My baby was born thirty-three years ago today

That makes him thirty-four years and nine months old.

I called him this morning to wish him happy birthday. However ... I have to say that I have been disillusioned with this cultural concept of celebrating one's life on the anniversary of one's birth.

Traditionally, so I am told, the survival of the first year of life was something to celebrate; hence, now it is the modern version of one's BIRTHDAY and false way, an archaic way of counting time. On our birthday it is ANNIVERSARY of our birth. But it doesn't accurately count how much time we have lived in a human body.

I developed this line of thought as I was celebrating big anniversaries -- first, my fortieth, and then my fiftieth anniversary of my arrival to this planet (birth from the womb) and while studying the fetal life and psychology. We know now that the gestational period is the beginning time of life, a critical time in development, as is the experience of labor and birth and first moments living outside the womb.

My friend was turning fifty almost exactly a year before me. Trying to console her, I pointed out that, in fact, she was celebrating the COMPLETING or ending of her fiftieth year, not the beginning. For some strange reason, I pointed out, (totally serious and straight-faced, because I both think about these such things, AND, I wanted to console her), we don't count the first year, (or the nine and a half months in the womb. Nine now that they induce routinely). Sooo, I happily shared with her that technically, she was celebrating the completion of her 50th year and the beginning of her fifty-first year. I concluded that, "Hey, you've been fifty all year, so why worry about it now? Let's have some fun." No, it didn't work for her like it worked for me, even when I pointed out, I was the one actually turning fifty, (starting my fiftieth year as I would be "turning 49" in a few weeks). I was actually turning 50! at the end of my forty-ninth year.

It didn't comfort my friend at all, but I found completing my fortieth and then my fiftieth years to be quite fun and a celebration. (My 30th was another story, as the said birthday boy was old enough to go to Junior High and I only freak out about his age!) A few days before my "49th Birthday", my daughter and I rode AMTRAK from Chicago to Disney Land, with stops in Philadelphia and Washington, D.D. (homeschooling is so awesome!). So, the completion of my 49th year and beginning of my 5oth year happened in Washington, DC. What fun we had. I don't even remember what I did on my "50th Birthday", the completion of my 50th year.

Ok, so my point, other than to till the ground for thinking about seeing that life of the human begins at even before conception? I was just reading some Birth to 3, zero to 3 literature and thinking about my son and his son who is about 144 days old, according to the ticker on his mama's blog. When he emerges from his mama's womb in late August -- all sweet, slippery, and wonderful, kicking, wide-eyed and turning his head when his mom or dad speaks, and smacking his lips and ready to crawl to his mama's breast, baby Jackson will be ten months old. He will be IN his tenth month of human development. So, why does we (we, as not as me, but as in this supposed intelligent, scientific society) say he is zero? Why will his time on this earth and his age go back to ZERO when he emerges from his first earthly home, his mama's womb? How is it logical or scientific to disregard the period of conception and gestation in development?

In reality, my son was nine months old when he was born from my womb on April 8th, 1975 so technically, he is completing his 33rd year; and, if we add the nine months I knew him in my womb (an amazing little being who was alive and kicking and responding to me, making me drink milk when I never liked it before) then he is actually 34 years and nine months old today. Judging from his reaction to my exclamation this morning, "Wow, you are gettin' old," maybe I shouldn't tell him?

What are we really celebrating on the day of the anniversary of our birth or our loved one's birth? Society doesn't even honor the event as significant for emotional, psychological, spiritual, or physical development; forget seeing birth as a sacred event in this medico-techno world.
What is up with this human culture that is supposedly so smart? That we wait for eighteen months of our babies' lives to pass before we say, "Oooooone." (How could I convey a duh tone?) Only the youth can get this and also be happy to be one year older already, like age matters anyway.

We need to see and celebrate our day of birth differently ... not as simply a marker of age transition but an honoring of our baby's presence. Today, when my son said birthdays aren't that big of a deal when you get older, I told him again how blessed I am to be his mother and how happy I am that he is my son. "I always have been," I said. He softly said, "I know, mom." How much greater thing is there than to be loved and wanted by the people who brought us into this world? Doesn't every human being deserve this?

Shouldn't we straighten this mess about Birth Days and Birthdays, and the disregard for the importance of wanted babies AND in calculating our ages which results in IGNORING the first 18 months of our lives and our babies' lives? How did we get so darned confused?? How did we come to dismiss the most foundational, critical, important nine months and first year of our lives as not counting? It's not logical to say the baby is alive and growing and developing in the womb and then dismiss prenatal development as not important enough to even count. It has lead us humans to dismiss the importance of gestation, and the labor and birth as critical experiences in development. God, we are collectively stupid about really important things, like human fetal and consciousness development. Turn on your television, if you still have one, and look at the consequence of doing so.