Area Woman Blows Gasket by Patricia Pearson

Author:Patricia Pearson
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2009-10-05T04:00:00+00:00

My Sunny Valentine

The other day Clara excitedly sang a song that she'd learned in her grade one classroom:

"Clara and Lucas sitting in a tree, K R M L B M G." I started chuckling.

"Why are you laughing?" she asked, her sweet heart-shaped face lit up with concern. "What does the song mean?"

"You didn't get the letters quite right," I explained, "but they're supposed to spell out 'kissing.'"

"Oh," she said, smiling in surprise. But she still didn't get why the song would be salacious and meant to tease. I can't explain romantic love to a six-year-old, because it would be inseparable in her experience from familial love. She wants to grow up to marry her father, and everything else is merely idiom and play.

I was reminded of that yesterday when she overheard talk of Valentine's Day and asked me what it was for.

"Well," I started brightly, opting for a religious explanation, "it's a special day in honor of Saint Valentine, who . . . uh . . . er . . ." Of course, I couldn't remember who Saint Valentine was. "Anyway, it's a day when you tell people that you love them."

"Why?"

Why being the classic follow-up question of all small children on every subject, guaranteering that you gape like a carp while you try to formulate an elaborate response to an issue that you haven't thought about. Why don't we tell people that we love them on the other 364 days of the year? Hmmm, well, I guess we do, so . . . really it gets back to celebrating Saint Valentine, who was . . . er . . . oh, never mind. Finish your Cheerios.

Clara plays with weddings and family units and the idea of boyfriends, and last summer we were surprised to find her group playing Spin the Bottle in someone's basement, without having the faintest clue that the objective was the kiss, rather than the spinning of the bottle, which they all thought was very cool. But I watch her and wonder:When do children genuinely grasp the concept of romantic love? Do their parents see it coming? Are we prepared to take the revelation seriously after years of watching puppy-like rehearsals?

Shortly after our conversation, the local paper ran a story about this question as posed by Dr. Wendy Austin, a University of Alberta mental health expert who has written a book about early adolescent love. In First Love: The Adolescent's Experience of Amour, Austin argues that adults don't take teenaged infatuations as seriously as they should. Of course, it's difficult to take the matter seriously when your child's love is the two-dimensional image of a pop star on a poster or the son of your best friend, who you still remember being transfixed by Bob the Builder.

But Austin feels that adults misperceive how powerful their children's feelings are when they first develop a "crush" on someone, and because they don't understand, parents risk alienating their children by not being able to guide them through a hugely tempestuous experience.

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