Why is birthday planning so stressful?
For me, part of it is that my son’s birthday follows Valentine’s Day. So not only am I preparing a million Valentine’s, plus making boxes for their cards, I also have to plan for a fabulous birthday party and every year I ask myself “Why?”
Why do parents feel the need to throw extravagant birthdays? As a child, I got to invite the neighborhood kids (and let me just say I didn’t like all the neighborhood kids!) and my mom made a cake. That’s it. And the thing is: I loved it (except for some of those neighborhood kids)! Yet, for some reason, I feel the need to go big for my boys. I make up lists and plans. I scroll through Pinterest to find a theme and to get decoration ideas. And of course, I need goody bag ideas!
It has become so much work and has added countless sleepless nights, but the smile on my son’s face is worth the countless hours of planning. I spend weeks getting things ready. I even try to make the cake myself and, while my son loves it, it’s absolutely awful looking. I am by no means a baker, but if it makes my son happy I will roll up my sleeves and give it a try.
It has become so much work and has added countless sleepless nights, but the smile on my son’s face is worth the countless hours of planning.
I used to rent a room at Skyline Activity Center and prepare all sorts of games for the kids to play. I even hired Fun on Wheels to pull up their bus and let the kids learn acrobatics. The next year I thought perhaps it would be less stressful if I just had the party someplace all the kids could play. My kindergartener asked if he could have his party at Blast Off.
It wasn’t less stressful. Hardly anyone RSVP’s until the morning of the party and then all these kids came from his class and I had no idea which kids were at my son’s party and which kids thought it would be fun to crash the party. However, my son had a blast with his friends and all the kids got to run out their energy. It was the longest two hours of my life. To be honest, not having to plan on being the entertainment for the kids was a nice gift to myself.
Now that I’ve introduced these awesome parties to my kids, I can’t take them back. I can’t just say we are going to stay home this year and just have family over. That’s not fun, that’s boring. I can see the lip pout and the alligator tears that would follow this announcement. As they grow, I know they will realize that less is more and that birthdays don’t have to be some big, exciting party. Instead, they can be a simple hang out with a few great friends and still have the best time.
What I have now come to realize, is that I can’t keep up with the Joneses. You know those moms that can bake a three-tiered cake, hire an entire football team to teach the kids to play football, hand-craft amazing decorations, and still look amazing. I am not one of those moms, I am a mess, and I’ve come to like myself that way.
