A birthday is a special kind of holiday. Almost any other day has cakes and gifts involved, but no day is as unique as a birthday. I just think there's something about a birthday, some je ne sais quoi in making a person feel – especially if life has been unkind to them recently – like this whole day is about them and that they are the person that really matters.
With all that said, today’s story is a bit on the sad side with a woman venting her frustrations to her parents about oh so many bad cakedays.
More info: Reddit
A birthday is the one day someone should truly feel special, valued, and, most importantly, good
Image credits: Conall (not the actual photo)
This poster took it online to vent her frustrations and ask whether she was too harsh with her parents
Image credits: tortugatramposa
Image credits: Michaela Pereckas (not the actual photo)
The poster was never enough, her parents treating her cousin as their golden child and since their birthdays almost overlap, the poster's b-days are forgotten
Image credits: tortugatramposa
Image credits: Seth Schoen (not the actual photo)
The poster was promised her own Oreo cake for the occasion of her 18th birthday and was excited for the date
Image credits: tortugatramposa
The parents didn't come through and once again the cousin was their favorite and after 15 years of the same, the poster cussed them out and stormed out
Image credits: tortugatramposa
In an update, the poster revealed she was done putting up with her parents and went no-contact with them and the rest of her toxic family
If you’re saying “that was sucky” after reading that, then we both ended up on the same page. One saving grace of the story is that the cousin is super nice to the poster, tortugatramposa, with them going out to celebrate after walking out of the party and getting that Oreo cake that she should’ve gotten.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, abuela simply means grandmother among speakers of Spanish, while a quinceañera is a special celebration of a girl’s 15th birthday, with roots in Mexico and Spain. It apparently marks the transition from childhood to womanhood and historically girls would be prepared for their future roles as wives before it, then presented to potential suitors by the girl’s father.
The poster has gone no-contact with her parents since then, living with her cousin and looking for a job. As it stands, the conclusion is sad, but at the same time, perhaps the best course of action for the woman, with parents who always looked down upon her and compared her to the cousin.
Birthdays are a kind of standout holiday though, right? Our other holidays celebrate various occasions, the birth of Christ, his resurrection, the achievements of workers, all sorts of things. But a birthday is a holiday just for you. On this day, you were (and let's not think about the graphic detail) born and that’s it.
Turns out the holiday originally stems from ancient Egyptian tradition. In ancient Egypt, the calendar was divided into 12 months of 30 days and a thing known as an “intercalcary month” of 5 days, to come as close as possible to the 365 days of the solar year. During this month, the b-days of Osiris, Horus, Set, Isis, and Nephthys were celebrated.
And when a pharaoh was crowned, he became a god; not one of the Gods, but a deity nonetheless. Therefore, the day of his crowning was considered his birth as a god, and duly celebrated.
Image credits: Marta Schoenle (not the actual photo)
I guess life was a little sadder before calendars, as people didn’t have a way to track the exact day a person was born, so they just went around in ignorance (I imagine they were moping).
As for more birthday traditions, cake was a thing in ancient Rome, made of flour, nuts, yeast, and honey. They were for birthdays of famous male citizens, while women’s birthdays apparently weren’t celebrated until the 12th century.
And then we’ve got the candles, who could forget the candles? They were first placed on cakes by the ancient Greeks, who put them there in honor of their goddess Artemis, ruler of the Moon. It’s argued that these candles represented the pale glow of the moon. Let’s not forget that cakes are circular - just like the moon.
In the 18th century, the cake transformed into the more modern variant we have today. It was in Germany that people started celebrating kids' birthdays at “kinderfeste”, from the word kinder meaning kids. The kids got a candle for each year they had been on this earth for, but I think we’ve got it cooler than them, because we can flaunt candles that shoot flames and say “22” instead of sticking in loads of them in one poor cake.
If I ever make it to 100, I’d definitely like a cake with 100 candles. No one will be able to tell me “oh, but that’s more candles than cake” or “oh, but that’s a tremendous fire hazard” because people will have to finally respect me, their elder.
Image credits: Dov Harrington (not the actual photo)
But enough daydreaming for now, let’s return to reality. Bored Panda reached out to the author of this story and she graciously answered some questions for us.
The poster’s cousin has brought the situation to her parents once, but she says that her family pretty much gaslit her into thinking nothing bad was happening, as she never complained herself.
As her family wouldn’t put in the bare minimum for her birthdays, she relied on herself to celebrate them properly: “I'd celebrate them by getting a HUGE Oreo cake, celebrating with my cousin, little brother, and friends, and finally getting myself gifts.”
If you’re stuck in a similarly difficult situation, the poster suggests that you should stand up for yourself - don’t let them demean you and treat you like a punching bag, which her family did psychologically and physically. She waited too long to do it, but she’s finally happy, having gotten out of the situation and that her parents can’t do anything about it.
Besides cutting off her family with her cousin, there haven’t been any updates to the story.
The poster’s sad story got more than 7k upvotes and 800 comments, who judged her not to be a jerk. People correctly ascertained that it’s not about the cake at all, but rather the neglect and her cousin always being a golden child.
Share your thoughts about this story and birthday traditions in the comments below!
The community judged her to be not a jerk and consoled her for going through all of this
