The 7 Worst Birthdays to Have, According to Moms

Christmas may be the most wonderful time of the year, but it’s also the most awful time to have a birthday.

As part of the April 2024 installment of its “Talk to Moms Monthly Poll,” Everyday Health Group Pregnancy & Parenting asked 404 moms and moms-to-be for their opinions on undesirable birthdays. They were given a list of occasions and were asked to select those they wouldn’t want their kid to have as a birthday. Respondents were between ages 18 and 44, and they were either pregnant at the time or had at least one child aged 5 or under, What to Expect reports.

Forty percent put Christmas on their do-not-want list, making it the worst birthday included in the survey. Twenty-three percent said any date too close to the holidays would be a bummer birthday. The precise rationale probably varies from person to person, but the gist is that December birthdays get overshadowed by Christmas in more ways than one. You get joint Christmas-and-birthday gifts, you can’t find time to celebrate amid all the holiday parties and travel, and people are generally just too busy (and possibly cash-strapped) to pay attention to your birthday.

On Christmas’s heels was Leap Day, with 38 percent of respondents dreading giving birth on the day. The survey went beyond holidays: It also listed the anniversary of a family member’s death (26 percent) and a sibling’s birthday (23 percent).

It’s also worth pointing out that none of the occasions achieved a majority—60 percent of those surveyed were apparently fine with their kid being born on Christmas. And 75 percent said they wouldn’t try to schedule an induction or C-section to steer clear of any given date.

See the breakdown below and find out other takeaways from the survey here.

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