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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

... to think a four year old should be allowed to eat cake at a birthday party?

116 replies

BabyGiraffes · 30/11/2011 12:50

AIBU to think that a mother I met at a birthday party was a bit precious about her daughter in not allowing her to eat a small cup cake because 'there's sugar in it'.. My dc have a very balanced diet which does include some sweets and yes cake at a birthday party. I know that what she does is none of my business but apart from feeling sorry for the poor little thing (she's 4!) I also did not like the way this woman made the rest of us feel a bit uneasy about our own dc enjoying the party.

OP posts:

DeliaSucksStollen · 30/11/2011 18:30

Life joy sucker outers.

minxofmancunia · 30/11/2011 18:32

YANBU, I hate this kind of precious parenting. My dcs eat healthily but have a little bit of everything in moderation, they are bright, energetic, healthy, both bang on their centiles for height and weight and hopefully won't grow up with some hideous food issue.

I say this as a parent and also as someone who works with children with eating disorders.

Megatron · 30/11/2011 18:35

I agree it's not the best way to be with a child but it's up to her really. My DD has Type 1 diabetes and it's not always as easy as sticking her a bit of extra insulin, it can very much depend on their insulin regime and the child's glucose levels that day. I HATE having to explain to parents why I may, on occasion, take a piece of cake home with me for DD (if her levels are not great that day already) and I hate when people that I don't know start to question me about it.

I don't bring substitutes with me as I want her to have the same as the other children, she may just have to have it at a slighty different time and she understands this. It's horrible being given the third degree when you're only at a sodding birthday party and don't feel like going into the whole thing. Worse still, when someone feeds your 3 year old fucking jelly tots behind your back because they 'felt sorry for the poor kid'. I try to keep her diet as normal as possible with very little restrictions but it's not always easy.

WaxMyBoard · 30/11/2011 18:55

YANBU. If you're in Dorset it was probably my SIL, we call her the Dementor, she can suck the joy out of any occasion.

When I have to stop my kids joining in with the crowd, I do it quietly, with distraction not by making the assembled company uncomfortable. That is not good manners and at a celebration manners trump principles.

kerala · 30/11/2011 19:08

When I was a student I used to do some nannying for a very upper middle class hippyish family - extremely right on. Their 3 were not allowed any red meat, lots of lentils absolutely no sugar they used to go into a frenzy in the sweet shop they were so desperate for sweets. They were all pale and wan always ill eventually the eldest ended up being a drug dealer. So am happy with mine having a few sweets in moderation.

exoticfruits · 30/11/2011 19:13

This is just like the squash at a party one -and the mother bringing her own organic juice.
I don't think that I can be bothered to comment-you lose the will to live with mad mothers!
I think they out to report back in 10yrs time and tell us how the strict, joyless, diet worked out. I suspect they will be DCs with an unhealthy relationship with food.

brandysoakedbitch · 30/11/2011 19:32

The thing is this is also about people trying to make themselves a little bit superior with mad parenting like this. My kids don't get to have cake at parties because they have coeliacs disease (we bring our own cakes for everyone anyway). The oldest dd also has diabetes and I just give her a whole load of insulin and let her enjoy herself - I just test and correct afterwards.

Does get me really annoyed that people impose this kind of diet weirdness on their children - really sad for the children and most likely to be counter productive in the long run.

SlinkingOutsideInSocks · 30/11/2011 19:50

A lot of decisions being made which psychologically make the parents feel better, which don't stand up to logical scrutiny.

Chocolate = bad
Home-made flapjack, with sugar, butter and probably even some dried fruit (which are fruit with all the goodness sucked out and the sugar left in) = good.

Sugar = bad
Honey = good

Infants' sole diets for (roughly) the first 6 months of their life contain sugar in the form of lactose.

Fruit, which MC Mums push down their kids throats at a rate of knots = fructose.

I mean, grapes....! So laden with sugar that when fermented they turn into

Puts a piece of birthday cake on the odd occasion into perspective, really. But, yanno, as long as parents feel like they're doing the right thing...

squeakytoy · 30/11/2011 20:16

I have a friend who moaned that all her relatives were mean because they didnt buy her PFB any easter eggs...

me "but you dont allow him to eat chocolate"

her "thats not the point though... "

wtf?????? she gobs off at every opportunity about how her little darling never has any sweets, cake, or chocolate... and quite frankly, she has one of the most miserable kids I have known.

