Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Chat

Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

What's this cake smashing lark all about? Another US import?

43 replies

GoldenKelpie · 28/10/2018 08:49

Colleague at work was chatting about visiting a photography studio for professional cake smash pics plus having a birthday party one. Then, today I read on fb of another mum organising a cake-smash. So it's a thing? Good grief!

OP posts:
DevonshireCreamTea · 28/10/2018 08:52

Why do you care so much LOL

NatashaRomanov · 28/10/2018 08:55

It's sheer wasteful indulgence on the part of the parents.

Mishappening · 28/10/2018 08:57

I care! It is pathetic and degrading and smacks of a poor understanding of wise use of resources. Let us hope this does not catch on.

MarthasGinYard · 28/10/2018 09:00

It's a downmarket load of crap that certain types hunger for.

Vile

Shockers · 28/10/2018 09:00

It’s really vulgar, and I’m surprised at its popularity.

BathFullOfEels · 28/10/2018 09:01

devonshire op was asking what it was. She wasn’t saying the future of her life depended on the answer.

FWIW op I don’t get it either. Make a great big fucking mess, waste perfectly good cake and what person in their right minds would want to display a picture of their child naked and covered in crumbs and icing? It’s bad enough when people put photos on SM of their kids with food smeared all over themselves but do people really put these photos on the mantle piece?

FormerlyFrikadela01 · 28/10/2018 09:01

I can't stand it.
None of us are innocent when it comes to waste but to purposely buy/bake a cake that isn't going to be eaten makes me feel so uncomfortable.

Creaci · 28/10/2018 09:02

It's a cake. No one needs a cake. If you want to wring your hands over waste don't make or indulge in any cakes. They are categorically bad for you and waste resource.

PiperPublickOccurrences · 28/10/2018 09:02

Vulgar, wasteful and the epitome of consumerist crap.

PiperPublickOccurrences · 28/10/2018 09:05

It's a cake. No one needs a cake. If you want to wring your hands over waste don't make or indulge in any cakes. They are categorically bad for you and waste resource.

No, because in this house cake gets eaten! It's not something made to be destroyed and then thrown away.

kiabella · 28/10/2018 09:07

Tacky, did a bit of a cake smash included in dds first birthday photos just incase I regretted not having one. Looked back at them for the first time recently and it’s just a one year old covered in mess with a nice background. Will skip it for ds.

Growingboys · 28/10/2018 09:10

They're tacky and wasteful

Camsie30 · 28/10/2018 09:10

You spend so long trying to teach your children to eat nicely and not be wasteful, then dress them up and take pictures of them playing with cake and purposely making a mess??? Don't get it at all.

MollyHuaCha · 28/10/2018 09:11

Avoid

Nothisispatrick · 28/10/2018 09:15

Tacky as hell

BluthsFrozenBananas · 28/10/2018 09:26

They’ve been around at least ten years. The first time I saw a cake smash picture was when I took DD to get some portraits done for her first birthday (DD is almost eleven now) and there was a cake smash picture up on the studio wall. I asked the photographer about it and she told me that a well known American (I think) photographer had taken the first one, and they were now becoming a popular theme for baby photos. It wasn’t until several years later I started to see them popping up all over the place though.

Singlenotsingle · 28/10/2018 09:29

What a waste of perfectly good food when there are people starving in the world! I couldn't do it!

Bowchicawowow · 28/10/2018 09:31

How tacky.

Biancadelriosback · 28/10/2018 09:35

I think cake smash pics look quite cute. Each to their own.

reallybadidea · 28/10/2018 09:35

It's not my cup of tea, however I am sick and tired of people complaining that something is too 'American'. That is nothing more than snobbery and lazy stereotyping.

JellySlice · 28/10/2018 09:44

When your baby tries to feed herself and gets spaghetti in her hair, or your toddler gets so overexcited by his Mr Whippy icecream that he faceplants it instead of licking it, that's funny and endearing. If you catch it on camera, you have a souvenir of the moment. But it's the spontaneity of the moment, the fact that it's age-appropriate and they will always be discouraged from doing it in future, that makes the picture so special.

Cake smashes manufacture that moment, a series of those moments.

Some people do not mind the falsification. Others do.

Likewise, some people do not mind the waste of food. Others do.

reallybadidea · 28/10/2018 09:47

I disagree about it being wasteful. Cake has very little nutritional value as a good, we don't eat it because we need to, we eat it because it gives us pleasure. If cake smashes give pleasure then I don't see that as any different to eating it.

reallybadidea · 28/10/2018 09:48

As a food Hmm

Shockers · 28/10/2018 09:48

If the cake cost £50-£100 and the photographer say, £100-£150, imagine the comfort you could bestow on underprivileged children, in the name of your DC, by donating that cash instead!

TidyDancer · 28/10/2018 09:53

The cake smash trend is (as others have said) tacky and wasteful. Very showy. The only person I know who did this also had a gender reveal, a baby shower etc etc. She just likes the attention I think.