ASSOCIATION FOR CONSUMER RESEARCH

Labovitz School of Business & Economics, University of Minnesota Duluth, 11 E. Superior Street, Suite 210, Duluth, MN 55802 Gender in Children's Birthday Stories

Kimberly J. Dodson, University of Utah Russell W. Belk, University of Utah

[to cite]:

Kimberly J. Dodson and Russell W. Belk (1996) ,"Gender in Children's Birthday Stories", in GCB - Gender and Consumer

Behavior Volume 3, eds. Dr. Janeen Arnold Costa, Salt Lake City, UT : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 96 to 108.

[url]:

http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/15621/gender/v03/GCB-03

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This work is copyrighted by The Association for Consumer Research. For permission to copy or use this work in whole or in

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Gender in Children's Birthday Stories

The Birthday Child

Everything's been differentAll the day long,

Lovely things have happened,Nothing has gone wrong.

Nobody has scolded me,Everyone has smiled.

Tsn' t it deliciousTo be a birthday child?

Rose Fylernans in Hopkins (1991)

Kimberly J. Dodson, University of UtahRussell W. Belk, University of Utah

A highly popular genre of children'sbooks is the birthday story. Children'sbook function to codify the properbirthday celebration ritual, includinggender roles, to emphasizeindividuation, reinforce the importanceof social and familial relationships, andwork out what growing older involves.We examine the messages, morals, andsymbolic implications of 89 children'sbirthday stories, and, ind an overalldecrease in stereotypical sex roles overtime_ Birthdays are a time when bothgirls and boys fear being forgotten,pass through rites of passage, and seekwish fuffilInsent through magicaltransformations. Female charactersadopt caring roles through baking andfood preparation, altruistic gift giving,and romantic pursuits. Male characters,on the other hand, may be miraculousAft-providers, seek adventure, or learnacceptable social behaviors.

BIRTHDAYS

A birthday is an exciting day for a child,and a popular genre in American.children's stories involves depictions ofbirthdays and their celebration. Most ofthese stories focus on others celebratingthe birthday of a child, but occasionallythese roles axe reversed and the storyfocuses on a child celebrating others'birthdays. Besides gift-giving and gift-receiving roles, a number of genderroles are played out in these stories,making them a useful medium foranalyzing messages about genderpractices in staging and participating inthese yearly rituals. These gender rotedepictions involve both children andadults (generally family members), thuspotentially depicting differences in suchroles due to age and family position. Inaddition, by examining children'sbirthday stories over the past severaldecades, we may learn how gender roleideology is or is not changing over time

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•• •

and about an important, if oftenoverlooked, vehicle for such potentialchange.

Children's birthday stories are a richsource of verbal and visual informationabout birthdays. They are significantcultural artifacts that reveal the dominantbeliefs, such as gender role ideologies,of a culture. More importantly, thesestories are significant vehicles for childsocialization toward such things asgender roles, morals, social values, andadult behaviors (Crabb and Bielawski1994; Goldstone 1986; Gooderharn1993; Stott 1994). Stories help us toorder and understand life more fully,and children often use characters instones as symbolic models when theythemselves face complex life situations(Stott 1994; Tenenbaum and Pearson1989).

Functions of Birthdays:A Rite of Passage

While this analysis does not focus onthe general meanings of birthdays in ourlives, it is important to note several oftheir apparent functions. For thebirthday person, these functions appearto differ by age and perhaps by socialclass, more than by gender. First andforemost, birthdays are a key rite ofpassage in American society, and thebirthday celebration is accompanied byrituals that assist in dealing withchange, providing a sense of continuityand minimizing the accompanying senseof disruption (Rosenthal and Marshall1988). Birthdays are a celebration oflife (Humphrey 1988), and birthdayrituals help encode and teach us what itmeans to be a certain age. A part ofage-change involves biological andsexual maturation. However, thedeeper and more significant messagesof the birthday celebration are those thathelp culturally interpret what it shouldmean for the celebrant's self conceptand behavior,

There may be significant watershed ormilestone age-grades in Americansociety, such as entering school orbecoming a teenager; but each year thebirthday gifts and messages changeaccording to what is seen as appropriatefor the person's age and gender.Especially for children, birthdays helpthem appreciate that they have changedand that they may be expected to behavedifferently than in the past Suchmessages are conveyed by the selectionof those who attend the celebration, thegifts they bring, the ritual activities theyhelp stage and enact, the cards theyselect, the photographs they take, andthe things they say, sing, and do at thebirthday celebration. For example, inone story, 6-year-old Daisy greeted herparty guests and then, "They told herwhat a big girl she was getting to be.They took pictures of the birthday girl"(Sipherd 1988).

