Today’s topic is a listener suggestion: birthday parties!
Today, the idea of someone celebrating their birthday is noncontroversial, but would you have guessed that in the decades when the tradition was still new, some groups resisted it?
Well, researchers have noted that various birthday-party poopers thought that the celebrations were self-centered and materialistic, took attention away from God, and turned children into brats.
Hmmm. Would you say any of their suspicions were correct?
Well, whether you LOVE to throw birthday parties or whether those two words give you a sinking feeling in your stomach, we’re here for you today.
Before we dive into the finer details of kids’ birthday parties today, let’s have a little history lesson. We’re going to talk about the origin of birthday parties. Joe Pinsker at The Atlantic published an article in 2021 that covered the strange origins of American birthday parties.
History
The idea that everyone should celebrate their birthday is, weirdly, not very old itself.
Not until the 19th century—perhaps around 1860 or 1880—did middle-class Americans commonly do so, and not until the early 20th century were birthday celebrations a tradition nationwide. In fact, the song “Happy Birthday” is not far beyond its own 100th birthday.
Throughout history there are scattered examples of birthday festivities around the globe, but the honorees tended to be either rulers, such as Egyptian pharaohs, or powerful members of an upper class. For a while, a similar pattern held in the United States: Birthdays were for rich people or national heroes. Americans celebrated George Washington’s birthday, for instance, but for everyone else, a birthday—if they even knew the date—was just another day.
So what happened?
Well, how we viewed children changed and how we viewed the passage of time changed. From Pinsker again:
The shift in the mid 1800’s started with kids. Some scholars have emphasized the increased attention that began to be lavished on individual children as families started having fewer of them. Kids’ birthday parties may have been an early hint of how American children were starting to be viewed as less valuable economically (as workers) and more valuable emotionally (as family members).
The rise in birthday celebrations was also part of a larger shift in how people conceptualized the passing of time. Clocks in preindustrial America were “rare and seldom accurate,” according to the historian Howard Chudacoff. As the 19th century progressed, the widespread production of household clocks and pocket watches made it possible for Americans to constantly know what time it was. And as more people followed the schedules of factories, streetcars, and trains, they had more reason to watch those clocks.
As Americans became more aware of time, they also became more aware of how it passed in their own lives, Chudacoff argues in his 1989 book, How Old Are You?: Age Consciousness in American Culture. This newfound focus on age was visible in many 19th-century institutions: Schools started using age to separate students into grades, and doctors started using it to assess people’s health and development. Not coincidentally, this was the same era when people started noting their birthday.
The precision of and attention to time seem to be what link the process of industrialization to the observance of birthdays…
America’s own period of industrialization in the 19th century was when the rituals and trappings of birthday parties went mainstream. The way we celebrate today is a mishmash of traditions: Cake can likely be traced back to ancient Roman birthday rites (though some accounts indicate that Americans used to be just as likely to celebrate with fruit). The candles appear to come from aristocratic German birthday celebrations, and date back at least several hundred years. And the expectation of wrapped gifts is a product of good old Western consumerism.
Birthday Party Basics
So let’s talk birthday parties. Planning a birthday party for your child can seem to get more and more stressful and time consuming year after year, but those big birthday bashes we see online (we’re looking at you, Pinterest!) may not be what your child really wants for their celebration.
I loved what Julie Morganstern wrote in her book, Time to Parent: Organizing Your Life to Bring Out the Best in Your Child and You: “A birthday is a time to enter your child’s world… All kids want is for someone to see [them] and to understand [them] and that’s what I think a birthday celebration is really about.” This really strikes to the heart of the question about parties because as we say again and again, before you know if something is working, you need to know what it’s for. To be seen and celebrated is what a birthday party is FOR.
So let’s talk birthday party planning.
Preschool, Elementary, Middle & High School
What Bonnie did: Some big parties, but a mix. Tried to do one year a party, the next just family. Did the Chuck E Cheese thing, a dress up party one year (Libby Lu inside Dillards?). As they got older, it was usually fewer friends & we might take a friend or two to a concert or to a fun place.
What Renee did: Big parties in preschool (army themed, at Discovery Center, at our house with relatives and friends), smaller parties in elementary school, and just a couple of friends in high school.
SCHOOL DAYS: if your child has a bday that falls in the school calendar, it’s possible you could celebrate with classmates at school (preschool/elementary) if that’s ok with the teacher/school. We’d usually send/bring cupcakes or a treat for the class. Sometimes, one or both of us might go eat with them in their cafeteria and bring outside food like CFA. Bob would often send flowers or balloons to the school office for Savannah to receive during the school day.
Ben’s bday always falls during Thanksgiving break so he didn’t get to celebrate bdays like that at school. And if your child has the dreaded December birthday, they’re more likely to feel the holiday pinch…and get those “This is for your birthday AND Christmas” presents.
Things to Consider
- What is the personality of your kid?
- Introvert? Extrovert? This may determine how many kids they want to invite!
- Story of Houston at age 5ish
- What is your budget?
- At home?
- At a venue?
- At a park?
- At a friend’s house?
- To gift or not to gift?
- Some moms request no gifts and some still want them
- Creative alternatives: donations (books, money for charity, etc)
Then there are the basics of party planning.
6-8 weeks before do the following:
- Choose a date
- Choose the time
- Choose a theme
- Create a guest list
- Other things to consider
- Balloons
- Tables and Chairs
- Music
- Rentals like bounce houses etc.
3-5 weeks before do the following:
- Choose your food
- Egyptians invented cake so we have them to thank for this centuries-old tradition. If you buy one it can be expensive, so refer to the budget question.
- Choose games or activities
- Will you do party favors?
- What kind of paper products do you need?
- What about invitations?
- Text
- Paper/mailed
- One site said only 60% will respond but I think it’s lower than that
- Do you need signage to the location?
2-7 days before do the following:
- Call any invitees who haven’t RSVP’d.
- Write a rough order to do things at the birthday party. (See the sample order for birthday party activities below for guidance.)
- Confirm the entertainer and venue, if applicable.
- See whether the child is willing to donate some toys, clothes, or other items they’ve outgrown to make room for gifts that are about to arrive.
- Shop for groceries, and do prep work on any menu items that won’t spoil.
- For those serving pizza or similar carryout/delivery food, place your order.
- Wrap birthday gifts.
- Buy any party supplies you still need, such as plates, napkins, cups, dinnerware, toothpicks, matches, or candles.
Just before the party starts:
- Set out the food and drinks.
- Turn on some music.
- Set out candles and matches for the cake (away from where young children can reach them) to avoid scrambling to find them when everyone’s ready to sing “Happy Birthday.”
- Place your phone or other device you’ll be taking pictures and videos with in an easily accessible spot.
- Have a pen and paper handy to write down who gave which gifts, which will be helpful when it comes time to write thank you cards.
- Take some photos of the party scene and cake in case things get too busy once the guests arrive.
“The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you have been.” Madeleine L’Engle
How to Make a Pinata!
https://www.berries.com/blog/how-to-make-a-pinata-three-ways