Why Have a Big Birthday Party for a One-Year-Old?

I don’t think I have ever been to a birthday party for a one-year-old child in America. I can’t even ever remember having heard of one before. It’s not that I have declined to attend, or that I’ve never been invited (for I haven’t), but I’ve never even heard of one.

Here in The Philippines the biggest birthday party is for one-year-olds. I have been to several. Christenings are relatively large events, but not quite as big as birthday parties for one-year-olds. Of course, it’s all relative to what one can afford.

After seeing a few of these birthday parties I was determined that we (my wife, myself and my son) would not succumb to squandering money on a birthday party the baby would never remember. It just didn’t make sense to me, but Marissa insisted. And, in the same way my wedding cost me twice as much as I thought it would, this party also cost me about twice what I thought it would.

I really didn’t have to do much in the way of party preparations except hand over money to Marissa, but doing so made me really think about what such a large birthday party is all about. It is a cultural phenomenon. Scientifically minded, and interested in culteral anthropology, I set about thinking about the cause of this phenomena…and ding, it came to me.

It is all about infant mortality and survival. It is an introduction of a child who is likely to survive to maturity to the community he will live in.

I couldn’t find any World statistics on infant mortality that went back further than 1960, but in 1850, in the United States, 15% of babies did not survive their first year. That’s as lethal as being a Civil War soldier.

Now imagine The Philippines. There are only two known examples of written language previous to the Spanish colonization of this archipelago less than 500 years ago. There was no ice, no refrigeration, and no air conditioning here before the 1940’s, and of course very little modern medicine. The country was by a wide margin culturally tribal. Malaria, Polio, Tetanus. Diarrhea, Typhoid, Tuberculosis, Cholera, Measles, Flu, Dengue, Malnutrition, and Pneumonia,had their way with the populace, and killed most people before they survived their first year.

Three of Abraham Lincoln’s four sons died young,as did four of Karl Marx’s seven sons, and three of the five children of Louis and Marie Pasteur. Can you imagine then what the infant mortality rate in The Philippines was on an archeological scale? It is only in modern times, in the past 50 to 60 years that sewage systems and safe drinking water practices have been put into effect, and vaccinations as well, even though such practices have not been fully disseminated throughout the Philippines. There are still tribal regions without such modern necessities.

I would bet that at least half the children of the Philippines did not survive their first year as far back as one hundred years and more. Probably less. Thus, my realization of why there is a cultural practice of having large celebrations for a child’s first birthday was a saddening and sobering thought. Children probably have a higher chance of reaching reproductive age if they survive their first year than surviving their first year.

My child has probably never had a drink of anything that did not come from distilled water, or some other decontaminating pasteurization process. He’s been bitten by maybe five mosquitos and always sleeps under a mosquito net. I think he has bumped his head one time. Diaper rash and diarrhea has been virtually non-existent.

It is little surprise my son survived his first year, so why all the hoopla?
Because it’s tradition. Welcome to the tribe my son.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 10th, 2009 at 10:16 am and is filed under Family, Personal, Philippines Expat Life, Science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.