, “Sometimes girls are just mean.”

My heart skips a beat. Mean girls? At our school?

I’ve visited that class before and I picture those girls in my mind. They didn’t look like mean girls. So what’s a mama to do when the note comes home in February?

Valentines may be exchanged only if you send one for each student.

What’s a mama to do when her child lives in a black or white, all or nothing world? What’s a mama to do when her child says,

“Then I’m not doing Valentines.”

I chose to let him choose. We’re both growing. And so on Friday afternoon before Valentine’s weekend when he gets in the car with that extra white bag, I ask the question.

“Got Valentines?”

And of course, the answer is “yes.” Because, really, even mean girls aren’t mean enough to give up Valentine’s Day.

But my son’s answer isn’t just “yes.” His answer is, “Yes, but they’re not real ones.”

And I want to be sad. I really do. I want to begin to comfort him.

But there’s no need.

Because he’s not sad.

He is perfectly fine.

And so I’m trying to be. I’m trying to realize that he’s not me, that different things matter to different people, and that it’s OK to have a year without a Valentine.

What do you do when your child figures out a bit of reality? Do you go with the flow or do you resist?

Because frankly, there’s no telling how much Valentine’s may cost me next year when everything changes and there’s a whole classroom of nice girls.

The same girls.