Functions of Birthdays:Individuation

• A second apparent function of theAmerican birthday for the birthdayperson is individuation, This alsoappears to be important in Israel(Shamgar-l-bndeltrian and Iiandelman1991,) but may well differ in lessindividualistic cultures. More than anyother American ritual occasion daringchildhood, birthday celebrationssingularize the individual and mark himor her as special, unique, valued, andworthy of attention, deference, andfreedom (e.g., the food indulgences,"magical wishes," and other efforts tomake this child feel like a king or queenfor this one day a year). This is bestrepresented by an excerpt from Dr,Sours called, "Happy Birthday to You?"

Today you are youiThat is truer than true!

There is no one alive who isyou-er than you!

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Shout loud. "I am lucky tobe what I am!

Thank goodness I'm not justa clam or a ham

Or a dusty old jar of sourgooseberry jam!I am what I am!

Thar' s a great thing to be!If I say so myself,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!"(Hopkins, collection of poetry„ 1991)

Functions of Birthdays:Group Membership

A third function of the birthdaycelebration for the birthday person is anearly opposite one of stressing that theindividual, while unique, free, andsingular, is connected to significantothers rather than being alone. Acommon dread in the stories weanalyzed is that no one will rememberthe child's birthday, or that they will doso in only a perfunctory way. This isseen as equivalent to learning that one isunloved arid that no one cares enough tohelp make the day special. Thus,family and communal recognitionduring birthdays can either anchor us ina loving network of support, or makeus feel adrift and isolated_ The birthdayis the day each year when thisconnection is most criticallydemonstrated or tested. Despite fearsthat a birthday will be forgotten, a 1988study of over 100 adults showed thatseventy-four percent of respondentslisted birthdays as the second most-widely celebrated family-ritual occasion(second only behind Christmas)(Rosenthal and Marshall 1988).

Functions of Birthdays:Gifts

Finally, for the person celebrating abirthday, a contemporary function ofthis celebration involves receiving gifts,both durable and more fleeting.

Besides the gift's ability to bringpleasure or fulfill needs, wants, andwishes, there are a number of materiallessons that seem to be worked ontthrough such desire and fulfillmentThese include issues of egoism andaltruism, selfishness and generosity,gratitude or ingratitude, delay or non-delay

• of gratification, delight and

disappointment, earned and unearnedrewards, and issues of anticipation,surprise, expectations, and satisfaction.Issues like these are likely to beespecially critical in child developmentand may well set life-long patterns-Birthday gifts and the processes thatsurround their exchange offer a keyvehicle for socialization of children asconsumers. While adults routinelyprovide goods and services to children,the birthday is a key time of the year inwhich the child's wishes and fantasiesare given serious adult recognition. Theway in which these wishes are attendedis likely to be an important mediator ofthe child's view of the material world.

Functions of Birthdays:For Those Out of the Spotlight

For those family members and friendswho help stage birthday celebrations,one of the functions shared with thebirthday person is the celebration of"connection" noted above. This differsaccording to the relationship to thebirthday person, but it may be a chiefoccasion to signal or demonstrate that itIam a loving parent/sibling/otherrelative/friend/neighbor." For familymembers the opportunity for suchexpression is unquestioned and takes onthe character of an obligation, even if itis often a welcome obligation. Forclose friends, the opportunity toparticipate in this small community ofbirthday celebrants may also beobligatory or a contingent aspect ofcontinuing friendship. But for morecasual childhood friends, an invitationto another child's birthday party may he

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a milder form of the message deliveredto the birthday person that "I am loved."To not be invited is to be left out of thecircle of friends.

