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I hate Valentine's Day and I know I'm not alone in this. But as a single mother, as I have been for the past five Februaries, I have hated it harder than most. It's a prickly time for everyone, to be sure. The pressure to express or quantify love for another is a minefield of expectation and disappointment.
For my generation – a generation that did not give everyone a ribbon just for turning up; a generation of winners and losers – this began at public school. That pink-tissue-papered box that sat at the front of the classroom for weeks, its gaping mouth begging for hearts, contained cruel secrets. Who loved you. Who did not.
The tension on the day of the reveal was excruciating. Breath would return only with the first valentine addressed to you. There was one, at least there was one. But was it from the girl who ate glue (or, really, her overcompensating mother)? Was it from your best friend? What if you got none from boys? What about the blond girl who got two valentines seductively signed Anonymous?
At high school it was even worse. Valentine's Day affection expressed through red carnations – God's ugliest creation. Gleeful students, the kind who participated in school councils (the ones you later in life tell yourself peaked in high school), bounced into home rooms and, no matter how cynical you were about the whole business, you prayed that one of those nasty flowers was destined for you. Seven – that seemed to be the magical number if you were blond and cute and outgoing and, at my very white high school, we seemed to have a disproportionate number of girls who fit that description. Needless to say, I was none of these things.
My daughter, who is 41/2, will be spared the pain of this ritual. Generations after me decided no one should be left out – everyone will get a Valentine's card from everyone else in JK, even the boy who hits and the girl everyone is told they have to be nice to.
While these kids may not understand romantic love, they, the girls in particular, have ingested enough fairy tales by now to designate themselves princesses and assign others to corresponding roles. Thanks to Disney, the handsome prince is no longer a princess's only option. This is the Frozen generation, where the handsome prince may well prove to be a villain, and true love may be that which you have for your sister. Frozen has given them an acceptable alternative, one I hope her generation will carry with it into a lifetime of Februaries.
With all the Disney in her unfrozen heart, my daughter teaches me that I have no reason to be hating Valentine's Day. I have my own true love right beside me. And so we plan our Valentine's Day together. The screening of the Royal Ballet's production of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. A feast of cookies shaped like hearts.