Valentine’s Day

Christmas has its jolly old elf, Easter has its hopping bunny, and Valentine’s Day has Cupid—a chubby, winged toddler wielding a bow and arrow. When you stop to think, this mischievous child taking aim at one of our major organs (sometimes blindfolded) is a formidable, even frightening ambassador for an otherwise lovely holiday. Nonetheless, a heart pierced by one of Cupid’s arrows has become shorthand for being in love, gracing many a middle school desk and lovers’ favorite tree. But is that arrow always friendly fire? Turns out that love’s archer has two types of ammunition: the familiar gold arrows that make people fall head over heels, and lesser-known lead arrows that put people permanently in the “friend zone.” In the story of Apollo and Daphne, Cupid used one of each, making Apollo forever hot for Daphne, and the nymph forever giving him the cold shoulder. Hit by Cupid’s lead arrow, Daphne even had her father (Peneus, the river god) turn her into a tree to make herself permanently unavailable. Talk about barking up the wrong tree.

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First comes love…then comes marriage…then comes a below-average birth rate. With all the candlelight dinners, slow jams, and suggestive gifts, you’d reasonably assume that Valentine’s Days might lead to Valentine’s nights full of procreation, resulting in a surge of births nine months later (mid-November). Turns out that that time of year is a low point in birthday popularity. Several factors may counter Cupid’s arrows on February 14th, including the fertility-reducing factor of romantic holiday anxiety and natural cycles that discourage births right before the coldest months of the year. But of course, highly effective modern birth control methods also mean that celebrations of love don’t necessarily bring baby showers. So what’s the month that welcomes the most babies into the world? September, with the majority of statistical top-ten birthdays. Nine months before that? Mid to late December, meaning that mistletoe might be a more effective aphrodisiac than chocolate roses.

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