Last May, a New Hampshire school board voted to encourage teachers to celebrate only one “group” birthday a month. The motivation behind the decision was the board’s concern over children consuming unhealthy, sugary foods during school hours. The district’s consultant dietician explained, “If there were three birthdays in a week, a student could have cupcakes three times.”
The vote received a mixed response from parents and teachers in the district. Some heralded the decision as a step forward in the fight against childhood obesity. Others decried the decision and complained about losing the opportunity to make their children feel special. One teacher who is also a parent in the district suggested that schools should be focused on education, not what the children eat.
Here I will argue that birthday celebrations with food might have no place at all in the Jewish Day School. I hope that my comments will encourage parents to confer and come to agreement that they will no longer sponsor such events for their children.
Before offering my argument, I feel it’s important to raise the question of the propriety of the celebration of birthdays in the Jewish tradition. It’s a subject beyond the scope of this article, so I won’t address it fully here, but I encourage families to look into the matter more closely with an eye towards developing a deeper understanding of how to celebrate birthdays “Jewishly.” I will remark, however, that Jewish day schools seem like ideal places to celebrate our children’s Jewish birthdays—not their secular ones.
Although many will correctly point out that the aggressive eradication of school birthday parties will not solve the problem of childhood obesity, it is important to measure the impact of the messages we send our children regarding healthy eating. The case for moderating sweets consumption is bolstered when we stop serving them frequently in school.
Another, albeit related, problem is the health risk posed by bringing food to class. Schools have been very careful to ensure that their environments are free of the stuff that might endanger the lives of students, like tree nuts, for example. However, the prevalence of other food-related concerns including various allergies and intolerances, not to mention the increasing incidence among nursery and elementary-aged children of Type-1 Diabetes (a disease whose cause has nothing to do with sugar consumption, and that should not be confused with Type-2 diabetes, a disease that is often connected to diet and genetics), has me scratching my head about how any parent can responsibly and equitably feed snacks to a class full of children. As the parent of a Type-1 diabetic, I am obviously more sensitive than most to this issue, but I hope that any parent would have the good sense and courtesy to ask a child’s parent before feeding that child any food, especially treats.
A third component that may escape consideration is the social-emotional one. If Sam Horowitz’s now-infamous bar mitzvah celebration is any indication, the one-upmanship that taints our modern celebration of life’s milestones is surely a factor in school birthday parties too. Children stand to gain social stature or suffer embarrassment based on the type and perceived cost of the snacks their parents bring to class. Moreover, the kids whose birthdays fall outside the school year or whose parents are unable, for whatever reason, to bring a party to school may end up feeling excluded or embarrassed. The ethics of exclusion presented by parent-sponsored school birthday parties are, to my mind, a strong argument in the con column.
If the above is strong enough evidence, and I believe it is, to dissuade parents from sponsoring food-centered birthday parties in their children’s classes, I hope they’ll come to mutual agreement, perhaps under the leadership of a class parent representative, and eliminate the practice altogether.
If you’re willing to forgo food, but birthday celebration is non-negotiable, consider an alternative way to celebrate in school. Your son or daughter will feel special if you give him or her a birthday crown (or some other age/gender-appropriate alternative) to wear all day (pending school approval, of course). The birthday wishes in the hall from friends, teachers and administrators will make your child feel special on that special day in all the right ways.
Rabbi Maccabee Avishur is the Associate Director for Teaching and Learning at Yeshiva University’s Institute for University-School Partnership. He can be reached at avishur_yu.edu.
By Rabbi Maccabee Avishur
