Birthday Wishes To You

What has made birthdays into a revered day that is celebrated so greatly? To avoid sounding too much like my father, birthday's do deserve some merit and do not deserve to be pushed under the rug and ignored. However, at the same time, why does someone deserve a party, gifts, and special treatment for surviving another year in a middle-class suburban society. The environments in which surviving 365 more days should be celebrated often isn't: mainly because there are bigger issues at hand, such as surviving 24 more hours. You will never see a birthday cake with 12 candles for a child soldier in a war-torn third world country, but that is where a birthday should be celebrated the most.

In America, which I am going to blanket as a middle-class white suburban environment mainly because that is how I live, birthdays have become an event that is planned out more than a wedding. Kids are asked to make a list of things that they want, almost a reward for turning the age of 6 in such a pampered life that their birthday is "horrible" if they dont get everything they want. (greedy selfish basterds...) A birthday has morphed from a celebration of life to a way to establish your position in the niche that you live in. For example, if little Johnnny gets to pin the tail on a real donkey, he is the coolest kid in the neighborhood; but only until little Susie gets a bounce house at her birthday. The cycle continues until parents are taking their kids on vacations for their birthdays. (Editor's Note: I know I'm receiving a plane ticket to Seattle for my birthday, but that is to visit family. Just a little clarification there.) Oftentimes, it is the family that can throw the best party for their child that is the head of their social niche. It has turned into a competition of such proportions that I am fully expecting Hollywood to come up with a movie that pits neighbor mothers against each other in an attempt to one-up the other kid's birthday. (Someone call Steve Martin...) SPOILER ALERT: They ruin the parties for the respective kids and the kids make their own party and celebrate it together. 

But I digress....

To switch sides in defense of birthdays, there are a few that deserve to be celebrated because of the position in society that you elevate yourself to. According to society, once you have lived 5,844 days then you are old and mature enough to drive; and at 6,574 you are suddenly able to decide whether to smoke a cigar or a pack of cigarrettes... But not a day before! These are the ages that should be celebrated in their own way. Sixteen demonstrates a coming of age in which you are given responsibilities unlike any that have been experienced yet. And at 18 you are suddenly an adult and thrown out into the world of unlimited liability; certainly a party is in order to drink away those sorrows! 

All that being said, there is still one thing that perplexes me: why do you get presents! What about a birthday screams "THEY NEED A NEW iPhone!" This again seems like a way for parents to show off what they can afford to give their kids, but it reflects badly on their kids. Anyone whose parents "gave" them a car seem a tad bit spoiled to me. Yet, if they gave it to them for their sixteenth birthday then it is widely accepted. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard this conversation.

-My parents just bought me a new car!

-Why? Did they just give it to you?

-No of course not! It was for my sixteenth birthday.

-Oh. That's sweet!

Here's the irony in that... the parents did "just give" it to them. Oh the ability of a teenager to mask a give-away as a reward for living sixteen years in the parents over-sheltered and spoiled middle-class life. But it is all okay if you put a bow on it and make it a birthday present. 

Oh well. Hey, that's the 'Murican perspective on birthday's. So here is to celebrating that you were born. Now... about scripting that children's movie.......