When you remind a friend or loved one that it is his or her birthday sometime ago, it earned you a genuine smile, a heartfelt “thank you” or an invitation to share a slice of cake or jollof, if you were lucky. Wasn’t that priceless?
Today, to wish someone a happy birthday has become one of the riskiest decisions you can make with your mobile phone.
The moment your “Happy Birthday! Wishing you many more years of good health and God’s blessings” lands in their WhatsApp or via voice call, the response arrives almost instantly.
“Thank you. My MoMo number is…” That is if it was not a sophisticated “You remembered my birthday. So where is my lunch?” or “Send something small”. Not a little room is left for diplomacy.
Small, of course, is one of the greatest lies in Ghana’s English language today. Deceive yourself and see. Small never meant small at all. You will be the ‘yawa’ of the day. In Ghana, it simply means, “I have left the amount to your conscience, but I reserve the right to judge your generosity.”
I have been wondering whether birthdays in Ghana nowadays, have followed the trajectory of renaming State buildings and National holidays by successive governments.
Who quietly renamed it as National Begging Appreciation Day? Was the person afraid of a peaceful demonstration that will last longer than the closure of strait of Hormuz? What a genius that person was.
Whichever way, the invisible renaming ceremony has taken place successfully. Our birthday greetings are no more thoughtful gesture but an invoice that comes with a receipt. Payment became proof of affection.
If no money accompanies your message, your sincerity will be questioned overtly or in a dark thought somewhere. The kindness of your thought becomes a “sheep’s head”. Your years of friendship are suddenly sent to the mental KPMG or PWC for serious auditing. You only sent words. Mtchwwwwww.
Apparently, words have become inflation-proof in every area except relationships. Our generation has rewritten the rules of courtesy. Were we not taught as children, that good manners included saying “please”, “thank you”, “sorry”, and “happy birthday.” Nobody added …and add MoMo.
Somewhere in Haatso, Aunty Ruby must be wondering where that chapter disappeared and got replaced with ‘Advanced Mobile Money Expectations’.
Or perhaps we should revisit our childhood days in Kokomlemle or Kwadaso for other answers.
When we celebrated birthdays as children, our parents worked quietly behind the scenes. They bought the cake, autocratically edited the invitation list without our consent, organised the party, found the new dress or shirt, wrapped the doll or the ‘case 5’ football, and somehow stretched their modest incomes into what looked like magic.
Could it be that somewhere between blowing out the candles and growing up, they forgot to add the courtesy manual to the package?
Did we wrongly conclude that the value of a birthday lay not in the love that planned it, but in the money that paid for it?
Perhaps the “Do you know how expensive this party is?” “Do you know how much that bicycle cost?” “You had better appreciate that dress. It wasn’t cheap” were conditioning us for this new attitude.
I am not saying there is something wrong with teaching us as children the value of money. Matter of fact it is one of the most valuable lessons every responsible parent should teach a child.
Just that some of us ended up learning something entirely different. We have accepted that affection is only genuine when it carries a price tag. we have confused the gift wrapper for the gift.
We did not realise that the real gift was never the bicycle nor the football. It was the sacrifice. It was the father who quietly postponed buying himself a new shirt so that we could feel like royalty for one unforgettable birthday.
The picture is clear. Just take a second look at that old childhood birthday picture with the Pepsi and Muscatella bottle and that fancy bread knife. May it be a reminder of our mother’s smile through financial difficulty because hearing us laugh as children, was worth every cedi. Perhaps we admired the receipt more than the love.
Here we are today as more educated people than our parents. We have become adults who consciously demand receipts from everyone who claims to care about us. Letting people know you care, has become very expensive. What a delicious irony.
Many of the people demanding birthday money hardly remember your birthday. Some barely know where you live. Some have not even called to ask how you are doing in years.
Yet, on the one day you remember them, they suddenly discover that your affection is incomplete without a digital transfer. Birthdays have now turned into fundraising campaigns. The transformation has been astonishing.
Remember Gary Chapman? The Five Love Languages? He made us believe that people express love through words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service, gifts and physical touch.
Breaking news!
Our generation appears to have revised the syllabus. We have simplified it into one universal language. Money.
Words in a card or voice note? Not enough.
Time? Not enough.
Presence? Not enough.
Prayer? Definitely not enough. We leave that to “Alpha hour or Command Your Morning.
Even genuine concern has become insufficient unless it carries legal tender. Perhaps the next edition of the book should simply be titled The One Love Language.
There should be nothing wrong with voluntarily blessing someone on their birthday. Giving has always been beautiful when it springs from generosity. Our problem is replacing generosity and kindness with entitlement. We no longer accept gifts. We have begun presenting bills on our birthdays.
That subtle line between a gift and a bill is what we seem to have forgotten.
Social media has made the situation even more entertaining. People publicly announce birthdays with enough enthusiasm to suggest that the Minister for Interior has declared a national holiday.
Hundreds will rush into the comments section of these posts and type:
“Happy birthday!” “More life!” “Stay blessed!” and many more.
Then comes the inevitable comment from the one who started the conversation. “Those saying happy birthday should stop typing and send MoMo.”
This comment will definitely attract hundreds of laughing emojis. The joke has become culture. This new culture is expectations that have become obligation.
Nowadays, when the thought of wishing someone well comes to us, we become hesitant because it will be appreciated, barely. Because we are calculating the possible financial consequences of remembering your birthday.
When we become afraid of expressing simple kindness, we are losing something precious. We are losing the noble virtue of gratitude because we fear being turned into instant sponsors. Becoming afraid to express acts of kindness is a very big loss to us, and this should be a worry to all of us.
Must we allow people’s senses of entitlement to quickly destroy this noble virtue? Not every birthday wish must come with banknotes. Not every expression of love should require a financial transaction.
Sometimes, it is valuable enough to know that in a world crowded with insane deadlines, distractions and endless scrolling, someone paused long enough to remember your special day. That gesture alone, is worth more than a thousand Mobile Money alerts.
Perhaps it is time we restored birthdays to what they were always meant to be. occasions for special relationship and gratitude rather than receipts and expectations.
Until then, some of us may have to think twice before typing those two dangerous words.
“Happy Birthday.”
Because these days, they translate into another statement entirely.
“Miser. Your Mobile Money transaction is pending.”
By Benjamin Quarcoo
