Birthday Parties, a Comparison

I got to thinking awhile back that birthday parties "ain't what they used to be." Now I'm wondering if everyone else has the same disconnect between the parties they were given as a child and parties kids enjoy today.

I'll have to admit that I don't recall a specific birthday party when I was little. I know there was some sort of celebration. My Grandma Hammond would never pass up the chance to be festive. But I simply don't have any vivid images of those events. I remember a little about parties in general back then.

There would be just a few kids invited, maybe 6 or 8 at the most. There would be cake and ice cream, and everyone would bring a wrapped gift to the birthday kid. Then there would be organized games: pin the tail on the donkey, spin the bottle, who's got the thinble, etc. The gifts were never very elaborate or expensive. Even the host family didn't give the birthday child more than 2 presents. The whole party would last a little over an hour and then the other kids would go home.

That was birthday parties in the 40's and 50's. In the 60's when my children were little, parties were a little more elaborate. I had read in a Family Circle or Woman's Day (the sources of much of my knowledge in those days) that you could set a rule that each child could invite as many children as he/she was old. So a 6-year-old would invite 6 children; a thirteen-year-old would invite 13. We used that rule for all our kids, and it worked out quite well. When the kids were small and more or less unruly, you'd have few of them to contend with. As they got older you could handle more bodies, because they were more able to take care of themselves. I was never very good at organizing games kids liked to play, so the parties weren't quite as "managed" as they had been when I was little. The kids just did whatever they thought was fun (within reason, of course). There was still cake and ice cream, but now we tended to give our children more gifts, and it was not uncommon to give each guest a small token to take home with him/her.

Birthdays in our family today have taken on a whole 'nother atmosphere. They are BIG productions! They're an excuse for a family reunion and a reason for friends to gather. At least that's what they have morphed into in our family. Every member of the family, extended or otherwise, is invited. Friends of the parents are welcome. Children abound. It's not unusual for these fetes to have 30 people present. There's lots of food, not just ice cream and cake. In fact, the cake seems almost an afterthought. Everyone eats, talks, laughs, and has a great old time. Kids go off to play in the toy fields of the host family. There are more presents for the birthday child than there are at Christmas, and those presents are not "token" gifts either. Everyone has a wonderful time, and the birthday child knows that his/her day was something special.

I wonder if anyone in our family today would tolerate the meager party trappings of the birthday celebrations that I had as a child. I’m personally not unhappy with the changes, but it seems to me that big blow-outs like we currently stage are awfully hard on the hosting family …to say nothing of their budgets. That said, I’m always going to try to be present for birthday parties. They’re a blast.