B-Rant

- submitted by L. Keenan on 08/22/2008

  

The Curse of the Summer Birthday

By Linda Keenan

Why do I feel like parenthood is just a long process of abandoning preciously-held beliefs? I was brought up in a home in which the phrases: "like it or lump it," and "life isn't fair" were commonly used, and fervently believed.

And yet now I have my little boy, and I am doing jujitsu moves to rewrite the calendar, like Pol Pot (memba that crackpot 70's Cambodian kill-machine who turned his country's calendar back to Year Zero? You don't? You're lucky.) And why do I want to change the calendar? Because my son is saddled with a summertime birthday.

I find myself filled with disgust that I am planning to delay having a party for Frank's fourth birthday until September. The reason is simple. No one is around. I went over the schedules with a few moms of the kids my son loves the most and, well, you'd think Barack Obama might have more time to come and jump in the inflatable bouncy thing with us.

Am I mollycoddling my boy for wanting to defy the fact of his birth date so that someone will actually show up? I think, yes. I also think I must be one coddled specimen myself for even having the mental real estate in my brain to worry about this.

I'd like to offer two admittedly weak defenses.

First, there's my own personal baggage. I had a rough early childhood socially because of a variety of reasons, no friends (really, none, zero, zippo), and I don't recall much of a turnout at my own February birthday parties. Since my parents were from a completely different generation than other parents (World War II-era versus early Boomers), birthday parties, at least in my recollection, were not a big priority in the house. I remember feeling quite sad about this, and if I'm repeating it here 35 years later, you can see it is something that lingers.

Second, there's my son's own family situation. We recently went to what was billed as an impromptu birthday party for a friend of my son's, who also has a summer birthday. A few kiddie friends were there, but he also had his nicely-sized house jam-packed with aunts, uncles, two sets of grandparents and maybe ten cousins.

It was a loud, fun, bustling party and the adorable birthday boy had about 40 people singing happy birthday to him. My son in contrast has just one grandparent who is hours away and no other relatives close by. I've done my best to cultivate as many friends as I can in my town over the past year, but I'm a newcomer, and it's going to be hard to match that birthday body count.

I know that people tune out on summer birthdays because I even found myself doing it to my own nephew this year, much to my horror. I had given him his gift a few weeks earlier, but then I forgot to call him on the actual day. I think this is the first time I've ever done that with any of my four nephews and I was appalled (so consider this a shout-out to the amazing Andrew Gardner and big brother Nick, the coolest cats of Albany New York!)

So is all this kvetching just another prime example of parental competition, having to make sure your kid has as much or better than all the other kids? I think, in a way, it is, although I can say that I certainly don't spoil my child with stuff. Do I want him spoiled with love, not just from his besotted parents, but from his friends? Yes, spoiled rotten, I'm afraid to admit, and I'll monkey with the calendar to make that happen. So mid-September is party-time. I gotta check with Obama's people to see if he can make it. I don't think he's going to be that busy, right?