After doing some very informal research on Valentine’s Day, I noticed that the word “martyr” kept popping up. According to Wikipedia, the original Valentines were the Valentine of Rome and the Valentine of Terni, who were honored for their martyrdom in the early first century.
Which got me thinking: wait a minute, this holiday is about honoring martyrs? I thought it was about love and candy hearts and staying up past midnight writing Valentines for my 5-year-old’s 30 closest friends.
Well if this is the case, then good news for us moms! Because I can’t think of a single mom who hasn’t made significant sacrifices since having kids. Aren’t we all -in a way- martyrs, too? We have sacrificed our bodies, time, careers, relationships, friendships, and exercise for our families.
Not that we would have it any other way.
But maybe this year, we can use Valentine’s Day as a way to honor each other (in addition to our significant others and all our kids’ friends), because, let’s be honest, we deserve it. We may not be martyrs per se, but we sure do a lot for our families, things that often go completely unnoticed because we are so good at just getting stuff done. Hey, I’m a mom, and I barely recognize half the stuff I do every day that keeps the household running and pays the bills. I don’t have the time or energy to keep track of everything I do, and oftentimes I tend to focus too much on all the things that didn’t get done.
Well, it’s time that we stopped that. Why waste our time focusing on the negative? In a world where everything seems uncertain and even scary right now, lets focus on all the good that we moms are responsible for. Because if we don’t, no one else is going to. And let’s do it together, for each other.
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(This post was originally published on San Francisco Mom’s Blog February 14, 2017)
Some Thoughts are Better Left Unsaid 
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