Realisation #3: Simple is magic.

We celebrated Minha’s 7^th birthday here in Schaffhausen a couple of days ago and this was the first time she got to have a party with her school friends. Back in Pakistan, we would always have a little celebration at home with our parents and our own friends…which are like 8. The food as well as the humble party décor would be home-made.

Believers of the fact that we don’t need to spend a lot of money to give our girls a complete, colourful and a happy childhood, F and I mutually agreed to stay away from the lavish birthday parties we saw happening around us. Thankfully, our 7 year old proves that time and again that our way of raising her is not wrong.

This year, however, it was my dilli khwaahish to have a party for Minha because I was happy (and relieved) to see how children’s birthdays are celebrated in happiest country in the world (UNDP World Happiness Index). There may be wealth but there is never a show of it, especially when it comes to the kids. To begin with, the little celebration was shared between her and her friend Isla, so it was easier for the parents in a lot of ways. We split the cost and were able to help each other out. Both families, including the birthday girls, wore pre-existing dresses. We booked a little picnic area in a forest for the celebration and went with home-made cakes. The menu was chicken hot dogs, cucumbers, carrots, strawberries and pineapples. Yup. That’s as fancy as the dastarkhwaan gets on Swiss birthdays. Easy. Healthy. Economical. No judgements made. For entertainment we had old school games such as dancing statues, pin the tail on the donkey, a piñata and the slide and swings which were part of the venue. No diamonds shining here and there, no waiters making rounds with drinks. Just the parents managing the affair on their own. And guess what? We managed just fine.

As the kids laughed and cried and played and fought, Faizaan said ‘kitni achi birthday hai ye’ and I agreed. The kids were HAPPY just being themselves and running around. Isn’t that what they need? No? Pakistani kids would find that boring? Maybe that’s because it’s the kind of expectations we’re setting for them that with every passing year, they need more and more to be satisfied. Maybe it is because of the way we, as a society, are raising them that the sand castle has lost it’s charm and only the Disney castle can put a smile across their faces.

I don’t understand why there is so much pressure on mums today to plan the ‘perfect day’. Between the magic show, trampoline, 2 types of jumping castles, rides that work with coins, cotton candy man, popcorn man, a horse to ride, face painting, colouring and more (Hajmola,sir), the kids don’t even get the chance to take a go at each of the options available in the 3 odd hours they spend at a party. Why is perfection defined by the amount of money spent and the variety a birthday party offers for the guests in terms of the food, the games and the giveaways? Isn’t perfection defined by happy memories, a smiling child, a birthday cake being cut little kids singing? Why is it necessary to have an extravagant budget that makes a kid’s birthday party look like a mini mela/life size walima? I mean…how will we please that child on his or her actual walima if the birthdays are already this huge? When I compare Swiss birthdays with those that were happening around me back home, I wonder who we are competing with. And what we are getting out of it. Are we doing all this so our kids get to befriend the ‘right’ kind of classmates or prove something to the rest of the mums? Why is our satisfaction defined by the amount of wah wahs we can get by the lavishness of our dessert table or who we are hiring to do that dessert table?

With the internet, academic pressures and our kids entangled with more and more complex psychological issues, probably this is one area where we can cut ourselves some slack as parents. Perhaps, we should pause and question whether we are using the right means to achieve the end. Is extravagance the guarantee of the magical childhood that we so yearn to give to our children? Or is our attention and quality time enough to give our kids security, reassurance and a sense of completion? Studies show that when children are spoilt for choice, their happiness erodes, and they are robbed of the gift of boredom, which encourages creativity and development. So, what do we do? We say no to this culture to protect the childhood of our children. Perhaps that is the greatest gift we can give to them. And perhaps, the responsibility of creating an environment in which birthdays of small budgets are accepted falls on those who can actually afford to have the big bashes.

When we came home after our party, huffing and puffing, kinda worn down by the over energetic kids and the heavy rain, Minha exclaimed “it was the happiest day of my life”! And there. I was assured. Simple is magic and simple is the way to go indeed.


This article was written for Weekend Magazine, The Nation, Pakistan.

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