Parents of a 7-month-old refuse to pay $200 to celebrate their friend's 30th birthday: 'Our friends always want to do these big activities that require us to spend $100+.'

It's perfectly reasonable not to want to spend that much money on a friend's birthday party.

Everyone has a different idea of what type of birthday celebration is "appropriate" for their age. There's a huge segment of the population that believes that after age 21, your birthday is not worth a second thought. That certainly used to be the predominant cultural attitude among adults in the 20th century, and many parents and older adults really don't care much about their birthdays. 

Honestly, I don't think it's a crime to earnestly celebrate your 32nd birthday, even though it's technically not a milestone. Who cares if some miserable person on Twitter thinks that you're eternally a teenager if you choose to have fun on important days of your life instead of stewing about how miserable adulthood should be? One of the biggest differences between your birthday when you're a child and your birthday when you're an adult is that adults can actually choose to take their birthday off from work. You get to determine how you want to be celebrated, and 99/100 times, your friends will be happy to go along with your celebrations, because you only get so many birthdays in your short time on earth. Why not celebrate it exactly as you want? Of course, there are always people of any age who take their birthday celebrations a little bit too far. You know it when you see it.