Valentine’s Day is fast approaching. As many mom’s do, I feel the (self-imposed) pressure to dress both my children in a Pinterest-perfect outfit. As I sift though Valentine’s Day outfits at all my favorite stores, I am bombarded with shirts sporting slogans like, “Single and ready to flamingle” or “I’m not a player, I just crush a lot.” Gag me. There were shirts that advertise, “Heart Breaker” or “Man of your dreams.” Just gross.
This got me thinking. Do I really want to put my innocent boys in shirts that make them out to be some kind of romantic deviant? A shirt that makes it seem like they are searching for a relationship or capable of hurting someone’s romantic feelings? While our children are certainly capable of feeling big things and, once they develop the language to do so, they may express those feelings as love, they certainly aren’t capable of understanding the nuances of the adult relationship that Valentine’s Day promotes. I once found my toddler kissing the oven while dinner was cooking saying he “Just loves dinner”. He was, and still is, far too young to grasp the idea of love or even the meaning of affection. So why, on a Hallmark-created holiday would I put him in a shirt that tells others he knows how to break hearts or fulfill dreams?
“But it’s so cute”, right? Or “It’s just for fun!” In fact, my kids aren’t even old enough to read yet so it’s not like they have any idea what their shirts say.
So what’s the big deal?
We as parents have a lot of influence over our kids’ mindsets. We start forming their view of the world from day one. When we start with the idea that something like this doesn’t matter or that it’s excusable because it’s cute , it’s hard to change that mindset in the future. It leads to another generation of adults who think it’s funny to be heartbreakers or cute to be labeled a flirt.
When I was younger, and probably still today, if a girl and boy spent time together, others would tease them about being in love or getting married. If a girl was friendly with many boys, she was called a flirt, or something worse. If a boy had a lot of girl friends, he’s considered to be a player. It’s just not fair to our young children. It perpetuates the idea that boys and girls can’t be friends without an underlying sexual attraction.
And how can we combat this way of thinking when even our babies are expected to be assigned the role of “Heartthrob” as early as their first Valentine’s Day?
Celebrate love without broadcasting romantic or sexual ideas.
Valentines day can celebrate the love of friends, siblings, and parents, rather than just boyfriends, wives, and lovers. I want my children to know they are allow to express feelings, even love towards others without it meaning something more than friendship. It does not have to mean more than that until they are ready to feel those bigger things. I want them to grow up knowing their best friend can be a girl, or a boy, depending on what life presents to them. And I hope someday they both have a best friend that they decides to marry. But only when they decide that is where the relationship should go.
Choose shirts that promote Philia-style love rather than Eros-style.
Philia is the type of love between friends and Eros is the type between lovers. My pre-school aged children have little (or no) understanding of these types of love. But they do know that I love them very much and my older son expressed that he loves his brother daily. That is the language he hears at home and chooses to model. Even on Valentines Day, we can continue to promote brotherly love and friendship love rather than sexual love as far as our children and their clothing are concerned.
Let the child’s personality shine through.
Rather than assigning your tiny person a label of Heartbreaker or Man-eater *shudder* choose a Valentine’s Day outfit that reflects their personality or something that simply celebrates Love in it’s truest form.
I am not the perfect parent and now that my first son it old enough to care about his clothing, sometimes what he chooses to wear makes me want to face-palm so hard. But I do try to make sure how I dress my children isn’t a projection of normalized toxic behaviors.
So this Valentine’s Day, before you dress your children, think about the message you are sending and the sentiments you are placing upon the next generation.
XO Beka
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