A second function of helping tocelebrate another s birthday by meansof ritual participation, gifts, and wellwishes, is to demonstrate apparent oractual altruism. Unlike the recipient ofthese prestations who is allowed on thisone day to be a regal recipient of others'largess and to indulge personal wisheswith little moral inhibition, givers areexpected to put aside their own selfishinterests in favor of those of thebirthday person. We must learn toassume the perspective of the other inorder to select appropriate gifts andbehave in appropriate ways. Forchildren, demonstrating such altruism,even if insincerely, is positively sociallyreinforced by adults, just as these adultsnegatively reinforce "inappropriate'selfishness_

A third function of the birthdaycelebration for those other than thecurrent birthday person, is the implicitinvitation or claim to reciprocal benefitswhen roles change and the gift-giver,party-goer, or well-wisher has abirthday. The rule that we should inviteMary or Bobby to our birthday partybecause they invited us to theirs iscommon, and sometimes results ingreater inclusiveness than wouldotherwise have been enacted. Thisreciprocity is less expected of childrentoward adults, due to the age and statusinequality. Nevertheless, eventually inhis or her life, the child is also expectedto participate in celebrating the birthdaysof close adult family members, Thereare other roles for birthday celebrations,but a more detailed explication is thesubject of another paper. Thosepurposes outlined above are sufficientto frame the present study of gender inchildren's birthday stories.

GENDER AND THECHILD'S BIRTHDAY

There is a small literature on birthdaycelebrations, and even fewer referenceson gender in birthday celebrations andchildren's birthdays. Linton and Linton(1952) present an historical and cross-cultural analysis, noting that in ancientGreece only the male heads of importantfamilies celebrated their birthdays, withfeasts which might continue on theirbirthdays after they died. Children andwomen were not regarded assufficiently important for suchrecognition. Thus, class, age, andgender biases were ail evident in thesecelebrations, While class and genderbiases may remain to some degree, agebiases seem to have come full circle tothe point where it is the child whosebirthday celebration is now the mostsignificant in Western cultures.

Aries (1962) suggests that theemergence of childhood as a uniquedevelopmental period in which the childMUSE be given special attention in orderto become a good adult, began in theSixteenth Century and was fullyachieved by the Nineteenth. Lewis(1976) demonstrates that in VictorianAmerica and Great Britain, an excessivefocus on children was thought to makethem selfish and unlikely to be generoustoward others. It is during the earlyTwentieth Century, however, thatspecialized birthday cards for childrenemerged (Chase 1927), This Erne wasalso the beginning of the "Gold= Ageof Childhockl/Children's Literature"which lasted until 1950. During this •time, children were considered carefreeand devoid of responsibility. With theintroduction of Winnie the Pooh, Alicein Wonderland, and Babar, childhoodwas seen as a place of fairy power,hope, and innocence where adults,stodgy and musty, could be foundwhen needed for protection and care(Goldstone. 1986). By examiningattentions given to children in such

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arenas as schooling, medical care,advertising, and mass media,ChucLicoff (1989) builds a case thatchildhood did not fully emerge as a keydevelopmental state in America until theTwentieth Century and that the post-World War IL baby boom was the keyevent focusing attention on children.

in the 1960's, things changeddramatically and the world of childrenand adults began to emerge. Children'sliterature no longer emphasizedsheltering children in a world offantasy, but began to teach them aboutreality (Goldstone 1986). This timeperiod coincides with the emergence ofthe large body of children's birthdaystories that are the focus of ouranalysis. From the point of view ofconsumption, it is also significant thatthe baby boom years, with the guidanceof Doctor Benjamin Spock and others.are generally regarded as a period ofparental permissiveness. ft is a timewhen there is less demarcation in adult-versus child-appropriate subjects. Mid-Twentieth Century American parentsseem to have scoffed at Victorianparents' fears of overindulging theirchildren at birthdays. The child'sbirthday celebration can perhaps beregarded as the key festival of pleasure,indulgence, and delight. Even for theadult, Lewis (1976:11) suggests,birthdays may be a time when grownpeople ate "tempted to regress" tochildhood.

The question remains how birthdaysand birthday celebrations may differ forboys versus girls. Feminist critiques ofthe infantalization of women suggestthat the treatment of same age childrenat birthdays may differ for the twosexes. Such patterns of treating womenmore like children have also beendetected in birthday cards intended foradult women (Brabandt and Mooney1989; Mooney, Brabant, and Moran1993). At the same time, cardsintended for women are more likely

than those intended for men tosimultaneously involve expressions oflove (Dodson and Belk 1995; Mooneyand Brabant 1987) as well as to ridiculeloss of youth and beauty (Schrift 1994).Thus a number of issues of genderedself-concepts seem intimately tied tobirthday celebrations.

