Nehaveigur

Some kids light up when their parent brings out the birthday cake with the candles and everyone sings “Happy Birthday,” enjoying being the center of attention for a few minutes. Others burst into tears. Their parents rush to their side to comfort them, but it’s never clear what caused their meltdown. Did their emotions get too intense, were they disappointed about something they cannot articulate, or is it something else entirely?

I’m lucky that all my kids enthusiastically participate in birthday parties, whether their own or their friends’. Since I currently have three kids of birthday party age, and they’re too young to be left alone during the parties, I spend too much time at these events. Most weekends, I go to at least one, and there are days when I go to two.

American birthday parties, at least in our neighborhood and social circle, are ritualized. There’s of course the cake with candles, but there’s often also a piñata or face painting. Juice boxes a de rigueur, as are balloons, and depending on the parents’ budget, there may be pizza.

I like the parties that have magicians. Some of them are quite good, and I say that as a connoisseur of fine magic acts, to the extent that I have watched all of Penn and Teller’s Fool Us.

Still, it becomes a drag, and one reason is that at birthday parties, you need to talk to the other parents. I’ve never seen anyone ever take out a book and read until the party is over and they can take their kid home. There are times when those conversations are interesting. A few weeks ago, I talked to another dad who was one of the founders of a leading Silicon Valley publication, and we talked until our kids pulled on our sleeves and told us the party was over and could we please leave.

More often, the conversation is about the local schools and how long have you been in this neighborhood and how is the snow at Tahoe. The parents are nice enough, the conversations, not so much, and I’m as guilty as everybody else. Confronted with someone I only vaguely know, I go into smalltalk mode and find it impossible to escape. Awareness of the other parent’s suffering doesn’t alleviate my own misery. The repetitiveness is such that I’ve caught myself asking the same vaguely remembered mom the exact same question I’ve asked her a few months before at a different party, and receiving the exact same answer.