Original poster

BabyGiraffes · 30/11/2011 20:34

squeaky I was the opposite when my pfb was around 10 mths and a good friend of mine posted pictures on fb of her dd of the same age finishing off a chocolate easter egg the size of her head , Thought at the time that was very young to eat quite so much chocolate. Have mellowed over time...

slinking totally agree with grapes... . I once tried to use up ripe pears by juicing them and the juice was so sickly sweet it was undrinkable.

Anyway, going off topic here... Thanks so much for all your posts.

OP posts:

Moominsarescary · 30/11/2011 20:38

I have never met one of these parents in rl, although ds2 is 8 so maybe it didn't happen so much then?

Ds3 is 8 months, is this realy what I've got to look forward to at party's

WilsonFrickett · 30/11/2011 20:40

Op, I think what was missing from your pressed pear juice was gin, a squeeze of lime and a little soda water. Or maybe vodka and 'proper' ginger beer. Oh yeah.

Original poster

BabyGiraffes · 30/11/2011 20:42

Wilson surely not for the children?

OP posts:

ihatecbeebies · 30/11/2011 20:49

Slinking, would eating dry fruit not still be better for you than eating chocolate and sweets because you still get the fibre in the fruit? (genuine question, no sarcasm :o, I don't know much about dry fruit and neither DS or myself eat it as it tastes like crap:))

amothersplaceisinthewrong · 30/11/2011 20:54

The odd small cake at a party is hardly the same as a diet of cola and sweets, so I think t his Mum is being a bit precious, unless the child has an allergy. I could always spot those who were never allowed biccies etc at my kids birthday parties as they would try and eat the whole plate (this was an era when it was not the done thing for other parents to stay at parties)

fannybanjo · 30/11/2011 20:57

My friend has a funny tale about Lourdes, Madonna's daughter. My friend is cabin
crew for Virgin and on a flight not long ago, Lourdes went into the galley and was begging the crew for chocolate. Her mum doesn't allow it. However her mum also talks to people through her assistant so that speaks volumes.

nicknamenotinuse · 30/11/2011 20:59

YOU ARE NOT BEING UNREASONABLE, THAT WOMAN SOUNDS LIKE A LOON.

exoticfruits · 30/11/2011 21:07

Lourdes went into the galley and was begging the crew for chocolate. Her mum doesn't allow it.

If you want a sweets obsessed DC you ban it. I see this so often and mother hasn't as clue! The stricter the mother the more secretive the DC.

reup · 30/11/2011 21:07

I went to a party once and these twins weren't allowed biscuits. But they ate cheese sandwiches so couldn't be allergic to wheat or dairy. And they were allowed Capri suns! Their father ate the biscuits in front of them.

A friend of a friend spent over £80 on a birthday cake for her son. Said son was not allowed to eat any as it was too rich! So the cake must have been sheer showing off.

Another friend wouldn't allow her daughter a chocolate cake for her birthday but made a carrot cake instead. Surely that still has tons of sugar!

SlinkingOutsideInSocks · 30/11/2011 21:10

I was completely precious about it all with PFB and then I got a grip.

Started seeing the inconsistencies as I outlined above, and basically unclenched.

Of course I still try to limit their sugar intake - I mean it's not like they need an orgy of it.

I just remain completely unconvinced that forbidding a 4YO with no special needs nor specific dietary requirments cake at a birthday party is the better course of action, short- or long-term. For lots and lots of different reasons; certainly not just nutritional.

motherinferior · 30/11/2011 21:10

A life without cake is a life without joy. I personally think. Speaking as a health journalist.

wannaBe · 30/11/2011 21:11

"Children don't need these
foods so why give it them." Well neither do adults, so presumably all those precious parents who don't allow their precious offspring any of these foods on the basis of just how evil they are don't partake either?

lashingsofbingeinghere · 30/11/2011 21:13

Hmm

You have every right to think the mum a control freak

Mum has every right to say what her child can/cannot eat (although see thread about 6 year-old eschewing meat).

Meh. IMO the mum is storing up problems for the child if she is very controlling over sweet stuff.

motherinferior · 30/11/2011 21:16

And I go to parties and drink lots and eat crisps. Parties are not known for their restraint and adherence to Healthy Food Rules. That's why they're parties. If I want veg, I'll stay at home.

Adversecamber · 30/11/2011 21:22

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

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