The material lessons of birthdays (e.g.,delay of gratifications, egoism versusaltruism, desire and fulfillment) mayalso differ by gender. Based onobservations of birthday parties andinterviews with three- to five-year-oldchildren, Owes and McGrath (1994)found that girls were more aware ofbeing able to eat anything they wantedon their birthdays, and these researchersattribute this to the more ordinary tabooamong girls against eating and gainingweight. They also found that girls ofthis age seem more able to anticipate thepleasure provided to someone else ontheir birthdays and to appreciate thecommunal aspects of the birthday party.Boys, on the other hand, spoke moreabout instrumental birthday party gamesand their own pleasure in receivinggifts. A greater focus by women inbeing the primary family membersresponsible for selecting birthday giftsand staging birthday celebrations is alsoto be expected based on prior work ongift-giving and holiday celebrations(e.g., Cheal 1988; Fischer and Arnould1990; Otnes and Lowrey 1994;Wallendorf and Arriouid 1991).

Analyses of general children's literaturehave found it to be a clear source ofmaterial culture and genderrepresentation. Crabb and Bielawski(1994) analyzed the content of picturesin children's stories and comparedcurrent stories to those representing thepast 33 years. They found that femalecharacters continue to be generallyunder-represented in children' s books,artifacts used in household laborcontinue to be represented as primarilyfor use by females, and artifacts used

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in nondornestic production labor are forthe exclusive use of males (this could bea cultural lag which doesn't representthe increased participation of women inthe workforce). Interestingly, eventhough female characters have notstarted using production artifacts, malecharacters are increasingly portrayedusing household artifacts. Theyconclude that young children, throughstories, have been exposed to arelatively stable representation offemales and material culture, but therepresentation of gales in the householdappears to be changing.

Similarly, a study of children's storiesby Tetenbaum and Pearson (1989)reports that when there is a boyprotagonist, logic, winning, and losingare the major themes of the story. Heseeks what is right and looks forsolutions, while emphasizing justice,obligations, duty, standards, rules, andprinciples. When the protagonist is agirl, the theme concentrates on the arenaof emotions and relationships. Sheemphasizes care and questions whoneeds more and how to give it. Shetries to invent unique, contextually-based answers to situations. Williamset al. (1987) found similar results,however they believe that the role offemales in stories is changing becausethere is really no consistent behaviorshared among female characters. Incontrast, male characters art portrayedas independent, persistent, and active.

While there is good reason to expectthat gender, consumption, andbirthdays combine into consistent aridinfluential aspects of the childsocialization process, there has thus farbeen little research into such issues.Through Our text-based focus onchildren's birthday stories we hope tooffer further insight into the gender-related aspects of birthday celebrations.

METHODS

We assembled all of the Americanchildren's birthday stories we couldlocate, but our set is not exhaustive ofall published material. After excludingstories intended for adults, non-fictionbooks, and non-American material, wewere left with 89 stories for analysis.Our analysis involved a close reading ofboth written material and illustrations(present in over 95 percent of thestories). Most of these stories aretargeted to preschool and elementaryschool age children. These analysesinvolved a series of discussionsbetween the two of us, interspersedwith independent work. Thecollaborative results of this iterativeprocess follow. We present theseresults in three pans: (1) findingsunaffected by gender, (2) findingsspecific to females; and (3) findingsspecific to males.

The gender references are to the stories'characters, although we considered, andgenerally dismissed, effects due toauthor gender. This is consistent withTetenbaum and Pearson (1989). Of the89 stories analyzed, 62 were written bywomen. The age-pattern findings alsorelate to the age of the focal charactersin these stories, although these appearto closely match the age of the targetreader. Where appropriate, we alsonote changes according to the decade inwhich the story was written (altogethertwo were from the 1930s, one from the1950s, eleven from the 1960s, eightfrom the 1970's, 44 from the 1980's,and 23 from the 1990s), For thestories analyzed, the total number offemale focal characters was 37, and thetotal number of male focal characterswas 57 (in the case of some animalcharacters gender was not evident andsome stories involve more than onemain character).

Although the specific plot varied fromstory to story, the setting of each

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birthday was relatively consistent.Birthday artifacts, such as a birthdaycake, party decorations, and gifts wereused to describe the birthday scene,either explicitly in the text or throughthe illustrations. Most ritualsexperienced in childhood occur withinthe context of the family (Rosenthal andMarshall 1988) and with only a fewexceptions (generally when the storyinvolved non-human animals in thewild), the birthday celebrationspresented in our sample of children'sbooks supported this. Even if friendswere invited to a party, the party wasset in a home and was attended byavailable family members, Thosefamily members who were unable toattend generally "remembered" thebirthday person by mating a phone callor sending a card or gift in the mail.

