#birthday

Birthday Wishes in the Digital Age

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Image source: Blogcdn.com

TIME magazine weighed in on birthdays last month with its 6 Rules for ‘Happy Birthday’ Etiquette in the Age of Facebook. Karol Markowicz claims “Facebook has changed the whole birthday game.” She notes remembering the day is no hardship since you’ll get an alert and a follow-up from Facebook. You know you’ll probably see several other friends posting about the birthday on your newsfeed too.

She says “social media should be complementary to other kinds of interaction, not in place of it.” Her advice? Say something at midnight to someone really special. If you’re a sibling you might also call at midnight. Call friends and family on the day. Prefer a call, but texting is OK, for new friends. Posting on Facebook is TIME approved only for old acquaintances with whom you only keep up via social media.

Personally I can’t believe any etiquette involves calling someone at midnight. I love my birthday more than most, but I don’t need calls in the wee hours. Sleep is my first birthday present to myself!

She also makes no mention of sending an actual birthday card. You remember those? They’re paper with folds and often have a funny sentiment inside. You stamp an envelope that goes in the mail (snail mail even!).

Image source: Cartoonlogodesigns.com

We get so little mail that matters these days. Spend the few bucks to send a birthday card to someone who makes you smile.

BTW, you can even order paper greeting cards online these days. Or rely on e-cards if you really must. Michael Bolton is not the only answer.

Birthdays ready made for relationship drama.

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Example A: The other day on campus I heard a guy ask his girlfriend to skip class for his birthday. She pointed out he hadn’t skipped on her birthday. He said she hadn’t asked. Me, I was just glad neither one was my student!

Example B: Recently I saw an advice columnist weighing in on what it means when a guy prefers to spend his birthday with his bros rather than his girlfriend of a year. The headline on the Ask Demetria column read: “Spending His Birthday With His Boys Instead of Her Proves She’s an Option, Not a Priority.” Happily, Demetria’s answer was more measured than the headline suggests. 

However, these two examples return us to the idea of the birthday trump card. When it’s our birthday we want everything to revolve around us (example A), or we’re miffed when not included in someone’s special day (example B).

And neither of these examples even touch on the etiquette of gift giving in a relationship. Avoiding that potential pitfall involves consideration of duration of dating and seriousness of intent as well as thoughtfulness, budget, and demanding nature of the present recipient!

To don my own relationship advice cap for a moment, I’d say the answer is to always speak up about expectations. Save the birthday disappointment for when your great aunt Irene sends you a fruitcake.

Secret Birthday Bill in Texas

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I have great respect for our elected officials — even the ones I didn’t vote. That said, I have to question whether Cindy Burkett, a Republican in the Texas Legislature, is doing her utmost to look out for her constituents by proposing a Secret Birthday Bill.

Image source: flaglane.com

House Bill 2766 was filed, per columnist Bud Kennedy, in response to a request from the city of Mesquite, TX. Apparently a stalking suspect tried to access women’s birthdays from public records…so they asked Burkett to address the legality of public workers disclosing birth dates.

I used to write about identity theft, so I recognize the use of birthdays in public records is a concern. Nevertheless, Kennedy reports, “As written, the bill would make a schoolroom birthday party a crime with a fine of up to $1,000.”

Fortunately, Kennedy appears to be taking creative license. There’s nothing in the available text of the bill mentioning schoolroom birthday parties or any fines. In fact, the law seems to be looking to rid county clerk officers of liability for disclosing a birthday that is already in the public record. In this litigious time that makes sense.

Making birthdays secret? I would never vote for that. Giving public officials a little more security when they’re doing their job? I could understand voting “yeah.”

“We Love You Every Day” — Mr. Rogers

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North America’s favorite neighbor, Fred Rogers, would have celebrated his birthday March 20th. Just seeing his picture again made me smile. Especially this one with the make believe trolley.

The pics made me do a little digging. Now, I didn’t remember this from my own avid watching of the show as a child, but check out the lyrics to his birthday song:

“Happy birthday, happy birthday
Dear friend, we sing to you
Happy birthday, happy birthday
Happy birthday to you

We thought we’d try to tell you how we love you on your birthday
We thought we’d try to sing and dance and play today
We wanted to surprise you on your birthday and say
We love you every day, not just today…”

How lovely is that? We love you every day, not just today. What a fantabulous idea. It’s even better to hear him sing it.

Thanks Mr. Rogers for still teaching me how to be a better person decades after your show went off the air.

The birthday trump card

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A columnist in Australia was recently disappointed with the attention paid to his birthday. I totally get that. But his solution to the problem is just a tad extreme. He proposes: “So once we hit 21, let’s stop celebrating our birthdays.”

Sure, he’s got this hidden in some bumpf about how we should not need one special day to organize a social gathering with friends. Instead, we should try and do so more often throughout the year. Of course, this is true! Let’s all get together more often to celebrate one another and share some laughs.

Only in reality that’s tough, right? I’ve long been teased for being a “cruise director.” Trying to get people together is one of my ways of making and keeping friends. Yet, as we roll past our 20s (when everyone’s up for a party/get-together/BBQ/movie/game night because they still have time, disposable income and the ability to bounce back) it becomes more difficult to get people together. Birthday or no birthday. The advantage of a birthday celebration is that people work harder to find the babysitter, put the date in their calendar, and get out of pjs to stay up past 10 p.m.

Birthday’s are the trump card of all social planning (other than perhaps a wedding). Planning two coinciding birthdays can cause family strife: witness the family drama when party plans collided. Yet, ultimately, the more cause to celebrate the better. I’d say instead of jettisoning the entire tradition this gentleman in Australia would be better served by planning ahead.

