to secretly judge a mum who doesn't work but bought her son's 1st birthday cake at Waitrose?

[howdidthishappenthen]

Note that she's a REALLY one-up-manship yummy mummy who doesn't work because 'money is the man's responsibility - I'm the homemaker'. Then I hear her DH praising her for 'buying' a great cake for DS's 1st birthday. OK, I accept not everyone can cook. And after a few years, of with a few DCs of course we're all going to revert to shop cakes. And Waitrose cakes taste nice and lots of my own efforts are a bit dodgy. But no job, and the 1st birthday? C'mon... make an effort!

Does teh fact that it wasnt a Waitrose cake that I bought make it better or worse?

I love baking, make dc's birthday cakes and love doing it. And yes I do love the moment where everyone oohs and ahs and tells me it's great. But if I didn't enjoy it I wouldn't do it. Nor should anyone else. So buy away. Could it be a neutral thing though? I don't really like being told I'm wasting my time making the cakes or that it's beneath me. Live and let live.

I am a SAHM and both of my DC's 1st birthday cakes were from waitrose :o

Can't stand cakes. Make you fat, they do. Don't like fat.[harrrr]
If anyone dining with me wants a cake, I shall Waitrose, naturally.

Thank you Chaos. I will remember to shop in Iceland in future. Or at least I will remember not to post that my dd's next birthday cake came from Waitrose.

on my first born child's 1st birthday both my husband and I were abroad on business, he in south africa, me in belgium.

So we pretended it was the next day. And celebrated it with shop (well, patisserie) bought cake. Who cares? Certainly she had no idea - she was 1.

She is 13 on friday and seems to have survived the neglect...

How hard is it to make a cake? All you do is chuck in the ingredients, mix and put in oven. YANBU OP.

My DDs absolutely love looking at the photos of the cakes they had at their birthdays, of their favourite toys etc. It makes it so much more special knowing I worked hard to make it perfect for them and didn't just lazily put one in the trolley. IMO.

Kewcumber! With a travel kettle you could have made a perfectly adequate steamed pudding. With the addition of some sprinkles and a candle it would have made a lovely yack!

Shame on you....

yack?

cake!

you could have carved it into a yak shape though

I've heard you can buy a life in Waitrose. Pick up a couple of grips while you're there and OP and sparklyblack will be grand.

oh bugger freshmint - you're right aren't you. I'm a failure. No yak shaped cakes here.

On the bright side sparklyblack - DS loves to look at his photos of the cake and candles and just loves the fact that I was there with him, which apparently made it perfect.

I will send you a copy of my signed book "A travel kettle and a yak - cakemaking for the intrepid traveller" Kewcumber. I feel you could do with the help.

£19.99 in specialist bookshops for all the rest of you

I am guessing never having bothered trying I am spectacularly rubbish at making cakes.

Anyway, isn't that what the cake aisle is for?

I can bake fabulous cakes but think you are being totally unreasonable as not everyone is able to do so (or blessed with a marvellous Kenwood Chef!)

In fact you are being downright horrible.

For DC1's first birthday, I made a beautiful hand-decorated cake (with added gluten-free layer for auntie) - I was working at the time.

For DC2's first birthday cake - well I can't really remember what he got, it may have been the one where I put Baileys in the frosting by accident because he didn't like cake, or it might have come from Waitrose (or even Asda). I'd have to look at the photo's to be sure. I was SAHM at the time.

Your OP is a bit , and YABU.

sparklyblack you win! Only YANBU so far. Congratulations.

I think this is my favourite AIBU ever, I have tears of joy

I bought DC1's first-birthday cake from Waitrose (actually, lots of little cakes that spelled out 'happy birthday'). They were lovely and went down a treat. (I was working full-time then, so is that ok OP?)

But as I'm part-time now, poor old DC2 got my finest home-baked effort for his birthday cake. It was rubbish - even he looks appalled by the cake-wreck in front of his wee face in the pics.

No Waitrose for you, DS! Or lovely home-baked stuff! You'll be posting here in future years, no doubt.

(of course you are being VVV unreasonable, OP. who gives a shit whether you bake a lovely choccy caterpillar or go down the Mr Kipling route?)

How old are your DDs Sparklyblack? Do they really have nothing better to do than looking at pics of past cakes? Maybe if you'd spent more time playing with them and less time honing your cake making skills they'd have some friends to play with instead.

YABU

You seem to have a far more stereotyped idea of a womans role than she does. If I bake and ice a birthday cake it takes me the best part of half a day. Why waste that half a day when it takes 2 minutes to buy it and a SAHM could be doing something productive instead like:

• Reading to the baby.
• Taking photographs of the baby so he/she has some reference points when he/she is older.
• Spending longer playing in the bath with the baby as Baby gets ready for the party.
• Socialising the baby with thier peers.

... you get the idea.

Being a Mummy means being a Mummy, being a baker is a secondary role far less important than the actual parenting.

"How hard is it to make a cake?"

I take that to mean that you personally find making a cake to be easy peasy then. How about I flip this round and ask you about something I'm good at...

How hard is it to control a large capacity supersports motorcycle round a track (shall we say Mallory for convenience) at an average of 120mph?

See now that is so slow I could do it in the wet, with one hand behind my back and whilst being on the phone at the same time. 120mph is practically looking for parking don't you think?

So of course, as your being able to bake a cake easily means everyone else should be able, then my being able to ride fast and well means you should be able. See you at Mallory on Saturday for a little try out will I?

I bake lots of cakes. My children bake cakes on their own several times a week.

I have never ever ever made a birthday cake for any of my children. Parties are special. I can't make a cake as exciting as m&s. Parties are times to do what you don't usually do etc . My children chose their own cake for their birthday. I am afraid the home made cake is def second best when it comes to birthday cakes.

Maybe she doesn't make a cake because she makes them all the time!

I work full time. I may bake but I don't clean and we live in a tip.

I guess the op is the kind of person who doesn't bake- so it is a big thing to make a cake.

A cake is not just for birthday.. cake is for life.

From the perspective that she is a really up herself Yummy Mummy YANBU to be to be a bit gleeful that she hasn't gone the extra mile with this one if she normally goes on about how wonderful she is.

I can see why you got flamed though!

Some people have some odd priorities.
We are not a cake family

I find it odd how much importance people place on this.

This OP is hilarious.

Do you think the 1 year old will have been scarred for life?

DS1 has had the one with the little trains around the outside, the sleeping dinosaur one and the T-rex one. At no point while buying these cakes was I involved in paid work.

My DH thinks I am hotshit, so even if I give him a store bought ready meal that I nuked, he says 'Thanks Luv, this is great!'.

I certainly hope withagoat wasn't using discriminatory langauge there, that would be very bogan of her and I know how she objects to discriminatory langauge.