RESULTS

Findings Unaffected by Gender

This analysis is primarily concernedwith gender differences, but thesedifferences are best contextualized bynoting potentially gendered patterns thatwe did not find to differ by the gendersof the focal characters, One generalfinding is that reliance on stereotypicalsex roles declined across the sixdecades studied, and this is mostobviously portrayed through changes inappropriate clothing. Female charactersare consistently shown wearing partydresses and aprons, and it is only in themost recent books that this has startedto change. The shifting emphasis ontraditional gender roles is also evident inthe types of toys presented at theparties. However, with toys, girls areshown to receive more "male" and"neutral" gendered toys such as toytrucks and balls, but boys are notshown to receive traditionally "female"gendered toys such as dolls or cookingsupplies (Miller, 1987).

Behaviors represented in a (stereo-typically) cross-gendered way alsoincreased during this period. In onebook, the gifts and activities seemblatantly cross-gendered in nature whena little girl receives robot and traincakes, has a dinosaur-themed party, andhelps her father bake her birthday cake.There are also an increasing number ofsingle-parent households in mote recentstories (where the mother or father hadto fulfill the role of the missing gender)and at least one story with apparentlylesbian parents. There is a general biasin the stories toward middle-classsuburban white children, but laterstories are more likely to depictworking-class children and ethnicminorities.

In terms of the children depictedcelebrating birthdays, there is a concerncommon among both boys and girls thattheir birthday would be forgotten byfamily or friends. This could representa fear of being unloved, or lackingimportance, Beverly Bigler is afraid herfamily forgot her seventh birthdaybecause she shared the day with herolder sister's wedding. Snyder Spiderruns away from home when he fearseveryone forgot, and Hippo goesthrough his day in a general "funk"because no one seems to remember"his" day. Many characters in thestories wish to receive a pet as a gift.The desire for a pet often accompaniesloneliness, and in some instances, thepet provides a means of teaching a childhow to be responsible, deserving, andkeep promises. In one instance, a 100-year-old woman longs for a kitten onher birthday so that it can keep hercompany, and in another, a 10-year-oldboy asks his parents for a puppy afterhe and his best friend have a fight.

In more recent stories, especially, bothboys and girls are often shownovercoming fears and thereby growingmore independent and "grown-up' as aresult of some event involving

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birthdays. For example, in a 1993story, Annie gets her dream bicycle forher birthday and in learning to ride it,falls and scrapes her loxes and elbow.But she is happy to have conquered herfears. In another story, Alfie, who isfive-years-old, must decide betweenletting-go of his blanket and helping anupset friend at a party. He opts to putthe blanket down, and in so doing,gains confidence and learns that hedoesn't need his blanket anymore.Both genders are also depicted asbecoming more responsible, morecaring, and less selfish through birthdayrites of passage. This is consistent withthe findings of Tetenbaum and Pearson(1989) who report that the resolution toa dilemma in a story is oftenaccompanied by a shifting in orientationfrom a morality of justice toward amorality of care (supporting that malesand females both view care as the bestsolution to a moral dilemma). Toillustrate this, in a 1966 story, Lyle thecrocodile learns that doing things forothers is the best way to overcome hisjealousy of his human "brother's"birthday party and presents,

A third growth theme common for bothboys and girls involves a magicaltransformation or wish fulfillment.Although there were a small number ofstories in which children had to learn toscale back their expectations, in moststories, wishes are fulfilled, no matterhow improbable they are. In oneinstance, a 7-year-old boy makes a wishand his brontosaurus cake becomes areal baby dinosaur. Even where there isdisappointment, there is generally ahappy resolution or compensation ofsome kind. For both boys and girls,birthdays are thus seen as happy times,and growing older is almost uniformlypresented as being good: thingsbecome better due to the birthdayevents.

