TEMECULA – If you follow conservative news outlets, you’ve probably seen the reports here and there of school districts asking parents not to send their kids to school with candy-ladened Valentine’s Day cards.
My kindergarten daughter goes to one of those schools.
And so it was that her little hands had written out the names of her classmates on heart-filled cards that she meticulously taped to little packets of Skittles when I opened her school folder and saw a flier with a little reminder about the district’s “wellness policy.”
“We ask that you please adhere to our wellness policy and refrain from including candy” blah blah blah.
I was at a crossroads. If you don’t remember having a 6-year-old, let me tell you, writing her name plus her classmates’ names on tiny little lines took no less than two hours. We weren’t redoing that little feat.
Besides, I am tired of the government telling me what to do, and I am tired of local bureaucrats doing the same. I am all for eating healthy, and I don’t let my kids eat crap all day long. Having said that – it’s flipping Valentine’s Day. C’mon. Let them hand out a few candy hearts.
So I looked Elizabeth in the eyes and I told her the truth.
“Elizabeth,” I said, “you’re school doesn’t allow kids to hand out candy with their Valentine’s Day cards, but I am going to let you do it anyway.”
“Why, momma?”
“Because they want kids to eat healthy, and I want you to eat healthy, too. But you worked really hard on your Valentine’s cards and I didn’t know that rule when you did. So I am going to let you pass them out. And once in a while having candy is OK, especially on Valentine’s Day.”
So off she went to school on Wednesday for her class Valentine’s Day party, the forbidden treats tucked away in her pink backpack. And I wondered if they’d be confiscated. I figured I’d cross that bridge when the time came.
It didn’t. Turns out, her teacher looked the other way. At least that’s what I figure. Because she came home and didn’t mention any problems. Curious, I checked out her loot, which she didn’t seem too exited over.
Pencils. And pencils. And more pencils. And a few stickers. And – boring!
One mom was like me – she broke the rules, too. But she was far more sly about it. She had wrapped a snack-sized chocolate bar in a little homemade Valentine snowman of sorts. That, and a red lollypop the size of a dime. That was all the contraband that made it through.
My husband and I chatted about it later that night, and we both reminisced over the good ‘ol days, when you could count on getting a decent sack full of candy on Valentine’s Day. Oh, it was no Halloween score. Nothing comes close to a Halloween score. But it was decent. Something to get excited about. Something a kid can enjoy.
The no-candy Valentine’s Day craze that is sweeping elementary schools across this nation is just a microcosm of the Nanny State mentality that starts at the federal government and extends down to the little nooks and crannies of Anytown, USA.
I suppose if Elizbath’s candy had been taken away, I would have told her about the Boston Tea Party, and how sometimes you have to take a stand for your rights. Believe me, the time is coming when she and I are going to have conversations about civil disobedience, about standing up to government tyranny, and about fighting for the freedoms this country was founded upon.
This is a true story about how the nanny state stole Valentine’s Day – and how one mom fought back.
Jennifer Kabbany is associate editor of The College Fix.
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