"a relentless heteronormative procession towards reproduction as the end-all-be-all"

This may confer certain advantages.

On the veldt, women without the resources to make a cookie table had fewer children.

Speaking of coming-of-age, we gave back the skittish foster kitty, and adopted the best older-kitten, ie the catlet stage. She is just the best.

My heart is full, and I want to thank everyone in the community who came to celebrate this milestone, and your help and support in allowing me to get to this point.

She likes to purr while lying on your throat, in bed. We're best friends.

It's good your kids are older. That's how cats kill babies.

I had that thought, as she muffled my breathing a wee bit. But it was worth it for the nuzzling.

At least they don't have hands.

6: Or at least not in a way that we can understand.

I relate to this post. It certainly didn't occur to me at the time, but the lack of any celebrated milestones or rituals in my immediate or extended family besides weddings and funerals (none of which happened until I was in college) has felt a little un-mooring. Graduations could count, with the right structure around them. My high school graduation wouldn't have counted, but college graduation might have.

I graduated from high school. Some of you guys may have as well. Closely corresponded to becoming a legal adult. There was more than one ceremonial event in connection with the thing.

(It didn't help me learn to type faster or to preview.)

Because of the law in Nebraska, I was finished with my first year of college before I was a legal adult.

9: In my case, it wasn't ceremonial in the way that anyone gave a shit about. No one flew in to celebrate, for example. And I might have been embarrassed if they had, because it seemed like such a weak accomplishment to merely graduate, and my parents didn't do any sort of "we celebrate you just because it's a major transition!!" kind of approach.

Or if they tried to, I was too narrow-focused in minimizing the importance. I was absolutely certain that high school graduation was the emptiest of rituals.

Going somewhere different for college qualifies I think. Felt like new chapter to me definitely when I left. When my ex and I dropped our son off, I started crying over lunch after he was installed in a dorm room.

We got a dog drunk in the neighbor's garage. Poor Cuddles.

I bet, heebie, that 'society' made a bigger deal of your HS graduation than it did of my birth. My parents could have invited a bunch of folks to attend my christening, I suppose, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't part of their culture. Second kid, anyway -- who's going to give a shit?

We had big things for my Dad's 60th, 70th, 80th -- his birthday was in August, so that worked for everyone. My mom's birthday is in April -- we managed to get siblings (but not grandchildren) together for 85; she doesn't much like a fuss being made, although her 30th and 40th were big deals.

IMO, milestones are actually pretty well spaced.

Society has a nice way of marking 50th birthdays by asking to shove a camera up your ass.

Sure but it's hard to get a group shot in a confined space like that.

How about the first time you get arrested? Could be a celebratory milestone in some cultures (assuming you don't talk).

Likewise first time you get fired. One of the best parties I ever attended, where I knew almost no one, was when one of the other guests said that he had just been fired (for the first time), and about a dozen of us started telling our "when I got fired" stories, to make the point that life goes on and you recover and someday you'll tell your story to cheer up some other poor schlub who just got fired. It was a great party ice breaker and we roared on that night until the next morning.

I had one stuck down my throat. I'm glad I have something to look forward to.

I've had that too. I can't find the picture now, but it's around the house somewhere.

I've never been fired or arrested or had the colon camera.

22: I've done all three! It's possible that my generally favorable opinion of lawyers is a result of their involvement in the first two, and their lack of involvement in the third.

I have been advocating for larger, more celebratory birthday parties in prime number years for a very long time. I think I got interested in this shortly before I turned 11. The proposal was not accepted by the family then, and has not caught on at any time since, although 11 and 13-year-olds sometimes appreciate its merits.

So my next plan is going to be to create a tradition of decadent 59 1/2-years-old semibirthday celebrations, which are coming up soon for my high school and college cohorts. The United States has decided that at 59 1/2, you are old enough to be trusted with your own money (if it's in a 401K or IRA). The goal of a 59 1/2 birthday party is, of course, to blow as much of one's retirement fund as one can at the earliest opportunity.

I think an important milestone that we mis-celebrate is setting up a household of one's own; for some it's high school graduation, for some it's college graduation, but IME one of the weirdnesses of WEIRD life is that you get wedding presents as though you were just setting up a household, but in capstone marriages you are often at that point combining two households and could use less stuff.

Not that I disliked getting nice sheets after fifteen years of shacking up, but it wasn't when I needed them.

I try personally to give really nice but practical graduation presents and explain why I'm doing it, but it needs to be a social norm to be useful.

We're still using our marital towels, but they look pretty rough.

Are "renewal of vows" anniversary parties angling for replacement towels? Very practical.

We just bought some, in case people ever come over again.

When William Sonoma discontinues our dishes, then we strike.

I meant to have one of those "I'll be at x bar starting at 7 and. you're welcome to drop by" gatherings for my birthday when I turned 40 in February, but it felt like too much work at the time. And now that's impossible for the next however long, so I guess I'm off the hook there. Possibly this is not how a person is supposed to look at celebrations.

I can't remember what I did for forty. For fifty, I'm going to get a butt-camera session and then refill my colon with wings and beer.

larger, more celebratory birthday parties in prime number years

My friend also celebrates his metric birthdays. You could have a 25,000 days old birthday party.

30: My wife has long craved big birthday celebrations, while I cringe from them. I did a good job with her 40th -- a progressive party in a few locations that people could join for whichever segments interested them. (It wasn't too tricky -- mini-golf, then lunch out, then laser tag, then grilling and potluck at home.)

This year was her 5-0, and we decided not to fight Covid. But the pressure will be on for next year's.

25: I agree, though we did have friends contribute a day full of moving two apartments into one house -- the physical labor was greatly appreciated. It was the beginning of a great winnowing of duplicates, rather than a gearing up for the stuff to run a house, exactly per your 25.2.

9: College graduation was nice and a moderately big deal was made. There was some interest in celebrating high school, but I was so done and ready to start "real school" that I shot down all celebration beyond a nice meal for high school graduation.

A decade ago, I was in a group of friends where we all celebrated our 33 1/3 birthdays.

Truly a milestone of record.

That took a second to sink in. Good one.

You probably only get it if you're at least a 45.

A scientific facility I work with was supposed to have a slightly belated 40th anniversary symposium earlier this year, but then this year turned out to be 2020, so the new thought is a Douglas Adams tie-in for age 42.

[was going to comment on 37 but I'm waiting for 78 to roll around]

Right round baby.

First Communion (age 7, so apparently I had achieved the "age of reason," according to the RC Church) was a pretty significant rite of passage, as I recall. My mother had my dress made by a local seamstress: white cotton, with pale blue embroidered smocking; puffed sleeves; Peter Pan collar. It was a pretty big deal.

It's hard to think of my bar mitzvah as much of a milestone. I didn't want to be there. It meant very little to me and caused a lot of resentment toward my parents for making me do it. A lot of relatives came, some of whom I didn't remember, and I did the thing, and was very nervous and sort of dissociated, and then it was over and there was a "party" with my faute-de-mieux middle school friends. The day before, I was a gloomy thirteen year old. The day after, I was a gloomy thirteen year old.

Didn't the green collar clash with the white dress?

42: If you read slowly enough, you could have been a gloomy fourteen-year old.

I don't remember my First Communion at all. I remember my Confirmation because it turned out the bishop was babysat by my grandmother when they both lived in the old neighborhood. He remembered her, which really boosted her street cred with the Altar Society.

41. Give me the child until the age of seven and I will give you the man.