I was wondering, if you were born on a leap day, when do you have your first birthday ? Do you wait for four years till the next leap year or do you celebrate on the next Feb. 28 ? And what does this mean leagally ? Do you have to wait until your real 16th birthday to get a drivers licence or are you allowed to drive after you’ve been alive for 16 years even though you may not be 16 yet ? Do you start kindergarden at 20 years living or 5 years since birth ?
I’m so confused ! 
My mom was born on a leap day. We have always celebrated her birthday on the 28th of Feb. Some purists say you should celebrate it on March 1, but who the heck wants to celebrate their birthday in an entirely different month?
There were no legal issues involved. She went to school, got her driver’s license, etc., just like everyone else. I’m not sure what would have happened on, say, her 21st BD if she tried to go buy her first drink. (She’s never been much of a drinker).
In any event, we’re all looking forward to her Sweet Sixteen party. And yes, it was cool as a teenager to suddenly be older than my own mom.
I think any such person would be able to choose whether or not to celebrate on 28 Feb or 1 Mar for the other three years.
Legislatively, they probably would consider you born on a regular calendar day so you would get your driver’s license, register for the draft, be old enough to drink, etc. at the same time as the rest of the general population.
At least, that’s going by the experience of never having heard of anyone who was denied their rights because of their age using this argument.
I’ve known two people with leap day birthdays.
[ul][li]My former brother-in-law was born on 2/29/1952. We didn’t socialize much, him being 12 years older than me. He only had one birthday, 1976, when he was still a part of our family, but I don’t recall how he celebrated it.[/li][li]A friends’ daughter, Claire, was born 2/29/2000. I think they just had a small party for her on 3/1/2001.[/li][li]Hi, Opal![/li][/ul]
I think for practical purposes, March 1 is used as the rollover date on non-leap years. So Claire will be considered 5 on 3/1/2005, but only 4 on 2/28/2005. For events happening on leap years, 2/29 is used. So Claire will be able to get her licence on 2/29/2016.
Leap day birthdayers (?) could be cute and celebrate their birthdays with themes appropriate for someone [sup]1[/sup]/[sub]4[/sub] their age, like on “Wings”. (Roy was born on a leap day, and had a 12-year-old’s birthday for his 48[sup]th[/sup].)
Thank for clearing that up !!! 
My birthday is on Feb 28.
My girlfriend’s is on March 1st (irrelevant to this story, but still quite a coincidence)
Several years ago, on Feb 28th, I’m in the lineup for a nightclub with friends out to celebrate my birthday. I ask the bouncer if you get in free if its your birthday and he said yes. Someone else down the line overheard this and claimed that she was celebrating her birthday as well and should also be let in for free. The bouncer checked her drivers license which said Feb 29th, and wouldn’t give her the free admission, even though it wasn’t a leap year.
How pathetic can you get… what’s another $8-10 for a club that’s got over 150 people in it?
It’s not really a problem. Unless, of course, you live in a Gilbert and Sullivan play…
I was getting my hair cut a few months ago, and I noticed that the Barber’s licence had been issued on 2/29/2000, and had an expiration date of 2/29/2001. Does that mean it will never expire?
I think the whole leap date make the job of programers more confusing thats all. Take for example a programer making a program for DMV that needs to keep track of your age. Now if the programer was good it would handle leap birthdays properly by rollig them over automaticaly but if the programer was not so good it would spit out a driver license for a 50 year old man that says under 21 but i dont think the man would have trouble buying drinks.
I believe there was a SD column regarding this.
I think it went something along the lines of you just count 365 days from he 29th of Feburary which gives you Feb 28th for the next year.
I don’t know the formula but I am pretty sure it was worked out so the 28th was the date.
I celebrate my birthday on May 33rd…but only on leap years.