Active discussions

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

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think this is poor form bordering on a bit cruel? (Child’s birthday cake)

287 replies

ElphabaTheGreen · 23/04/2019 19:21

Just took my DSs (6 & 4) to a school friend’s fifth birthday. This beautiful, huge, professionally-made cake was brought out and all children duly sang happy birthday and marvelled at this kids’ dream of a cake (it was covered in rainbow icing, glitter and actual swirly lollipops, for crying out loud). The cake was then boxed up uncut and taken home at the end of the party by the family - it was not sliced up and distributed to the party guests. There wasn’t even a cheaper cake offered as an alternative. DS1 was fuming and I had a hard time trying to be diplomatic about it and coming up with a reasonable explanation. DS2 was so tanked on Haribo he wasn’t too bothered.

Now, I’m a little bit forrin (Australian) and have always found the piece of cake in a napkin in the party bag a bit odd and British (we just eat the cake at the party in Australia) but this complete cake denial is new. Cruel and new.

AIBU? Or is this just a British cake-withholding custom I have not yet been exposed to?

OP posts:
AlaskanOilBaron · 23/04/2019 20:10

Weird as fuck, I've never heard of that.

Please don't send any texts about how to collect your piece of cake. Wink

IvanaPee · 23/04/2019 20:11

It’s definitely weird (I’ve never heard of it happening. Fake fake??) but cruel is a bit of a stretch. Your kids were fed and entertained for free.

Your son fuming about a slice of cake seems weirder to me!

Please don’t text the party parent begging for cake!!!

Dippypippy1980 · 23/04/2019 20:11

Very off behaviour. A display cake for a children’s party??

It also sounds huge - surely there would be enough for the kids to each have a slice, then take home the rest??

He hosting parents have let themselves down bucket loads. This will go down in school folklore🤣🤣

Aldicheckoutworkout · 23/04/2019 20:11

Why am i now thinking of 80s gameshows where the contestants are shown a pic of a speedboat or sports car "here's what you could've won" and they end up going home with a toaster...?!!😂😂😂

FishCanFly · 23/04/2019 20:12

Not a real cake? I once been to a wedding cake presentation where they made pretend cakes out of polyfiller

RainbowWaffles · 23/04/2019 20:13

Wow, I had no idea birthday cake was so complicated. Mumsnet is a real eye opener. Parading around a fancy cake at a party and fobbing your guests of with a cheapo tray bake (or indeed no cake at all) is the height of pretentiousness. It would never occur to me to do such a thing and would find it totally odd if this happened at a party I went to.

PaulHollywoodsSexGut · 23/04/2019 20:13

Oh god this thread has made me laugh so much I’m book marking it for when I go into labour in a few weeks’ time

Special credit to @KC225

OP, you are not weird or forrin. What you witnessed is - IMHO - an aberration.

Ihatehashtags · 23/04/2019 20:18

@strawberrypancakes yeah right! Cutting up a cake takes no more than a few minutes. You just don’t want to share with your guests and keep the best stuff for your.

ZippyBungleandGeorge · 23/04/2019 20:18

@QueenofCBA oh this came up on upstart crow I think, or maybe a radio 4 drama, didn't put two and two together with the term stunt pumpkin!

Original poster
ElphabaTheGreen · 23/04/2019 20:19

It was a soft play place where the staff do the slicing and distributing of cake among the party bags, so there wasn’t even the excuse that parents/family/friends couldn’t possibly drag themselves away from the riveting sight of their offspring in an unhygienic ball pit for 15 minutes.

It was definitely a real cake - I got quite close and saw some crumbs attached to the bottom of the candles when they were extracted.

I thought there had been a mistake made or we were leaving too early when we got handed a party bag with no cake, so I discretely went to one of the staff and said cake had been omitted from our party bags. She said to me, ‘We we’re told not to slice the cake or give it out so they could take it home.’ My eyebrows must have raised unintentionally because her return facial expression clearly said, ‘I know, right?’

Like a PP, I have been trying to think of something really PA but pointed about the revealing then withholding of cake to post on the WhatsApp group.

OP posts:
Original poster
ElphabaTheGreen · 23/04/2019 20:20

Your son fuming about a slice of cake seems weirder to me!

He takes after his mother.

OP posts:
HoraceCope · 23/04/2019 20:21

Grin I know right Grin

AlaskanOilBaron · 23/04/2019 20:21

Like a PP, I have been trying to think of something really PA but pointed about the revealing then withholding of cake to post on the WhatsApp group.

