There is a particular kind of birthday message that a boy will not appreciate for another decade. It is written by an adult who has just realised how quickly all of this is going, and it lands on a child who mainly wants to know whether he is allowed a second slice. Both things are true at once, and a good message holds them together: plain enough for him to follow today, honest enough to be worth keeping later. That is why the wishes below are sorted by age first — three to five, then six to nine, then ten to twelve — because a sentence that moves a boy of eleven means nothing whatsoever to one who is still counting on his fingers. After that they are sorted by who is signing, since the same warmth sounds different from Mum and Dad, from Nan and Grandad and from a godparent. At the end are the lines short enough to fit a card without shrinking your handwriting to nothing.
Heartfelt birthday wishes for a boy of three, four or five
There are more candles on your cake this year than there were last year, and next year there will be more again. That is one of the best things about being you.
Today the house is yours. You pick the music, you pick the pudding, and nobody is going to mention the crumbs on the carpet.
Happy Birthday! We hope today has a puddle in it, a great deal of cake in it, and somebody willing to read the same book twice.
Since your last birthday you have learnt to climb things we would honestly rather you did not climb. Here is to a year of learning plenty more of them.
Many happy returns, little one. May the day be long, the bath be late, and the story at the end of it be the one you asked for.
The step you needed a hand with last year, you go up on your own now. We noticed. Have a lovely birthday.
Wishing you a day of being chased round the garden and allowed to stay up. And a night when you fall asleep still talking about it.
You wake this entire house up every single morning, and today we do not mind at all. Have a brilliant birthday.
Wishes for a boy at primary school, six to nine
Happy Birthday! We hope this year has good friends in it, a teacher who likes your questions, and playtimes that go on a bit longer than they should.
You learn something new every single day at the moment. We hope nobody ever talks you out of asking why.
Wishing you afternoons that only end when somebody calls you in, and a bike that stays in one piece until they do.
There is one thing you are quietly getting very good at. We have spotted it, even if you have not yet. Have a great birthday.
Many happy returns. May the holidays be longer than you expect and the homework quicker than you fear.
We hope this year brings you a friend you can fall out with on Tuesday and sit next to again on Wednesday. That is worth more than anything wrapped up.
You are old enough now to decide a few things for yourself, and we hope you are asked far more often than you are told.
Have a lovely day, and take the biggest slice. You are allowed to today, and you were probably going to anyway.
Birthday wishes for a boy of ten, eleven or twelve
Ten, eleven, twelve: old enough to manage most of it yourself, not quite old enough to be allowed to. We hope this is the year the balance shifts your way.
We hope you have people around you who let you finish a sentence before they start disagreeing with it.
You have started taking one thing seriously. Keep going with it, including in the weeks when there is a test on Thursday.
Happy Birthday. We hope for friends you never have to explain yourself to, and a year with no trouble in it that you did not go looking for.
Adults keep telling you how quickly it all goes. We hope you find this year slow and fill every bit of it.
Wishing you a door that gets knocked on, a room where you are left alone, and somebody who notices when you would rather not be.
There will be things you try this year that we never hear about. We hope most of them go well, and that you know who to ask about the rest.
Many happy returns. Start something this year that still means something to you in ten years’ time.
From Mum and Dad: birthday wishes in your own words
A year ago today there was a whole list of things you could not do yet, and you now get through most of them without looking up. We hope the list grows just as quickly this year, and we will do our best to keep up with it.
We wish you time that belongs entirely to you, friends who stay, and a house you still want to come back to on the days that have gone badly. That door is not going anywhere.
Happy Birthday from us both. We hope you make your own decisions this year, and we hope you know we are here for the ones that do not work out. There will be a few. There were a few of ours.
You are a year older and we have had a year more practice. Thank you for being patient with us while we work out when to step in and when to leave you to get on with it.
Some days we spend telling you to put things away. Today we only want to say one thing, and we mean it properly: we are very glad you are here, and we would not swap a minute of it.
We hope this year is full of firsts — the first time on your own, the first time further from home, the first time entirely without us. We are practising being calm about all three.
Whatever you end up doing, we hope you do it with the face you have on when something really interests you. Nobody should ever manage to talk you out of that.
From Nan and Grandad: heartfelt wishes for a grandson
When you arrived we were rather new to this as well. We have got the hang of it since. We wish you a year of days that go past without you noticing how quickly they went.
We wish you good health, good friends and somewhere you know your way around. And we hope you carry on coming to see us, even as your week gets busier.
Many happy returns from the pair of us. We hope this year holds long afternoons here, cake that is still warm, and stories you have not yet got tired of.
