Something amazing about birthdays. Just a day of celebration in our child’s life, perhaps, but something altogether different for we parents. It seems to me that birthdays serve up quite vivid moments for reflection.They offer up a day to assess progress, loss, growth, and quite easily acknowledge the annual tick of time. Earlier this fall a 70+ year-old man at a conference said to me (I’m paraphrasing), “Well, life as a parent is simply a blur. It’s a hazy smattering of years of frenetic events peppered with poignant traditions–all you can do is look back and remember the holidays and birthdays in a sea of years that go by.” He may be right. All the more reason these birthdays carry so much meaning.
Our youngest just turned five. And although it was quite a wonderful day of celebration (see evidence in that photo), I couldn’t suppress the ever-rising pit in my stomach. I have vivid memories of my own 5th birthday and it’s clear that time really is flying by. “The days can seem like years and the years like days,” yes of course, but on birthdays I think we parents experience complex emotions. It’s easy to suggest we should just celebrate and rejoice. “Consider the alternative!” you could say. I’d suggest we do celebrate and we do rejoice; it’s a settling and lovely thing to watch our children soak up their birthday. I’m uncertain though that’s enough of a description of these days for most parents.
Like so many other friends and parents have shared, I’m really starting to want things to slow down. I can’t help thinking about the reality that I can barely carry my 6 year-old anymore and there are mornings when he beats me to the kitchen and pours his own bowl of cereal. I know soon the days will close when O wants to eat dinner sitting on my lap. This grace of intimacy in parenting young children is for me the treasure of life. And I’m mindful, thankful, present, and proud but I can’t help hurting as I witness the sunset on this time.
I love these boys more and more and more every day I know them and I enjoy parenting them more and more and more each day too. I know it will only get better as so many ahead of me suggest. It doesn’t mean though, that it doesn’t hurt to see the candles multiply on top the cake.
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Beth Toner says
Thanks for so eloquently articulating what so many of us feel, have felt. I have two grown children (18 and 20), and a 7-year-old who is delightful and wonderful… but when his birthdays sneak up on me, I worry: “Will HIS childhood pass as quickly as the other two?” And I know it will. It fills my heart with the most amazing mix of emotions. Thanks, Wendy
Isabelle says
This is so true! Thank you for putting it so well!
Check today’s Zits comic today for illustration: https://zitscomics.com/
Wendy Sue Swanson, MD, MBE says
Funny! 🙂
Robyn says
You have expressed so well the mix of sadness and joy I’ve been grappling with lately. I feel like fall underscores these feelings – my kids are 7 and 4,and have learned and blossomed so much with the start of the new school year. Both kids are taking stock of their own growth and so proud to reflect. But my youngest even gets sad thinking he’s never going to be a baby again, and there are days my eldest wishes she could repeat preschool. For me, the desire to slow it all down hits especially hard on New Years – I feel like I go into each new year kicking and screaming wishing I could stay put. But for now, I find peace in just cuddling them tight for as long as I can. Smelling their hair, treasuring their soft skin, holding their small hands and feet, and feeling their little breaths and heart beat against my own. Sometimes that means picking them up after they as asleep, and cradling them for a few hours. In those moments I do feel like I scan slow it down, just a little bit.
Michael Milobsky MD says
I enjoyed your post today. I have 7 children age range from 17 yo to 3 yo. I joke with my patients that I come to work to “relax”. My wife and I just finished potty training my youngest and we realized that we have had at least 1 kid diapers for 17 years. Becoming a parent has accelerated time and makes me feel both hopelessly old while, at the same time, keeping me young.
As far as birthdays, thee is a family I know with 12 children, they live in the Old City of Jerusalem, that on each childs birthday there are no parties, no presents and no pats-on-the-back from the family. On their birthdays, the kids go out and buy their mother a present as a way of showing gratitude for all that it took to bring them into the world. Maybe this is what our kids birthdays should really be about.
Wendy Sue Swanson, MD, MBE says
WOW — on so many levels!!
The inverse celebration for birthdays is thoughtful yet I must say I feel like I “need” nothing from them these days other than time and thoughts/reflections from them. But the ritual you mention is sweet and so entirely thoughtful…
Heather Lucas says
On (or around) my kids’ birthdays I write them a letter. I’m keeping the letters until they turn 18. Originally, it just felt like another “baby book to do” but now I really enjoy writing that letter. I spend time highlighting the fantastic in my children. I know they will cherish the letters, but I also cherish the chance at reflection. To sit at Starbuck and really think about what I enjoy about my child – what I hope for their future and moments I want to make sure I capture in my own voice in the moment. Anyway, it’s my way of bottling time. 🙂
Elizabeth M. says
@Heather,
My father wrote me letters for major milestones throughout my childhood, adolescence and beyond. For my 16th birthday I got the first letter. It was written the day I was born. It is the most profound and treasured gift I’ve ever received. This is a wonderful idea and tradition and I encourage you to keep writing.