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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Cake smash...

408 replies

SleepingStandingUp · 08/09/2020 19:24

I know I am. But if people can convince me I'm not I'll be much happier 😁😁

When DS was 1 I was opposed to cake smash photoshoots because it was a waste of cake. And he was tube fed all wouldn't have touched it and was actually in the middle of a 4 month awful hospitalisation for his birthday and when he came out he ate even less than when he went in and he had/has sensory issues that just would have made it not viable.

Now I have twins who would devour a cake shop between them, who don't seem to have any issues touching messy stuff or eating ANYTHING and I really want one.

But I know they're terrible.

Would I be unreasonable to bury my principles for some cute photos of fat babies covering in icing and cream?

OP posts:
BikeTyson · 09/09/2020 10:00

Do it if you like but for the love of god don’t use a chocolate cake so all your friends and relatives have to coo over charming photos of your babies covered in what looks like shit.

Original poster
SleepingStandingUp · 09/09/2020 10:03

@TheKeatingFive

But im terribly unclassy and have staged photos of my son sat on a table with some teddies and one in a wicker basket so I think it's too late to save my classy soul. Ooh and staged ones of PFB dressed as a superhero. They're adorable

Honestly OP, how dare you?

Having your own ideas about what you put on your wall/photo album rather than waiting for the cultured elite to tell you what’s acceptable.

Have you no shame?

I posted one of them on Facebook so nope 😂😂😂😂

Oooh maybe I can love stream it and put a link on here 😂😂😂😂

(Joke!!)

OP posts:
Original poster
SleepingStandingUp · 09/09/2020 10:04

@lottiegarbanzo

Does it have to be an actual cake? Couldn't you cover a cardboard 'cake' in icing and let the babies cover themselves in that?

Or let them play in washable paint, or bubbles, or anything else play-worthy, messy and photogenic?

They'd try and eat the cardboard. Imagine the nappies...

Bit I do like people's suggestions of using cupcakes instead of a big cake. Esp as there's two of them and I don't want a fight

OP posts:
lottiegarbanzo · 09/09/2020 10:05

But while you're at it, you definitely need one of them tipping spaghetti with tomato sauce over their heads. There could also be a colander involved.

Original poster
SleepingStandingUp · 09/09/2020 10:05

@BikeTyson

Do it if you like but for the love of god don’t use a chocolate cake so all your friends and relatives have to coo over charming photos of your babies covered in what looks like shit.
Oooh maybe where the scatological fetishism comes in? Good call.
OP posts:
Original poster
SleepingStandingUp · 09/09/2020 10:06

@lottiegarbanzo

But while you're at it, you definitely need one of them tipping spaghetti with tomato sauce over their heads. There could also be a colander involved.
Weirdly that grosses me out 😂😂 did see one on Pinterest of a baby in a bath of milk with cookies though which was cute 😻
OP posts:
ShebaShimmyShake · 09/09/2020 10:17

Oooh maybe where the scatological fetishism comes in? Good call.

Yes but as I recall, the accusation was that this was intentional on the parents' behalf because they obviously had a secret urge to see their child covered in real shit. (Like we don't see plenty of that in the nappy and toilet training stages anyway.) There could be no other reason to want to do a cake smash.

Like I said, OP, I don't know what it is about this completely harmless activity that drives people on here to such a frenzy, but it doesn't matter. If you like it and want to do it, do it. You'll be pilloried on here for having long hair, having short hair, taking a selfie, having a traditional wedding, hula hooping in a park and a million other things that don't actually have a moral value. Just do it if you want to. I promise it doesn't make you a bad human.

Ineedflour · 09/09/2020 10:17

Massive waste but it's probably better for them than eating it all!

If that's what you want to do, go for it. We are all 'wasteful' in some areas of life. This can be yours!

ClementineWoolysocks · 09/09/2020 10:18

Pointless, wasteful and tacky.

OhMsBeliever · 09/09/2020 10:20

I have plenty of photos of my kids (now teens) smeared with food. I wouldn't display them on my wall though, they are on the photo album to laugh at how messy they were at eating. Also I wouldn't want to waste cake on a baby when I could eat it myself with no smashing involved. Give me the cake!

A warning, should you continue. When it was my oldest's birthday he had a TARDIS cake, with lovely blue icing. My twins had quite a bit of cake (being my 3rd and 4th they ate all sort of crap I wouldn't have let my PFB have at the same ageGrin) When I went to change their nappies several hours later I thought they had some terrible illness - their poo was bright green! Shock It took me a moment to figure out it was the icing what did it.

ShebaShimmyShake · 09/09/2020 10:21

Youawful person, you'll be using potatoes to paint with next

Sorry, yes, I forgot, I've done that too. I've even invited other children over to do it with us.

I composted them afterwards though. They had been in the pantry for a while, they would have taken over the world if I'd left them much longer.

unmarkedbythat · 09/09/2020 10:21

I think they're wank and tbh, it does make me feel really ill to see people deliberately wasting food for photos. It might not be cool to be concerned about it, but I am- what sort of world is this where some people starve to death and others smash up a cake for a few photos? Do what you please but don't seek to be excused for it, that just adds to to the wankery of it all.

ShebaShimmyShake · 09/09/2020 10:22

The potatoes, I mean. The potatoes were about to take over the world and got composted. Not the kids.

ShebaShimmyShake · 09/09/2020 10:25

@unmarkedbythat

I think they're wank and tbh, it does make me feel really ill to see people deliberately wasting food for photos. It might not be cool to be concerned about it, but I am- what sort of world is this where some people starve to death and others smash up a cake for a few photos? Do what you please but don't seek to be excused for it, that just adds to to the wankery of it all.
There's nothing to excuse. Cake smashes are not the cause of starvation and they're less wasteful than making play dough every few weeks, or doing pasta arts and potato prints. Admittedly some people would stone you for those activities too, but they are generally considered to be more acceptable. I don't know why.
FizzyGreenWater · 09/09/2020 10:27

Well fine. It's not the end of the world.

