The day for leap babies to finally celebrate their birthday is coming. On February 29, those who were born on that special day now can be able to celebrate their actual birthday, a privilege they get every four years.
But statistically, there are not many leap babies around. The Honor Society of Leap Year Day Babies estimate that the odds of bearing the distinctive honor are around one in 1,461, as reported by Quartz.
“It is about 684 in a million,” said Raenell Dawn, co-founder of Honor Society of Leap Year Day Babies. “There are about 200,000 in the United States and just under 5 million worldwide,” he added.
The most common problem of celebrating on off-years is deciding when is the right time to do it, where many differ on dates and argued differents points of view.
Some say that February 28 is the most accurate day because is the last day of the month while others said March 1 is better because they were born the day following the 28.
According to Dawn, it is close to 50-50 when it comes to celebrating the birthday in off-years. But some people go further saying that it depends on whether the person was born in the morning or in the afternoon.
But they often face more serious problems than when to party and those are the bureaucratic problems that they have to inevitably face. It can go from not to be able to select the birthdate on a drop-down menu online to dealing with inaccurate legal documents.
There is a leapling whose birthday certificate says February 28 and her driver’s license says March 1. Her actual date, February 29 is not listed on either of her documents, commented Dawn.
Despite the occasional headache, said the leap baby Rachel Wise on Quartz, all leap babies derive a certain pride from their semi-unique status. Many people say it makes them feel special, not to mention enabling them to go all out celebrating those rare real birthdays.
When Rachel’s mother offered some consolation for her rare birthday while little, she said that she will be grateful when she could truthfully tell the world she was only 10 instead of 40.
Source: Quartz