BIRTHDAYS

I have been trying to instill in my children a way of celebrating life's milestones that is simple and heartfelt.  In this age of "more" and "big", I feel that it is the parents' task to show the way towards "enough" and "just right"--to give presents that bring joy but also not to overdo it and have the birthday be about the accumulation of material things.

It is not as easy as it seems as others are oblivious to this call.  In today's context, it seems we have lost our sense of how to celebrate. No matter how hard I try, my children end up having more of a birth-month than a birth-day, what with people surprising them with their own versions of celebrations and presents trickling in.  Before you know it the day itself is long gone but vestiges of misplaced sentiments abound. I have encouraged relatives from far away to send a card rather than an actual present, because it's good for the kids to get wishes that are not accompanied by presents, but I don't always get my way. 

In today's world of too much, we really have to think of our every action for the sake of our children.  We have to ask ourselves what birthdays really mean and how we would like our children to view the passage of time, their coming into being, their sense of what their lives are about. Whenever I hear about lavish birthdays for little children, I cringe.  What is that really teaching the child about himself and the world?  One has only to think of the expense and already something feels terribly wrong, already a picture of a very material world is presented to them and there they are, in the middle of all the attention.  

I have only celebrated "big" twice in my conscious life: at sixteen, which doesn't really count, and then again at 35, when I was at the threshold of a monumental change.  I had my then closest friends around me and some family members whom I felt had always seen and respected me for who I was.  We weren't even 30 all together, so by current standards it wasn't even big.  But the celebration was about something--not just about me celebrating my birthday--but a conscious coming out of my authentic self.  It was the year after 9/11 and I felt I simply could not live my life the same way anymore.  So I celebrated.  I didn't know then that I had opened the door to my future.  My life today shows what it was I so needed to birth.

I want my children to have a sense of celebrating from deep within them and I want them to know it need not and should not be extravagant.  I personally blow up their balloons the night before their birthdays and I delight in the effort!  I don't fill up the whole house with them, nor do I do anything elaborate.   I always have flowers, candles, and a birthday story or verse the night before and the morning of the special day.  But I never have hordes of people we don't know or a table dedicated to presents they might receive. There are no food carts or extravagant giveaways somebody else assembles for me.  Never that. We recognize that the day is special.  It is a remembering and a looking forward.

I never celebrate BIG and truly have difficulty participating in such events.  On my 35th birthday, the closest I came to giving a speech was reading something I had written as my friends, family and I sat around my garden.  It was a life-altering statement of where I needed to go from that day forward--in truth, always.  A friend sang for me and my other friends joined in.  But I didn't plan to have a show.  I needed to do that then and I think, for my life, that will probably be the last of such a public celebration.  It needed to be then and it is done.

Today I find that as my birthday approaches, I ask more questions that have to do with my life's task--how much have I accomplished and what am I creating in the world? What do my footprints look like?  Have I created a path or have I muddied the way? I find that the older I get, my birthday has less and less to do with me.  

In this day and age of multi-dimensional crises, may we all find our way towards celebrations that are true and "enough" and may our children learn that their lives are not just about them.