Bad Parent: Birthdays Gone Wild!
Lion cub? Check. Limo? Check. My son having fun? Uh...
by Asra Q. Nomani
April 25, 2007
The children's birthday party business has become a multimillion-dollar industry. Paper plates come with every conceivable theme, because colored paper plates just aren't good enough anymore. The competition factor is huge. The April 2007 issue of Family Fun magazine features a photo of a grinning redhead with a balloon, across which is emblazoned, "Birthday Blowout!" The cover story: "Secrets of Great Parties!"
But for whom are we having these birthdays? It goes without saying that it's about us, not our children. I know where my impulse comes from: guilt about being a working mom, projected ambition, a desire to be the "fun mom." With slumber parties and other "cool" American social habits foreign to my own mother, I'm going overboard creating my own idea of what a fun mom looks like.
As we drove to gymnastics practice the other day, I asked my son, "Do you remember the baby tiger What does he remember from his last birthday? "The pirate cake."from your first birthday?"
His answer: "What tiger?"
How about the party on the farm?
"Farm?" he answered.
The limo. How about the limo? Do you remember what color it was?
"Green?"
Okay, touché. What does he remember from his last birthday? "The pirate cake." Yes, the shipwreck. And what would he like to do for his fifth birthday party?
"Play," he answered quickly. "And we get to do whatever we want to do."
Grilled cheese sandwiches and Legos it is.
©2007 Asra Q. Nomani and Nerve Media
About the Author
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Asra Q. Nomani has written for the Wall Street Journal, Washington
Post, New York Times, and Time magazine. She is the author
of Standing Alone in Mecca: An American Woman's Struggle for the
Soul of Islam and Tantrika: Traveling the Road of Divine Love.
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by April Peveteaux
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by Asra Q. Nomani
Lion cub? Check. Limo? Check. My son having fun? Uh...
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by Madeline Holler
I love you, but I hate your kid.
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