Are birthdays worth the brouhaha?

Hello Global Jigsaw Community,

I will post on Monday, but today just a thought to get a discussion going around birthdays (mostly because I recently had one!).

xxx

United we stand, divided we fall – a maxim to live by for families. But the bitter truth is that cracks snake across the topography of all households. Bookworms and party animals exist under shared roofs, as do night owls and morning larks. She might like it sweet, while he prefers it savoury. A family is a broad church that includes not only the people actually living in the house, but all those who went before from both sides – invisibly molding tastes, shaping expectations, and determining reactions. We are all handcuffed to our ancestors as it were – a mix of upbringing and genetics, nature and nurture.

My family at my recent birthday celebrations. (Husband is in a wig for reasons complicated)

In my nuclear unit of four, the clearest cleavage that separates my younger son, Nico, and me from my beloved spouse and older boy, Ishaan, is the Birthday. Nico and I are #teambirthday. We dream of grand celebrations, bathing in presents – the perfect day. The other two are #teamwhatever. For them a birthday is just another rotation of the earth’s axis. A hastily scribbled “happy birthday,” on a card suffices as a gift. They resist parties and prefer not to tell the wider world the big news. Because, they say, to have been born is not big news.

This is an attitude to which Nico and I bite our metaphorical thumbs. In fact, we don’t think birthdays are enough. We’re in the business of birthday weeks, stretching out the special time like well-masticated chewing gum.

Where do you fall along this continuum? Do share