I need suggestions for a message to a one-year-old to be opened on his 10th birthday.

September 27, 2008 10:29 AM

I need suggestions for a message to a one-year-old to be opened on his 10th birthday.

A friend's baby is turning one, and they're collecting messages to save for him to open on his tenth birthday. What cool, funny, or unique message can we write that a ten-year-old would appreciate?

posted by saucy to grab bag (16 comments total)

You're adopted.

(Your real parents were wizards.)
posted by orthogonality at 10:35 AM on September 27, 2008 [15 favorites]

If you have the space, how about writing some reminiscences of things that you and the parents did over the last year, related to the child (or not).
posted by Gorgik at 10:49 AM on September 27, 2008

Happy 10th birthday! Hope you've stopped pooping your pants!
posted by jrossi4r at 10:55 AM on September 27, 2008

I need suggestions for a message to a one-year-old to be opened on his 10th birthday.

Annie Dillard suggests:

"Children ten years old wake up and find themselves here, discover themselves to have been here all along; is this sad? ...I woke at intervals...until the intervals of waking tipped the scales, and I was more often awake than not. I noticed this process of waking, and predicted with terrifying logic that one of these years not far away I would be awake continuously and never slip back, and never be free of myself again."

This should be read aloud and followed by a moment of silence. Then all the kids can dig into the hockey-themed ice cream cake and watch Spider Man 7.
posted by Beardman at 11:31 AM on September 27, 2008 [1 favorite]

Welcome to the double digits. It's all downhill from here.
posted by Koko at 11:58 AM on September 27, 2008

Have the baby lie down on a sheet of paper and trace him. Then write, "I've known you since you were this big."
posted by Frank Grimes at 12:01 PM on September 27, 2008 [2 favorites]

Maybe do a time-capsule kind of thing...these were the top five Billboard hits on your first birthday, these movies were tops at the box office, this is what was happening politically (the upcoming election comes to mind), things like that. Then invite him to compare it all to what is happening in the world at age 10.
posted by Oriole Adams at 12:34 PM on September 27, 2008 [1 favorite]

What sprung to mind for me was some kind of thing that makes him feel more grown up. Like, "Now you're 10. Ten year olds get to _____.(whatever forbidden thing is)
posted by Grlnxtdr at 12:46 PM on September 27, 2008

Any flying cars yet? No? meh...
posted by muddylemon at 2:19 PM on September 27, 2008

This seems like kind of a weird idea, since how well can any of you know a one year old... I think I would go for some embarrassing anecdote about their parents that a ten year old could be expected to find hilarious.
posted by Salamandrous at 4:34 PM on September 27, 2008 [1 favorite]

More effort and time, but... bury a treasure somewhere, and make the note a treasure map. Who knows if the treasure will still be there (or still obtainable) ten years from now.
posted by -harlequin- at 6:04 PM on September 27, 2008 [2 favorites]

letter to uriel

Uriel, I would like you to remember the following, which I still work
at applying in my own life:

-We your parents will hug and love you forever. We will always be a
safe haven for you if needed.

-Live Life energized by Wonder, at the very fact of there being
something rather than nothing. This realization will shed new light
any situation in Life, provided you remember it.

-Seize Life by the horns and savour every experience

-Be prudent, but do not fear death

-Follow your interests and passions and use your talents to do good
and help others

-Would you still go to work if they stopped paying your salary? If
not, then stop doing it

--Ask yourself honestly- 'What will make me smile at the moment of my
death?' Then do it NOW!

-Always treat your Mother with the highest respect

-You only live once in this lifetime, but you can pack many lives into one

-Remember that you were a fish once

-Try and see the milky way at least once a month

-Remember that you are ALIVE on a PLANET

-Nobody really knows anything. Though the scientists have a better
story, the road of knowledge always ends on the edge of the mysterious

posted by lahersedor at 7:10 PM on September 27, 2008 [3 favorites]

When I was that age I was totally fascinated by stuff that had happened in my lifetime and by the ways thing change over time. I think the time capsule is a great idea, focusing on stuff that a 10 year old might not realize happened when he was a baby: movies, music, popular clothing, cars etc.
posted by fshgrl at 7:21 PM on September 27, 2008

An invitation to join Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, with an explanation that he is such a talented wizard he's been invited a year early! And also, maybe the first Harry Potter book.
posted by thebrokenmuse at 7:23 PM on September 27, 2008

Strangely, this is the second question for which I've suggested the same answer.

Hand write the poem If by Rudyard Kipling.


If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!
posted by Mephisto at 7:26 PM on September 27, 2008 [2 favorites]

Seems like the link to the letter to uriel does not work.

Here's a PDF version of the whole letter.
posted by lahersedor at 6:59 AM on September 29, 2008 [1 favorite]