[Another throwback: here’s what Valentine’s Day looked like for us twenty years ago!]

My husband and I are approaching a benchmark in our marriage. With nearly ten years behind us since we uttered those fateful words, “I do”, you would think that the idea of romance has been crystallized in our mind. After all, we’ve been living together for a decade. We should know what turns one another’s crank. And for the most part we do. Rick cleaning the bathrooms in our house is infinitely more romantic to me than say, laying down his coat over a mud puddle for me to walk over. (Don’t forget: I still do the laundry.) And if I would just sit next to my husband on the couch for an entire hockey game and actually pay attention, he would consider himself the luckiest man in the world.

What’s that? That doesn’t sound very romantic to you? Ah, well, don’t you remember? We have three small children. When it comes to romance, our paradigm has definitely shifted from the days of dating and smooching and holding hands. Not that that stuff is unheard of around here. Let’s just say we’ve become a lot more, uh, efficient. The trouble with Valentine’s Day is that it’s all about someone else telling you what to do and what to say in order to guarantee the appropriate swooning from your mate. And the flower and chocolate shops aren’t completely to blame. Let’s take a look at the origin of Valentine’s Day.

Although many myths surround this lovers’ day, Valentine’s Day is named for a priest, the patron saint of lovers, who secretly married couples against the wishes of the emperor. Erroneously, Mr. Emperor thought that this ban on marriage would encourage more men to join the army. It’s sort of a tragic Romeo-and-Juliet-forbidden-love-thing, which incidentally was also set in Italy. Hello? Italy? How are we supposed to get to the birthplace of romance if we’ve only accumulated 157 airmiles in the last 10 years? And no wonder those personal ads seeking romance always claim an affinity for candlelit dinners and long walks on the beach. Italy is surrounded by water! And Valentine’s Day was invented in the Middle Ages. They didn’t even have electricity back then! Clears things up a lot, doesn’t it?

You have to give credit to those Italians, though. Notorious as they are for their romantic reputation, they also have big families. Maybe we have the whole idea wrong over here in North America. Romance isn’t for twitter-pated teenagers. It’s for the seasoned veterans of love who know romance doesn’t have to fall between the confines of red roses and serenades. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) Romance CAN fit in between the laundry and the bedtime stories. But sometimes, a babysitter is a pretty good thing.