Cake - am I wrong?

[WildFlowersAttractBees]

Just home from a mini get together at a friends. There were four women and nine dc's under 5 between us. We have all taken a turn to host and this was the first afternoon at this woman's house.

I took along a home baked cake, another lady took a fruit loaf and third lady brought strawberries and blueberries.

When it came time for tea and cake I asked DD what she would like a piece of and the host piped up 'children don't eat cake in our house, there are biscuits in the playroom'. I politely pointed out that DD had helped make the cake and she is allowed small treats and she replied 'homemade cake is for adults here'. The hosts children ate cake on the previous play dates.
Luckily DD went and got a biscuit happily but it left me feeling uneasy. Am I wrong?

Good riddance to bad rubbish. Meanie cow.

I remember all my friends growing up had this too. I'd go to someones house be given a tiny portion of something foul and they adults would be eating spaghetti bolognese (which is also totally child appropriate imo).

Friends used to love coming to our house. The mums would hoik bosoms and clutch pearls tho.

I can't imagine wanting to be somewhere where any member of the group is excluded from something for any reason (apart from wine, not giving the kids wine is okay ).

I recently had one of little DS's mates over for a play date. When his Mum came to pick him up we were chatting in the hall about the return fixture. She asked if DS liked "all the usual kiddy food."

When she'd gone I went into the living room to find the three teens, fingers stuffed in mouths desperately trying not to laugh. Apparently there had been a shocked silence and a very grudging, "Er... I suppose so", from me in answer to her question. I have firm opinions about food though.

i think i would have asked her to define 'kiddy food' with face on. Or said 'oh yes, poached salmon, mash and broccoli, Spag bol, Shepherds pie, curry, chilli...all the usual 'kiddy food'' :)

*Mrs Koala, I was very surprised as she is an educated professional woman with a great job. I suppose I foolishly assumed only thick people feed their kids rubbish. My friends are all cook-from-scratch-real-food Nazis like me, even the ones without much money.

Her boy is the fussiest kid I have ever encountered though.

I wish you'd had my dd with you for the day OP. She has ASD and I can tell you quite categorically that she would not have left that house without her slice. She has a very heightened sense of fairness, right and wrong etc. Your "host" wouldn't have know what hit her

I think it's different if the persons child is fussy and will only eat certain foods. But when i grew up my friends would drool over their parents dinner, it was so sad.

Oh get OVER yourselves Looking down and sneering is really unattractive. My DC eat the food we eat...healthy, normal food but if they went to a friend's and were given "kiddy" food I would never be so rude to judge. And my children would eat what they were given and say thank you.

Of corse most kids would eat it and say thank you

We are just discussing how in situations like this it was a clear divide in how they see the adults and the children.

And how, there are such low expectations of what kids eat that it's not food it's kiddie food.

Nah, i've told my children to throw it on the floor and do a roundhouse kick to the hosts face.

In my experience the fussiest children are those who eat "kiddy food" most of the time, because that's all they know. DSD was like that. I had to go and buy spaghetti hoops and other tinned food for her, she was not used to anything else. Her mum's instructions were that she would only eat "simple food". .

Maybe it was about the mess. I can't bear kids wandering around dropping cake crumbs everywhere that then get walked into carpets and leaving greasy smears on windows and wiping icing on furniture or toys.

I would have let the kids eat cake but sitting at the table

Hope you took the cake home!

Cake etiquette is a minefield though. The last time I took a cake to a friend's house for a coffee morning, one of the guys immeadiately cut it all up into eight mahoosive slices, far too big in my opinion, and latecomers ended up with a biscuit.

I think you'll hear more of the other people's opinions next time you see them it'll be a line in the sand moment, albeit a slow burning one.

Giles maybe but that's not the point. The point is people saying they'd say "Can you define kiddy food?"

Nobody would say that in real life! Stop preening so hard.

oohhh You are right a bit actually now i think about it, I would probably shorten it and say 'what's kiddie food?' Having only had one kiddie and knowing no others i would want to know how they see it.

I'm not preening btw. i have nothing to 'preen' about, my DS eats cake and chocolate every day, so i am not someone who particularly cares about 'bad stuff'. Just children being treated differently.

No they wouldn't. I don't believe that for a second either. And dd would end up grounded if she was rude to someone about the meal someone cooked fir her.

But I do find the subject interesting, with regards to how children are thought of so differently when it comes to food.

What! seriously? How is that a weird thing to say? If someone said 'does DS eat kiddie food?' i would defo ask what they meant by kiddie food. How would you know what they meant? different people must have different definitions surely?

I'm thinking this may be why no one likes me!

I think it's weird in the sense that there seems to be a strange unwritten understanding that kids eat orange food. And any attempt to clarify what they actually meant, would come across as a bit PA or superior.

Fwiw it's ridiculous IMO. It's jut something that seems to have become an unwritten rule and I don't think you would be believed even if it were true that you have no idea. If that makes sense.

But I would think it too. But I wouldn't say anything.

My kids also eat what we eat; however, if we have kids over for a play date I always make pizza or pasta (or failing that fish fingers and chips) and do one of those £10 meal deals for DH and i from waitroseI. I wouldn't dream of offering kids that are not mine home made casserole, fish pie or spinach lasagne. It may not be to their taste, some kids are fussy, I don't have time to provide other options and the aim of the event is for my kids/them to have a nice time not to expand their taste buds. In response to the poster above who was rather scathing of the mother asking if her young child liked kiddie food for a play date I expect she was just trying to have an easy life and make sure that he had something familiar.

Not that i have no idea, no, but DS would only eat certain things. So i would assume it meant nuggets and fish fingers, but i also assume it means pasta and sauce, jacket potato and beans. But i would defo ask what they meant because if they said pasta/potato i'd say yes, and if they say fish fingers/nuggets, i'd say no. It's too broad a term really.

God play dates are going to be a mine field - i was planning on telling the parents what DS would eat before he got there, rather than just expecting him to eat what he was given. Maybe that's wrong? I just remember being miserable at others houses as a child because i always hated the food.

I was planning on asking for what to make specifically if i had a child over, just like i always run menus past adult guests before they come round.

I'd have taken my cake home. This is why the host provides in these events.