I must preface this post with the following disclaimer: My family and I have attended several birthday parties for children under the age of 3. Our son enjoyed each one and we truly appreciated the invitations.

Now that that’s out of the way, I can make the following statement: Kids under the age of 3 totally don’t need to have birthday parties.

Before you start posting comments that accuse me of hating the Easter Bunny and starting a petition to put a moratorium on trick-or-treating, please allow me to make my case. I love parties and I genuinely enjoy celebrating milestones. Of course, as parents, there are fewer milestones more significant than our children’s birthdays.

But throwing a big ‘ol fiesta for a child who is only one or two — and who probably doesn’t care about the invitations or goody bags and certaintly won’t remember them — is a nice but arguably unnecessary gesture. For starters, there are very few party options for kids that age. You can either host the thing at your own home, which no one does because they don’t want 25 toddlers racing through their family rooms. Or there is Option B: Have the party at Little Gym, My Gym, Gymboree or the local gym equivalent of your choice. Which is what everyone does. And that means pretty much every one of these b-day celebrations is exactly the same. Same bouncey-bouncey on the trampoline, same delivery pizza, same sheet cake.

Then there is the cost issue, which is no small matter given the current economic situation. Throwing a party, even if you do it at home, is not cheap. Once you decide to have a real party, one that extends beyond family, the guest list tends to balloon. Every child in the daycare class and their parents, every friend you have plus their sons and daughters, those neighbors down the street with the kid who always wears shorts even when it’s 30 degrees out: suddenly you feel obligated to invite, feed and entertain them all.

But let’s say you could keep that guest list under control. Most of the people who show up will feel they must bring a gift. And that means more junk in the house — again, for a child who is still too young to fully appreciate it — not to mention an obligation (albeit an unspoken one) that all those friends have to spend money on presents. In short, it just seems like a lot of hullabaloo that misses the point of the day: To celebrate your child’s life on his or her terms.

My son turns two this weekend. We certainly don’t plan to ignore his birthday. His grandparents will get together with us, eat some cupcakes and open some presents. There will be a little party in his daycare room, again, with more cupcakes. And we might take him somewhere special, too, like the park or the zoo. But that’s it.

Next year, when he’s three and perhaps a bit more likely to remember what we do to commemorate his third year on this planet, we may take this whole thing to another level. But until then, we’ll celebrate in a quiet way. Call me crazy. Call me a party pooper. But I think the little guy will be perfectly happy with that.

The Other Side: Smackdown: Party On Baby!

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