My kid presented me an ‘all hearts’ card on Valentine’s Day. With carefully spray painted red hearts, it opens to a heart-melting message (or should I say ‘validation’?) of ‘Mom Dad, I Love You’. True to its intent, it squeezes out every awww and oooo from me.

On the other hand, my husband gifted me a mega chocolate bar that had ‘Happy Birthday’ printed in bold across its packaging! So I am not sure if I should be happy that he remembered I was “still” his valentine or that he has forgotten my birth date!

In either case, I genuinely think Valentine’s Day, heck, the whole ‘love week’ is a bit overrated. And I don’t blame people. Social media and Internet, in general, have blown ‘love’ out of proportion.

Sample this.

Google throws about 1,91,00,000 results on ‘how to propose your valentine’ while the hashtag ‘#valentines’ amounts to 11,312,614 mentions on Instagram alone! Oh my word!

All my lamenting about a certain 14th February would have you judging me as a person who’s a bit love-lost. Or worse still, a love-lost woman who totally abhors it! Yikes!

But it’s not so. Allow me to explain.

————————————————Valentine’s Day Morning——————————————————————————-

My kid: Mumma, close your eyes. I made you something.

Me: Not now, baby. I really need to hustle and get to work.

My kid: No no, you have to!

<tugging at my once-new-now-in-tatters nightshirt>

Me: Okay, okay. Make it fast!

<multi-tasking kitchen work and reluctance>

Hubby: What’s with you today? It’s Valentine’s Day!

Me: So?

Hubby: So, nothing! Practice love, not frustration!

And that’s how love week officially ended for us.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Valentine’s Day 2020 was not just about mushy-mushy news after all.

Elon Musk Bought $10 Million of Tesla Shares on Feb 14 2020, raising his holding to 34.1 million, or 18.5% of the Palo Alto-based company. 

Saudi Arabia celebrated its first Valentine’s Day, after a breakthrough in 2018, when former Makkah CPVPV President Sheikh Ahmed Qasim Al-Ghamdi declared that Valentine’s Day did not contradict Islamic teaching or doctrine.

For R.S. Payne Elementary School, Lynchburg, its sixth ‘I Love Math Day’, which saw students participating in math-related activities and fueling their love for the subject, was a huge success. While in Philadelphia, 65 teens gathered at the Mütter Museum of the College of Physicians to learn about safe sex and healthy relationships, and get tested for HIV.

Now that’s what I am talking about.

As adults, it is our duty to pass on healthy “learning” traditions along with values and beliefs to the new generation that can hold them in good stead for years to come.

The Feast of Saint Valentine or not, it’s important to cultivate the love of learning in children. You can even infuse education into your child’s Valentine’s Day celebrations, if you are game!

Let’s take a leaf out of these schools’ books. Out of the 27+ countries apart from China affected by coronavirus, officially named as Covid-19 by the WHO, many schools have adopted online learning to help millions of students to “keep learning even with classes suspended.”

Long live eLearning!

No surprises then that eLearning market is touted to witness steady growth through 2026. However, for some schools in Toronto adopting online learning, eLearning is a bogeyman! It means a lot of monetary investments for hiring more teachers to support students, outfitting classrooms and computer labs, and working with telecom companies to ensure broadband access in rural areas. Ouch!

————————————————–Valentine’s Day Night———————————————————————————-

Me: What did you learn at school today?

My kid: ——————No Response <Deaf Ears> ——————-

Me: I am asking you! What. Happened. At. School. Today?

My kid: We watched a movie, then painted, then teacher told us a story with a moral that always listen to your parents.

And that’s how the conversation ended. Happy Valentine’s Day to me!

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

You see, @hubby and everyone else who thinks expressing love and gratitude to your family and loved ones should be reserved for a single day on the calendar – let’s try to be more present in the moment, every minute, every day! That’s the best gift you can give anyone! Psst! And an occasional bar of chocolate doesn’t hurt anyone either!

Be kind to one another and spread love, y’all!

‘The month that was’ is a monthly column covering the hot and the happening in the eLearning, L&D and learning technology space presented in a light, easy-to-digest format. While the aim of these posts is to keep the HR and the Learning & Development fraternity abreast with the latest news and views, it is a vent out for the author, Pranjalee Lahri, who deals with a one-and-a-half men pair – her hubby and her 6-year old son – as she moonlights as a wife and a mother.

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