The public-address system is an essential feature of today's birthday parties for kids. Across the requisite loudspeaker come messages like the following: "Everyone here for Tiffany's birthday party, please report to Party Room 3 for cake, ice cream and presents," or some such.
Only then do Tiffany's little friends slide from the tunnels and pry themselves from the video games, to actually come together and pay homage to the birthday girl. It's an obligation, this amplified call to duty, the price a kid has to pay for free admission and a pouch full of game tokens handed out by the party hosts. Tiffany and her birthday are pretty much afterthoughts. How can something so quaint compare with the adrenaline rush of killing space invaders in the arcade?Which is why I feel something has been lost as birthday parties have moved from the living room to the amusement house. Birthday parties were once an excuse for kids to get together "and stay together" in fairly large numbers -- to have a blast away from the burdensome rules of the classroom. Birthday parties were once about making a boy or a girl the absolute center of attention for a morning or an afternoon, a prince or princess for a day.
But now kids are summoned over the loudspeaker, and a stranger, albeit a cheery teenager in a funny hat, lights the candles in the party room, and the presents are ripped through so the kids can rush back out into the amusement jungle.
Don't get me wrong. Places like the Discovery Zone are great for rainy days. I've spent some time in the tunnels myself. (Always use the kneepads.) But in my book, birthday parties belong at home or in a park with the kids together and a pi