I think there's a slight inconsistency here. While you can age up a sim using a birthday cake, you can't give them a birthday party, if that's not really their birthday. That was a huge disappointment...
I haven't come across this problem before, but I see what you mean. Key words here are "if we're allowed to decide" unfortunately this is a growing trend with TS4. Makes u wonder what happened to the concept "You Rule"