Why Do Girls Cry On Their Birthday?

The Discomfort in Self-Celebration

Sadie Sink in the music video for “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)” by Taylor Swift, a short film with an iconic birthday moment.

Last week, I turned twenty-three and if there’s one area of my life in which I’ve undoubtedly developed a Cool Girl complex, it’s birthdays. Attempting to curb disappointment or appear overly vain, I’ve opted for “chill” birthday celebrations for the past seven years or so. No big parties, no balloons, no cakes, just me, my family, and a quiet dinner and dessert of my choosing. This has all been in an attempt to not turn into a pressure cooker of a girl on her special day, allowing nervous anticipation to fester until steam comes out her ears. No, no, I’m the Cool Birthday Girl, who doesn’t bother mentioning the occasion to her coworkers, making reservations, or accepting gifts. However, this wasn’t always the case, and last week - and for, frankly, the past seven years - I haven’t felt particularly cool. I wonder what’s not clicking.

As an elementary schooler, I would flip through American Girl Magazine with an energetic ardor, scanning the section that outlined birthday party themes, each paired with rhythmic titles like Pink Princess Pony Party! and Hawaiian Splish Splash Birthday Bash! With a wide-tip Sparpie, I would circle the grass skirts, three-tiered tropical cake, hibiscus-colored streamers, and DIY bowling with pineapples as pins and coconuts as balls and pass the magazine to my mom, who likely quickly regretted asking me what I wanted to do for my birthday. When the birthday party didn’t look exactly how it did in American Girl Magazine - the grass skirts weren’t so full, the cake lopsided, and the coconuts not actually working as bowling balls - I would end the night in tears. And so began the sacred tradition that countless other young girls and women have adopted: crying on your birthday.

There’s a photo of me in a family photo album at my seventh or eighth birthday party pouting in a cardboard Birthday Girl tiara, seated in an inflatable throne at “Pump It Up!”, one of those indoor bouncy house chains. I’ve embodied some variation of that pose on my birthday in all the years that have followed. The reason for the tears on my birthday has changed through the years, but the act is almost always the same. In elementary school, it likely revolved around another party attendee receiving more attention than me, or feeling some quiet dissatisfaction with my gifts. In high school, it probably had something to do with the amount of “Happy Birthday!” posts I would receive on Snapchat and Instagram. I was a child with insecurities and a fundamental depletion of empathy that would (hopefully) be alleviated with time and experience. 

But here I am, at the big age of twenty-three, feeling a hefty dose of dread wash over when September 15 hits. I’m in good company - if you search “girls on their birthday” on Twitter, you will come across tweets as mild as “hot girls cry on their birthday” to screenshots of victims from the Saw movie franchise along with innocuous captions like “girls on their birthday.” In an attempt to separate myself from the esoteric masses, avoid appearing selfish, and actually enjoy my day, I earnestly try to curb the tears each year to no avail. On paper, I know it’s just one day, but the floodgates are still flung open. All of this begs the question: why do girls feel so emotional on their birthdays?

Screenshot of one of the many “pretty girls cry on their birthday” memes on Twitter

For one, girls are often encouraged to self-optimize to an extreme degree, both in terms of physical appearance and general competence. At certain ages, you’re culturally and personally expected to hit certain life milestones, and not hitting those by those particular ages can feel like a failure. From personal experience, I know that such an intense focus on self-improvement can lead to a depletion in self-worth and a genuine struggle to celebrate where you’re at in the present, instead of fixating on where you’re headed next. Women are also taught to have a complicated, paradoxical relationship with aging, as they’re told that they’ll be less romantically and sexually desirable with each passing year, which is a hefty toll when you’re disproportionately valued for your vanity. You should be thrilled with the prospect of getting older and becoming a mother and grandmother, but ashamed about it showing on your face and generally okay with being considered socially disposable. Even if it’s not actively on their minds, the way a culture views aging women can have a subliminal effect on women’s own outlooks.

In a world in which women are often expected to self-sacrifice, it makes sense why they would put so much pressure on a single day to celebrate themselves, particularly as they get older and take on more responsibilities. In addition, according to psychologist Dr. Tara Quinn-Cirillo, the mere fact of a birthday is enough to make a person overcome with emotion, even if they don’t feel one particular way about it. “Crying is really just an emotional release,” she tells The Tab, referring to this experience of intense, nondescript emotion. Birthdays can bring a decent bout of heaviness, whether you’re entirely aware of it or not. 

As I get older, the ability to pinpoint the exact way I feel about my birthday becomes shakier. In elementary school, there was definitely a massive amount of excitement associated with getting bigger and gaining responsibility, followed by sore disappointment when that desired independence wasn’t fully actualized. As a teenager, this elation meshed with confusion as the years I was told were supposed to be the “best” of my life slipped before my eyes, quick as a flash of lightning. When I turned eighteen, my feelings grew murkier, as I reconciled the fact that it was now warranted for adults - men, in particular - to look at me as an adult. To be seen and treated as an adult woman felt uncomfortable and unpracticed like I had been pushed onstage too soon, without a chance to properly rehearse my lines. 

I feel myself slipping further away from the cozy confines of girlhood and, as I do, I find myself setting progressively higher hurdles to jump. The show goes on whether you’re prepared for it or not and at five, I felt so ready for six. At twenty-two, I feel so undeserving of twenty-three. I can’t help but think about my six-year-old self time-traveling seventeen years to ask me what I’ve found, and for me to turn my hands over, palms empty. I don’t think I was ever expecting to have a whole lot accomplished at twenty-three because I never really thought about twenty-three. But, using hindsight and cynicism as a crutch, I must have expected more than this. If not to have more accolades under my belt, at least to have undone some patterns of negative self-thought. To at least have the confidence to say “It’s my birthday” and not feel overly swayed by how that single day transpires because it’s just one day.

I suppose I cry on my birthday because of the discomfort and humor inherent in celebrating me: a person who I know, abstractly, is worth celebrating but who is also an undeniably unfinished project. It feels like a full theater giving a standing ovation to a child’s iMovie creation, or an amateur artist signing and auctioning off a rough sketch rather than the final work. I guess it feels uncomfortable to outwardly celebrate someone you wouldn’t bother to light a candle for behind closed doors. It’s not as much of an issue with my birthday as it is with me and the bright lights of the spotlight, primed to illuminate every rough edge.

But the funny thing about trying not to make a big deal about your birthday is that you kind of end up making a big deal out of it anyway. Going out of your way to appear as this humble girl who doesn’t draw too much attention or care about herself enough to say anything often makes the event even more climactic when the cat is inevitably out of the bag. Doing mental exercises to avoid acknowledging yourself is a great feat in itself, and one in which many women are well-practiced. It might be easier - on the mind and spirit - to just arrange a birthday celebration to begin with.

To combat the birthday blues, psychologist Dr. Ash King recommends going into the day with open expectations, leaning into the reflective mood that birthdays often put people in, and letting yourself feel good. At no point in life are we really ever expected to be a finished product. Each year, I find myself fine-tuning who I’m supposed to become, like a picture that’s slowly coming into focus. Who knows how clear it will ever even come out? All I know is that each year, I take a step forward, some years a great leap, others a routine stride. But regardless of the size, the steps are helping mold me in some capacity. And to accompany that molding, maybe I could start acknowledging that it’s happening and that it’s okay to celebrate the small and big. After all, it is just one day. It’s just a birthday.

Meg, Jo, and Amy in Little Women (2019) celebrating Marmie March’s birthday

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To read more complex feelings about growing up, check out my article “How To Grow Up.”