Stay curious. It is the one thing that keeps a person interested for an entire lifetime, and you have a great deal of it already.
We wish you quiet when everything gets too much, and people who listen without immediately telling you what to do about it.
You are a year older today and so are we. We hope to be at a great many more of these, and that you are in a good mood at every one.
Happy Birthday from Nan and Grandad. Take your time growing up. It happens on its own, and there is no prize for getting there first.
From godparents: what to write to a godson
I promised to keep an eye on you, and I have. This year I hope you need very little of it and manage most things on your own.
Many happy returns from your godfather. I wish you good friends, healthy days and one adult in the background who does not open with a telling-off. That post is taken.
I hope this year is full of things you do for the first time, and I hope I get to hear about them before your parents do.
Between us: whatever you tell me stays with me, as long as it does you no harm. I hope you have a year in which you never once need that arrangement.
Wishing you a long summer, short queues and a bike that survives the whole of it.
Carry on with the thing you love doing, even when somebody eventually tells you there is no future in it. They said exactly that to me.
Happy Birthday, and this from your godmother: courage when you need it, patience when the courage runs out, and my number when both do.
Short enough for the card
Many happy returns, and a day that belongs entirely to you.
A year older, a little more allowed. We are pleased for you.
Wishing you cake, mud and very little homework.
Happy Birthday! Today you may, and tomorrow you may again.
Health, good friends and free afternoons. That is the lot.
Have a lovely day, and do not let anybody near your plate.
To the birthday boy: a loud day and a very late night.
New year, new ideas. We cannot wait to see what comes of them.
Here is to a year even better than the last one.
Stay curious. Everything else tends to sort itself out.
Many happy returns from all of us. We are thinking of you today.
Have a brilliant birthday. We will see you at the cake.
Questions and answers
A heartfelt message ends up being more for the adults than for the boy. Is that a problem?
Not if you write for both, which takes about one extra sentence. A small boy hears the tone, not the words: he registers that somebody said something nice and goes back to the cake. The card, meanwhile, goes in a drawer, and the person who eventually reads it properly is a teenager finding it years later. So put two layers into the same few lines. One or two plain sentences he can follow today, about something he actually does — the climbing, the questions, the way he reports on his day. Then one sentence that is honestly yours: what you noticed this year, and why you are glad. Then date it. What feels sentimental now reads as evidence later, and evidence is what makes a card worth keeping.
Should Mum and Dad write one message together, or one each?
One card signed by both is perfectly normal and nobody will think less of it. But if you are aiming at something he keeps, two short separate paragraphs beat one long joint one, because parents notice different things. One of you will write about the football or the reading; the other will remember the week he was frightened of something and got over it. Two voices also stop the message drifting into the royal we, which is the quickest way to make a card sound like a school report. In practice: same card, two paragraphs, each signed. If you are not together, still write separately and do not co-ordinate the wording. A child can always tell when the adults have agreed a line beforehand.
It has been a difficult year at home. Does any of that belong in a birthday card?
Almost never in the card itself. A birthday is one of very few days that is entirely his, and a line about how hard things have been quietly hands him a job: to be reassuring back. Children take that job seriously and it spoils the day. What you can do is write the true thing sideways. Rather than naming the difficulty, name what he did inside it — that he was good company on a long journey, that he looked after somebody, that he simply got on with things. He will know exactly which year you mean without having to think about it. Save the fuller conversation for an ordinary Tuesday, when it is not competing with a cake and a room full of people.
He squirms whenever anything soppy is read out. When should the card be handed over?
Not at the table, and not in front of his friends. Reading a heartfelt message aloud in a full room turns it into a performance he has to react to, and at that age the only available reaction is embarrassment. Hand it over privately instead: first thing in the morning before the day starts, or at bedtime once the visitors have gone. Say almost nothing while he reads. If he shrugs and puts it down, that is not rejection — it is a boy who has run out of ways to respond and who will read it again on his own later. With ten- to twelve-year-olds, leaving the card on the pillow works considerably better than putting it into his hands.
What does a godparent write who is not religious?
Write what the role has actually become, because for most families that is now the whole of it: a named adult outside the household who is on the boy’s side. That is worth saying plainly and it needs no religious language at all. Promise something specific rather than something general — that you will turn up, that you can be rung, that what he tells you stays with you. A godson can do nothing much with a promise to always be there; he can do a great deal with the knowledge that your phone is on. It also helps to have your own thing with him, some interest his parents do not share, and to mention it by name in the card. That is what separates a godparent’s message from another aunt’s.