The Spirit of Valentine’s Day – A Day of Love
and Harmony
With Valentine’s Day round the corner and with everybody talking about it, my six year old asks me “Ma
what is so special about Valentine’s Day?” At first, I was perplexed and wondered how I could answer
that! Then he asked me, “Why is entire country celebrating it and why are some people having
problems with it?”
I thought to myself “Do kids at this age talk about V-Day and all that stuff?!” And if they do, how as a
parent can I make my kid understand the true essence of Valentine’s Day, which over the years has got
overshadowed by the sheer commercialisation of the day. So I sat him down, and this is what I told him.
I told him that a long time back there lived a priest in Rome. His name was Valentine. But everybody
called him Saint Valentine. On one 14 th February he laid down his life for the betterment of humanity
and since then, this day has been celebrated as Valentine’s Day. Obviously the kiddo had questions
like what is betterment and humanity, which I explained to him.
Then I told him that we celebrate Valentine’s Day as the day of love, peace and harmony when
everyone says I Love You to everyone irrespective of their colour, caste and creed. And the kiddo
nodded his little head, saying he understood, but I was sceptical. So I asked him what did he
understand and this is what he told me (and believe me, at that precise moment I felt that if we only we
could all teach our kids, especially our sons, a little more about true love, half of our problems would be
solved in a jiffy): the kiddo said that we should love everyone and be friends with everyone, and that
love is all about giving and never taking. Apparently, his Veenu ma’am had told him that true joy of any
celebration is in giving, when you give somebody a gift of your love the other person becomes happy
and you also become rich. I thought to myself this is far better way of explaining to a six year old about
love, compassion, peace and harmony.
And then he asked me, “But I still don’t understand why some people are against it. And momma what
is paschatya sanskriti?” I smiled and told him that ‘paschatya’ means western something that has come
from West, from abroad. “Oh you mean America!” Also see more info @ http://www.parentedge.in