Bear in mind that to a lot of people, the 'cute fat babies covered in icing and cream' don't look cute at all, but like some kind of obscene marker of all that's wrong in western society. Greed, waste, conspicuous consumerism, thoughtlessness. Not something I'd want to have my baby represent. They look really horrible.

I know, I know. So po-faced, and it's only a silly cake. But you did ask!

FizzyGreenWater · 09/09/2020 10:29

Cake smashes are not the cause of starvation and they're less wasteful than making play dough every few weeks, or doing pasta arts and potato prints.

It's more about what the idea of it represents. That we have such an excess of food that we can see it as utterly disposable, and it's a laugh to waste it. We shouldn't think like that. There's something so callous and disrespectful about it.

Original poster
SleepingStandingUp · 09/09/2020 10:31

@ShebaShimmyShake

Youawful person, you'll be using potatoes to paint with next

Sorry, yes, I forgot, I've done that too. I've even invited other children over to do it with us.

I composted them afterwards though. They had been in the pantry for a while, they would have taken over the world if I'd left them much longer.

Surely you could have washed them and cooked them and fed th m to the kids 😂😂
OP posts:
Billben · 09/09/2020 10:33

@FizzyGreenWater

Cake smashes are not the cause of starvation and they're less wasteful than making play dough every few weeks, or doing pasta arts and potato prints.

It's more about what the idea of it represents. That we have such an excess of food that we can see it as utterly disposable, and it's a laugh to waste it. We shouldn't think like that. There's something so callous and disrespectful about it.

Fully agree with this.
rosegoldivy · 09/09/2020 10:37

Aww man am gunna get hung out here..... Not only did I do a cake smash for DD when she was oneband absolutely loved it...... .. When she was 4 months old I gathered loads of fallen leaves in different colours, carved out a full pumpkin and sat her in it for staged Halloween photos will patiently await being torn apart by all the misery guts

Original poster
SleepingStandingUp · 09/09/2020 10:38

It isn't being wasted tho, no more than ShebaShimmyShake pasta necklaces or potato art or using rice to dry out a phone you dropped in water or bloody baby led weaning where I routinely throw out mushed up half chewed food stolen from each others plates or not eating every morsel of food from your plate or chucking food because it went off. It's being used just not to fatten my hips

OP posts:
fruitpastille · 09/09/2020 10:41

I just don't get it? I'm not bothered by the waste so much but it just seems weird to set it up specially. I mean, if my baby/ toddler made a sticky mess with cake or ice cream or something spontaneously I probably would take a photo. And I might share it. But I can't imagine getting a professional in to do it on purpose - isn't it all a bit fake? This is the first time I've heard about it.

ShebaShimmyShake · 09/09/2020 10:42

@FizzyGreenWater

Cake smashes are not the cause of starvation and they're less wasteful than making play dough every few weeks, or doing pasta arts and potato prints.

It's more about what the idea of it represents. That we have such an excess of food that we can see it as utterly disposable, and it's a laugh to waste it. We shouldn't think like that. There's something so callous and disrespectful about it.

I really don't think that's the thought process. It's about kids enjoying a fun food and, the feeling is, looking cute with it. How would it be any different if no photos were taken? The food is still being used in this way. And I don't see how it's different from potato prints etc.

Penn and Teller released a book about how to use food for magic tricks; to be fair, most of them didn't render the food inedible but I don't think magicians generally eat the food they use for performance. (Anyone who tried to learn the egg drop trick was definitely going to cause some wastage, though.) Do we get outraged about this? (Funnily enough, they did actually wonder this in the chapter about the the watch-in-the-fish trick that they did on David Letterman. The fish was definitely wasted after having a watch stuck inside it but nobody complained.)

If we are worried about food wastage, food banks and starvation then I really think we need to focus first on our government, welfare and benefit systems, plus food waste from outlets and people who just plain overbuy and then chuck, before we castigate people who let their kids eat and play with a cake for a one off photoshoot. Cake is a luxury and unnecessary kind of food anyway. The idea matters less than what's REALLY causing a need for food banks etc. This is just deflection.

Original poster
SleepingStandingUp · 09/09/2020 10:50

@fruitpastille

I just don't get it? I'm not bothered by the waste so much but it just seems weird to set it up specially. I mean, if my baby/ toddler made a sticky mess with cake or ice cream or something spontaneously I probably would take a photo. And I might share it. But I can't imagine getting a professional in to do it on purpose - isn't it all a bit fake? This is the first time I've heard about it.
Have you never heard of people having professional photoshoots? Women have them in their lingerie or in a nice dress, families have them with the pet dogs, kids have them in superhero or fairy costumes sometimes with a photoshopped background, people have photoshoots of their newborns or their toddlers in baths full of rubber ducks. I get it might not be your thing but is it that hard to understand why it might be someone else's?
OP posts:
SospanFrangipan · 09/09/2020 10:53

My DS has one and bloody loved it. We still took half the cake home to eat as he only demolished half of it. The pictures are brilliant too, great memory of him having fun!

TheKeatingFive · 09/09/2020 11:02

That we have such an excess of food that we can see it as utterly disposable, and it's a laugh to waste it. We shouldn't think like that.

But we think like that all the time.

A third of people’s grocery shop is wasted every week in the U.K. We use food for craft and play. We stuff ourselves with calories we don’t need on a regular basis. We encourage practices like BLW that are extremely wasteful.

I just understand the pearl clutching about this in particular.