Take Heart

It's February, also known to many as Heart Month. It's that month when we lead with our hearts, express our hearts by giving those we love a special Valentine. It's also the month when we are reminded to take care of our hearts for our health's sake. It's disturbing to know that today's children are developing conditions that were once relegated to their elders, conditions that could easily lead to full-blown heart disease as they become adults. As a little girl, I had no awareness, no concerns about heart disease. Each February, I was only concerned about giving and receiving Valentines at my school. My elementary school was an old, two-story building in the center of large grounds that provided wondrous opportunities for recess play. The classes were all small. My grade had as few as a dozen children in it some years. We were all close, so Valentine's Day was very special. I can vividly remember taking great effort to select just the right paper Valentines for my classmates and then carefully printing messages on them in pencil to each child. We spent time in class making Valentines for our parents made of red and pink construction paper, paste, small pieces of tissue paper folded over pencil tops to make little flowers, and messages lovingly written -- and often misspelled -- in crayon. Some years, we even had access to little candy hearts with messages on them to paste onto our Valentines, those heart candies that say "Be Mine" and other sweet things. My mom used to make a Valentine tree -- a tree branch painted white with her nurse's shoe polish, then decorated with red construction paper hearts. Those are the kinds of things I would wish for today's children -- a healthy heart and a heart filled with anticipation and joy for the love expressed on Valentine's Day.

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Comment by Catherine Garcia on February 10, 2012 at 12:56pm: Hi Keri,

I too have fond memories of Valentine’s Day growing up and all the fun card exchanges that took place. I also remember as a child having Valentine’s Day parties at home with my friends and to this day I remember my mom baking sugar cookies for us and we would each get 1-2 cookies to decorate before exchange cards. This year my son is 4 and he made his Valentine cards last week. I cut out white construction paper hearts and then equipped him with glue, glitter, sequins, feathers etc and he decorated them however he wanted. Sure, my kitchen table was a disaster and I’m still cleaning up glitter, but I know he enjoyed himself and I hope these are things he always remember.

It is scary to think about diseases amongst kids that used to be diseases that older people experienced. I look at some kids today and I hate to say it but I’m not surprised. Healthy diets are not always part of a child’s upbringing and activity levels seem so unbelievably low. So many kids are on the computer, playing video games etc. As a child, if it wasn’t raining or freezing, I was outside playing. We have taken the same approach with my children. Learning and play time involves the outdoors or constructive activities inside. It is amazing though how different things are since we were children, huh?