I'm trying to set up a date of birth helper in my Rails app (2.3.5). At present it is like so.

<%= f.date_select :date_of_birth, :start_year => Time.now.year - 110, :end_year => Time.now.year %>

This generates a perfectly functional set of date fields that work just fine but....

They default to today's date which is not ideal for a date of birth field (I'm not sure what is but unless you're running a neonatal unit today's date seems less than ideal). I want it to read Jan 1 2010 instead (or 2011 or whatever year it happens to be). Using the :default option has proven unsuccessful. I've tried many possibilities including;

<%= f.date_select :date_of_birth, :default => {:year => Time.now.year, :month => 'Jan', :day => 1}, :start_year => Time.now.year - 110, :end_year => Time.now.year %>

and

<%= f.date_select :date_of_birth, :default => Time.local(2010,'Jan',1), :start_year => Time.now.year - 110, :end_year => Time.now.year %>

None of this changes the behaviour of the first example. Does the default option actually work as described? It seems that this should be a fairly straightforward thing to do.

Ta.