Image source: http://www.highlowfooddrink.com/2011/01/easy-entertaining-pink-and-purple-polka.html

Image source: http://www.highlowfooddrink.com/2011/01/easy-entertaining-pink-and-purple-polka.html

Her 16th was truly a riot.

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Photo courtesy Daily Mail

Photo courtesy Daily Mail

In North America at least, the 16th birthday is monumental. Check out the insanity of “My Super Sweet 16.” The reality shows 15-year-olds and their parents going way overboard for this threshold year party. Kidzworld reports one of the parties cost $203,000 US and that one Florida girl welcomed Ciara to the stage at her big event.

All these kids want to throw the biggest or most memorable party of the year.

Well, they are all trumped by an unfortunate Dutch 16-year-old who posted her birthday party invitation on Facebook and didn’t use privacy settings. The invitation went viral. According to the Daily Mail, her guest list ballooned to 3,000 and that doesn’t include the nearly 600 riot police needed to corral the crowd.

Molly Ringwald’s disastrous 16th aside, I have never before heard of a 16th birthday going as badly as this one did!

A Birthday Problem? Who knew.

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The Birthday Problem is not about who to invite to your birthday party. Nor is about whether to serve cake or ice cream (answer: both). Rather, it’s something to do with numbers.

Me, I am all about number of presents. Number of parties. Number of people attending said parties. Those numbers I understand. I am not a math person.  I teach writing. I had to get my brother’s help to offer even a semblance of math literacy on the GRE’s.

Image courtesy of http://cdn.cakecentral.com/d/de/de9c8fa3_image.jpeg

Yet, apparently math folks have this probabilities question exploring how many people in the room will share the same birthday. (Of course, if you’ve the chart showing birthday frequencies, you might be ahead of the game). Dr. Math even has several archived probability problems with birthdays involved.

Also for you quantitatively minded, or “birthamathophiles,” here’s Jon Plotkin’s post about roots, squares and other words that make me glaze over. Those who are more patient than me will enjoy (yes, the number of people who qualify as more patient is very, very big). He discusses “The Perfect Birthday” and points to 6 and 28. I was born on the 6th. One more reason my birthday’s perfect? I’ll take it!

Happy Birthday…within reason

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So, you say it’s your birthday? You’re ready to celebrate with a massive blowout party. Or you’re going to try that new _________ you’ve always wanted to try. You’re going to really put it all out there because, after all, it’s your birthday.

That’s great. Really. Just don’t die OK?

Turns out we are a little bit more likely to kick the bucket on our birthday. What a spoilsport finding, right? Durned social scientists always have to find some way to ruin the fun.

Researchers in 2012 determined that on average people over the age of 60 were 14% more likely to die on their birthdays. In case you’re hoping their sample size was something piddly like say 14, regrettably they studied more than two million people and found a rise in deaths from heart attacks, strokes, falls and suicides.

Another study coming out in 2015, according to Business Insurance, found death rates up among those 20 to 29 on their birthday. “People in that age range have an average excess death rate reaching 25.4%,” the article summarized — particularly if their bdays were on the weekend.

Because I don’t want this blog post to be a total be a total downer, check out Ranker.com’s list of celebrities who died on their birthdays. Just a few notables include: playwright William Shakespeare, musician Sidney Bechet, and actress Ingrid Bergman.

Enjoy this Wilco & Billy Bragg song about Ingrid Bergman as my parting thought: 

Bill Me for Your Birthday?

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med75-001Throwing a birthday party can be expensive. Happily my son has selected a sleepover this year. I’ve decided the savings is worth the insanity that is sure to ensue (and the crankiness to be expected from my sleep-deprived birthday boy the day after).

Yet, anyone who has planned a child’s birthday at a venue knows hosts often have to give the number of guests expected in advance and are charged per person. Of course, since we’re talking about petri dishes of pestilence — I mean children — there can be no-shows.

Sure, this hurts the host’s pocketbook, but with utter shock I report an English mother actually charged another set of parents for their failure to bring a five-year-old to her son’s party. Of course it is surprising the threat of litigation didn’t happen first in the U.S! But the woman even printed out a full-on invoice (shown in The Telegraph story) for approximately $24 US!

The Telegraph editorial didn’t “seek to take sides,” but a columnist in the paper wrote that she would have just paid the bill to “rise above” playground politics.

RSVPs are common sense and letting hosts know of changing plans is good manners. Had I skipped out at the last minute I would feel guilty and would have apologized profusely for the inconvenience. But would I have felt financially responsible? H-E-double-hockey-sticks No.

One today? Smash it!

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It isn’t a first birthday until someone has cake all over his face. Or, in the case of some buzzkill friends of mine who WILL be named (Jay & Jenny), yogurt!

lucas

I’m all for healthy eating (well, 86% for it at least), but on your birthday you deserve cake. Even if you are only 1-year-old. Witness my own son’s first birthday cupcake smoosh-a-thon. Yes, it does deserve a-thon because, as you may remember, he had a Charlie Brown party but I had already made the cupcakes expecting friends. So, we had plenty of monkey-faced cakes for him to chow down upon.

NB

If nothing else the birthday cake eating/smashing moment is a great one for posterity. Here are some other great images of youthful cake glee I discovered via google.

Image source: http://www.bumpandbambino.com

Image source: http://jp16.r0tt.com/t_b86908a0-c56d-11e2-9968-cf597fc00016.jpg

Image source: http://blogs.babycenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/outfit13-300×200.jpg

Cake smashing is its own sub-genre on Pinterest. Here’s some great photography to enjoy!

Of course there is now actually a trend to provide the birthday girl or boy with her or his own cake that they can use for finger food and face stuffing. That seems a little much for a kid who won’t remember the moment past their next nap. Nevertheless, you only turn one once. Let the baby eat cake!

Share your own pics and thoughts in the comments below. I’d love to see them! The messier the better.