Before becoming a mother, Renate Flanagan had no idea that first birthday parties had become so elaborate. Food trucks, online gift registries, designer cakes. When it was her own son’s turn, she couldn’t justify organizing something he wouldn’t even remember.
Even the daycare director asked her what they were planning to do. She replied with another question: “Are we bad parents if we don’t do anything? I couldn’t justify throwing a party that my one-year-old son wouldn’t remember”. Instead of balloons and disposable decorations, she and her husband hired a babysitter for the first time since the baby was born and went out to dinner at a Michelin-starred restaurant. Her son, with barely six teeth, ate puréed filet mignon.
For them, the party was not going to be a memory for the child, but one for them as a couple. No Pinterest decoration was going to give that back to them.
