Piece of Cake: Children's Birthday Celebrations and Alternatives to Consumer Culture

Abstract

Based on qualitative interviews with 20 mothers and 12 fathers from diverse class and racial backgrounds, this article develops a grounded theory of parents' complex experiences with their children's birthday celebrations. Like a piece of cake, these experiences are multi-layered, multi-textured, and cooked up by parents and children as they choose from the array of products available in consumer culture. Parents savor these celebrations as times to do something their children enjoy, to be with family, and to foster children's relationships with each other. At the same time, however, many parents also struggle with the effects of consumer culture. They both embrace and critique it, enjoying and seeking to resist the emphasis on consuming things and experiences. They use their imaginations to create a variety of celebrations, many of which have alternative qualities, where children engage in shared activities, develop their relationships with their friends and families, and de-emphasize high levels of consumption.