The magic associated with the birthdayoften provides an "escape" for the child

and separates the child from the adultworld. Sometimes it's as if the adultsare unable to even "see" the magicaloutcomes. In one example, Treehom'sfear that his birthday is forgotten isreplaced with excitement when he findsa genie. He makes three wishes for a -birthday cake, candles, and his name onthe cake. Although his parents cannotaccount for the appearance of the cake,they do not listen to his repeatedattempts to talk about the genie, andTreehorn ultimately celebrates hisbirthday by himself with hispersonalized birthday cake,

Findings Specific to Females

Almost unanimously in these stories,the adult who buys birthday gifts for thechild, prepares birthday foods, andstages birthday celebrations is thechild's mother. It is not unusual thatthere are no adult males present at all,implying a single-parent household orelse the. irrelevance of the father to thechild's birthday celebration. If thefather is present, his role is usuallysupportive and might involve decoratingthe house or providing (or being unableto provide) the money for desiredbirthday gifts. In divorced and single-parent households, the mothergenerally assumes the financial role.Similar to the findings of Crabb andBielawski (1994), female characters inthe story are represented with homeartifacts and male characters withproduction artifacts. Consequently, it ismost often the male characters whodecorate the house and who exclusivelyfulfill the role of photographer andvideographea. In at least three stories,the male/father figure is shown to havecollapsed in a chair, exhausted, at theconclusion of the party, whereas thephysical stamina of the mother is neverquestioned- Those adults who makegifts by hand for the child are alsouniformly female, with handmade giftsranging from embroidered tennis shoes

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to a robot. In only two cases was therean absence of adult women.

The birthday cake plays a central role inall of the stories, and with just a fewexceptions, Preparation of the cake isleft entirely to the mother or daughter.It is the mother who is always showncarrying the cake to the table. Threepartial exceptions to female food-making involved male cake-baking ormale-as-savior endeavors gone awry.In one instance, the dog eats thebirthday cake Benny's mother hasprepared for him and his father mustbring home a new one to stop hiscrying; and in the second, a little foxbakes a cake and the mother re-makesthe cake so it will be perfect. In thethird instance, two friends, Marvin andMilton, decide to throw themselves aparty, and to save money they try tomake a cake and ice cream- Bothpursuits are culinary disasters, but thebaker and the ice cream maker bring thereal thing to the party as gifts for theboys. Ordering a cake from a bakery isoften an exception to the female cake-baking role, and "professional" bakersare presented as men. The task ofordering the cake, however, is mostoften fulfilled by women,

While both genders of children areshown altruistically giving gifts toothers, girls are generally shown tonaturally possess this tendency whileboys must be taught, often withdifficulty. One Hispanic girl, Cecelia,goes to great efforts to select hergrandmother's favorite objects for her90th birthday. Most of these objects aresymbolic of the good times she has hadwith her grandmother, showing bothfemale nut-titmice and efforts topreserve and celebrate personalrelationships. In a second example,young Martha gives her blindgrandfather a handmade birthday cardwith raised letters reading "HappyBirthday Grampie." Finally, a thirdexample of this shows how a girl digs a

hole to China in order to bring backsomething for an older neighborcelebrating a birthday and wishing shehad gone there when she was younger.While both boys and girls displaysibling rivalry when it is a brothel's orsister's birthday, girls are the only onesshown unselfishly remembering theirsiblings on their own birthday, as whenTrixy Reynard (fox) brings pieces ofher birthday cake to her sisters who aresick with "fox pox," or when Daisybrings her new toy truck to her brotherElmo as he pouts in the corner duringher party.

For older girls, but not boys, birthdaysare also a time of concern aboutromance. Girls are depicted practicingkissing, being jealous of more attractiveand popular girls, and scheming toattract boys with party games like spin-the-bottle and truth-or-dare. Older boysare sometimes seen as sharing similarconcerns about dating, but they play asupporting role whereas girls are themain character in romantic birthdaystories. This is even true when theromantic male "other" is an animal, aswith the gorilla that takes Hannah to thezoo because her father is too busy andthe ceramic horse that comes alive tofulfill Jennifer's dream of owning andriding a live horse. These animalsappear as father stand-ins, with orwithout a Freudian reading. It is alsofemale twins (or in one case triplets)who are most jealous of one anotherand who are the ones most worriedabout individuating themselves asunique (and desirable) people ratherthan duplicates of their look-a-like. Justas nourishing relationships are stressedfor girls, so are such more problematicrelationships.

