I study mothers’ lives for a living, and if one thing takes the wind out of our sails, it’s plotting, planning, and pulling off a child’s birthday party.
When executing a fete for, say, our first-born’s fourth birthday, we go to ridiculous lengths to make it special. We’re making memories! we tell ourselves…as we panic and go into overdrive in an attempt to pull off the impossible.
It looks something like this.
First, we spend hours stalking Pinterest for a few good ideas (and dozens of proof points that you’re a poor excuse for a crafter), scour the earth for email addresses for Evites, wake up in the middle of the night panicked that only two kids will show up, and run ourselves ragged bouncing in and out of six stores to pick up mediocre-tasting chicken nuggets, blue cupcakes embossed with our child’s face, paper blow horns that never work, and a $39.00 piñata that comes with no candy.
Then we decorate the whole damn thing by ourselves, which includes blowing up balloons until we’re lightheaded enough to feel like we’re back in middle school sucking helium out of balloons. Only this time with no laughter.
As my son’s birthday approached this year, I decided to do a little research (once a researcher, always a researcher) and ask a broad range of people—men, women, and children of all ages—one simple question: As a child, what’s the first birthday you remember, and why?
Here’s what I heard.
- 8-years-old. I remember my mom washing my mouth out with Ivory soap in the middle of the party because she heard me say “shit” for the first time. I don’t remember the actual party.
- 10-years-old. After the party, I remember throwing a rock in the parking lot and shattering someone’s windshield. I don’t remember much else.
- 13-years-old. A roller skating party in fifth or sixth grade, holding hands with a girl for the first time during the couples skate.
- 15-years-old. I seriously don’t remember a single birthday before age 15, when two guy friends stole a stop sign from the end of my street and gave it to me as a gift. I freaked out and made them put it back.
I’ll go ahead and tell you what’s already painfully obvious: your children won’t remember the perfect parties you’re hurting yourself to throw.
As mothers, we work ourselves into a froth trying to create grand birthday memories that never actually make it into their memory bank.
I have hazy first memories of what I believe was my sixth birthday, because my parents bought me a pretty new blue dress to wear, and I remember feeling special. But, like many others I spoke to, I don’t actually remember the party itself. I’ve seen plenty of pictures from my childhood birthday parties over the years, and it looks like I had a great time. But I don’t recall them.
The point is, all that stressing, rushing, researching, driving, and sweating you do doesn’t matter—unless you enjoy it and are doing it for yourself. If not, then whether you decide to trash your basement or the back room at a trampoline park, your kids won’t remember. Whether you make the cake from scratch or pick one up from the grocery store, they’ll quickly forget. And whether you spend $550 or $50, they’ll never know the difference.
Altogether now: aaahhhh.