You could certainly comment on what a beautiful cake it was and let the thread take its natural course.

PaulHollywoodsSexGut · 23/04/2019 20:24

It was definitely a real cake - I got quite close and saw some crumbs attached to the bottom of the candles when they were extracted

Who needs AC-12, eh?

Aldicheckoutworkout · 23/04/2019 20:24

"Cake was amazing! Did it taste as good as it looked? " (meow) 😂

AlaskanOilBaron · 23/04/2019 20:24

Who needs AC-12, eh?

Nice one. Wink

antipodeansun · 23/04/2019 20:24

Vow! Not just the OP but also the bizarre thing about boxing the decorated cake and putting something else into bags (to be squashed).

It must be a British thing, I've never seen it either here in NZ or in Central Europe where I come from (I lived in a few different countries).

I don't quite understand what's the problem with cutting up the cake and having the children eat it at the party. Surely it's just 5-10 minutes to do it?

I've hosted and attended many parties for/with my two children, at home and at paid venues. Everyone just cuts it up right there and kids spend about 2 minutes eating it (I usually cut up smallish pieces, if they want more they get seconds rather than leaving big pieces lying around). And cutting up and seeing inside (not to mention tasting) is part of the experience.

(And btw even if you don't have family attending, usually there is at least another parent or two to help out. I don't remember ever cutting up a cake for other families - no one asked - but I've hoovered and collected plates, helped with kids, and other parents have often done the same at our parties - not because I asked, they'd just start helping.
Actually, parents are always offered cake as well and there is nearly always some sort of snacks for parents too - pots of tea and coffee at the very least )

Original poster
ElphabaTheGreen · 23/04/2019 20:25

You could certainly comment on what a beautiful cake it was and let the thread take its natural course.

That could be genius. One of the other mums is a professional cake-maker, so it may well be her work which was paraded then whipped away. She might be sitting there ready to blow at the audacity. Or missing out on the business, so could be spoiling for a fight.

OP posts:
KittensinaBlender · 23/04/2019 20:26

What the buggeration?!

Fake cakes? FAKE CAKES?! This is conclusive proof we are living in the fucking upside-down.

Confectionary con artists should be first against the wall come the revolution, imho.

ShowMeTheKittens · 23/04/2019 20:29

I remember that happening at a kid's birthday when I was little. It's just rude and selfish. And greedy.

ShowMeTheKittens · 23/04/2019 20:29

Ps I would have stuck my finger in it and licked it

adagio · 23/04/2019 20:30

Omg do people actually do this? I’m in the camp of homemade cake plus stunt double (in case one gets ballsed up!). I’m ashamed to say we also have ‘actual birthday day cake’ along with birthday party cake (if it’s on a different day) too. That way the kids get two lots of ‘what do you want it to look like’ conversation and my DH gets to have a laugh at my efforts 😁. We don’t have grandparents etc helping but to be honest, there is always someone (other parents or whatever) who like the excuse to hide in the kitchen and cut up away from the over excited kids for ten minutes. We joke it’s the longest 2 hours of the year at our own kids parties! Grin

MitziK · 23/04/2019 20:33

Surely the cake that goes into the party bags, squished up in a serviette, is purely there for each party attendee to crush into the car seat or store down the side of their bed until it acquires sentience anyway?

DonkeyHohtay · 23/04/2019 20:39

One of the other mums is a professional cake-maker, so it may well be her work which was paraded then whipped away

She's probably patching up the icing to flog it to another party for tomorrow.

PeapodBurgundy · 23/04/2019 20:39

I've always brought DS's cake home just for us at the end of his parties. I host them myself (OH fecks off and spends the entire time talking to his family without so much as a glance at DS. My family don't come because they can't stand OH's family, and there are no DC aside from mine on my side). It's too much of a ballache to cut and wrap the cake after cutting. I always do a small cake to put the candles on, which we then bring home for us. I then do enough cupcakes in those little individual pods for adults and children to take home instead. I do fancy ones on the same theme as the cake/party so they're not second best. I find it much easier to coordinate, and I've thus far never done an actual party bag to put a slice of cake in anyway. I hope nobody has been disappointed by it, but to be honest it's a little bit tough luck if they are, because I'll be doing it for the rest of his birthdays, and for DD when she starts with birthdays.

Swipe left for the next trending thread