Findings Specific to Males

Besides the economic role most oftenassigned to the father of a birthday

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child, there is a role of miraculousprovider of delightful gifts that isassigned to adult men. This is moreoften an uncle than a father, apparentlyproviding increased removal from therealm of ordinary life in favor of afantastic world with greater, oftenmagical, possibilities (perhapsparalleling Horatio Algefs stories oflong-lost wealthy fathers who surprisetheir sons by bestowing them with theirbirthright). Thus, 7-year-old Thomasreceives from his uncle a magicalminiature circus troupe in a package thatunwraps itself, performs, and thenrepackages itself. Similarly, Joereceives from his Uncle Joe theMagnificent (a magician in a travelingcircus) a magical book that transportshim and two male friends at his party toKing Arthur's court, Here they defeatthe evil black knight, dispatch a fire-breathing dragon, eliminate a vile-smelling giant, and receive knighthood.And James receives a special lunchhoxfrom his Uncle Wesley which magicallytransforms his usual "healthy" lunchinto decadent foods his mother prohibitshim from eating. Unlike the "uncle"figure, the father sometimes reduces thechild's fantasy. In one story the fathertells his son to "think" of practicaldreams (the son wonders whether suchdreams are really dreams at all) and inanother, the father tells his son thatwork is more important than dreamingwhen he says, "If something is worthwishing for, it's worth working for"(Heide 1984).

It is also boys who are most likely tohave active adventures on theirbirthdays. There are, however, severalexceptions in more recent stories, aswhen two twin girls outsmart the policein solving a birthday burglary (although"Nancy Drew" and "Murder SheWrote" stones are a precedent here),and a story noted earlier in which a girlis depicted overcoming her fears oflearning to ride a bicycle down a hill.

A common theme found only amongboys in these stories is that of anawkward blundering child who isoblivious to or contemptuous of others,but who learns with some difficulty tobehave more acceptably, Thus,Charles, the young alligator, is given aninvisible thinking cap by his father andis able to stop bad habits like puttingspaghetti in his young sister's hair,putting the dustpan in the refrigerator,and sleeping at school. Similarly,Clarence receives a magical scroll thathelps him remember to tie his shoelaces, stop putting ice cream on hisfriends' heads, and stop havingaccidents on his bike, And Muck themonster goes to another child monster'sbirthday party and sees howdisgustingly others behave in throwingcake at each other, butting heads, andjumping on the bed. Birthday imageslike these were also found to be specificto boys among the three- to five-year-olds interviewed by Dines and McGrath(1994). Such behavior is alsoreminiscent of the subtitle of a paper byWolfinlaner and °illy (1991), "...or,Are Men Insensitive Clods?"

A related theme that is most common instories about boys involves concern forself rather than others. Thus, selfishRussell /earns that he must graciouslyreceive the gifts of his birthday partyguests rather than criticize these gifts,Davy must learn from his older brotherPeter that they should get mothersomething she wants for her birthday(and even then Davy spends all theirmoney on a pinwheel that he likes).And a male racoon eats part of diecandy he is coerced into getting hissister for her birthday and must bedissuaded from eating the rest (aChomp° bar). He still substitutes"Happy Chomp° to me" in the birthdaysong for his sister, but eventuallybecomes contrite, apologizes, andpromises to replace the four gumbalLshe got to give her but ate himself.Stories of naturally egoistic behavior are

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not totally exclusive to boys, but theyare nearly so. They also contrastsharply with nurturing altruistic storiesthat are much MOM typical with girls.But while stories of altruistic girlscontinue in recent publications, thereappears to be a decline over the periodstudied in stories of cloddish boys.

CONCLUSION

Children's birthday stories provide afascinating vehicle through which toexplore gender role socialization ofchildren- Books play a primary role inintroducing young readers to what isessentially a "formulaic" celebration ofbirthdays, arid in so doing, create.expectations for specific birthday ritualsas well as establishing norms ofbehavior which the child can applydirectly to his or her life. Within the"birthday realm," children as a groupare shown enjoying birthday parties,seeking love and attention, andreceiving magical with fulfillmentIndividually, it is important for femalesto be caring and nurturing (oftenmanifested through baldrigicooking orshopping activities) while maintainingtheir focus on those around them, andfor males to be active adventurersgaining insights through a betterunderstanding of self.

An important aspect of ritual is itsability to provide symbolic connectionto the past and to the future (Rosenthaland Marshall 1988). This connectionbrings with it a resistance to change.Birthday rituals are one way forindividuals and society to find stabilityduring the passage of time. Increasedinterest in various birthday rituals hasrevealed associated gender expectations,and a sensitivity to gender is the firstmove toward analyzing theappropriateness of these expectations intoday's society. It is unlikely,however, that change will occur quicklywithin the realm of birthday rituals, for

the children's birthday story is at worksocializing young readers to genderroles and expectations which havechanged very little in the last sixtyyears.

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