To be pissed off the cake was cut before DE saw it?

[Ruinedcake]

DSrecently turned 3, and I had a party for him. I’m not very good at baking so paid for a local cake maker to bake a cake which tied in with his favourite colours and interests. As you can imagine, it wasn’t cheap.

The actual party went well but as the children were sitting eating DH and FIL started flapping around saying that they needed to cut the cake. I was trying to stop them but both are very difficult to distract when they get an idea in their heads, and I was also contending with various other things. So to cut a long story short they both cut it before DS has a chance to look at it.

I know it doesn’t ’matter’ really but I am annoyed.

I don't think you are odd. What is the point of paying for a decorated cake if the birthday person doesn't get to see it? Nuts.

I think you're getting quite a hard time on this @Ruinedcake. I would however have done some prep work if your son is likely to shout "Fire!" seeing some candles on a birthday cake for his birthday, you might have taken some time in the lead up to the day to help him along.

I also think that your in-laws should have waited until "Happy Birthday" had been sung (even if there wasn't any candles on the cake) before cutting into it.

At least you now know where they stand on things like this.

Utterly selfish and self absorbed men .

I have never , ever witnessed anything like this at all .

Their behaviour is very odd .

You need to take them aside and make it clear this is never to happen again . A birthday cake is for the birthday person to cut or is cut in their presence AFTER singing happy birthday .

I bet this type of behaviour is not a one off and you've just become immune to the absurdity of it !

I’d have been very angry.

Did your husband accept that it was a silly thing to do, cutting the cake before anyone had seen it?

But I think the message you should take away from this is…..put candles on the cake! They wouldn’t have cut it if there’d been candles on it, because even the most dense person would know that there was something that needed to happen to the cake before it was cut, if there were candles on it.

My kids are older now, but I must have been to 50+ kids birthday parties, and never once have a witnessed a candle incident. Even when half the kids there were fire engine obsessives. Basically you get them all sitting down (at age 3 there’ll usually be a reasonable number of adults around to help), and you carry in the cake while everyone sings. Birthday child gazes in awe at the cake, blows out the candles, and within 2 seconds the flames are extinguished. And it’s all over. Any one of the many nearby adults can be ready to blow the candles out themselves if there are any problems. Flames on birthday candles are tiny.

Lesson learned for next year. I’m sure your DS had a lovely party though.

Today I learned that candles in cakes are terrifying to young children and that the same children carry around working fire hoses in their unceasing vigilance. How have I missed this in over half a century of attending birthday parties?

I don't think you're odd at all, OP.

What did your husband say when you talked with him about it?

I’m cut to ribbons on your biting wit.

Thanks @Nancydrawn

It's a cake. Everyone had already sang happy birthday. There were no candles to blow out. The cake was ready-to- be cut.

@Ruinedcake I'd have been livid. You should contact the cake maker, as it's likely they took photos of it, so at least you can get some photos of it from them hopefully.

Ultimately in this situation its your fault unfortunately because you decided not to let your DS blow out candles. This would have 1 . Stopped any cake cutting before happy birthday sung and candles blown, and 2. Been a lovely memory for your DS.

My failure as a parent is noted

i agree with all of this!

@IpsyUpsyDaisyDoos

To be honest, my DH knows that if he does something I've said absolutely do not do til xyz has happened, he's in the shit.

And also, honestly, he's never actually been in the shit, except once early on in our relationship when I nearly walked (justified, another story completely). He just knows I won't tolerate being ignored, especially when things are important to me or I've done all the organising.

If he'd done this I would have hit the roof and he knows that's a consequence of anyone being this disrespectful of my wishes.

Does your DH have form for ignoring you and your wishes?

I don't really understand this at all or what you are getting at @IpsyUpsyDaisyDoos . It sounds like you are saying because you are going to be aggressively angry, your DH does what you tell him.

When you say "he's in the shit" and "I would have hit the roof and he knows that's a consequence of anyone being this disrespectful of my wishes" unless you are talking about coercive control/bullying where a person is walking on eggshells and actively scared to cross you because they have been conditioned by bullying overtime, all you are saying is "I would be very angry".

So what? It's not "consequences" is it? Anger passes. Everyone gets angry from time to time and with people they love and respect. It doesn't matter if someone is angry with you or hits the roof or shouts; most things people get angry about are actually trivial in the greater scheme and people get over it - unless it is unforgiveable sin like an affair, or fraud that type of stuff.

People don't disrepect another persons wishes BECAUSE that person is going to 'hit the roof' or they would 'be in the shit'. They behave respectfully because they respect that person, because they are decent, and they care about them.

It's a very warped way of looking at a relationship to assume your partner does what you tell them because you are going to be aggressively angry - unless you are in a coercive control/bullying set up it shouldn't make any difference at all. A person will behave in a respectful way because they respect you not because of 'consequences' like the naughty step.

It’s weird to just cut the cake like that but it’s also weird to not have candles.

What thread are you reading? The cake hadn't been brought out, and HB hadn't been sung, and the child hadn't seen the cake.

The dh and fil were absolutely in the wrong here.

Did you not talk to them about it after op, because you won't answer the question on what happened after?

I would be furious too OP, ignore the idiots here with nothing better to do only have a go at OPs. I could see this kind of thing happening in my house, my DH and FIL do get into a flap about the littlest things, usually not at the same time. And this is exactly the type of stupid thing my DH would do.

I didn’t bother and I’m sure that’s wrong too

But from my POV, I had guests - mostly my friends with their children, a happyDS and it was done, it couldn’t be undone.

I would be very annoyed too OP. I also applaud your common sense in identifying a situation where your DS might behave in a dangerous way and taking steps to prevent it. Not quite sure why everyone else is calling you names over it.

Diagnosed 'odd' (autistic) person here 😂

Why would they cut up the cake before happy birthday was sung? Surely they've both been to many birthday parties in their lives and know how it works?

When you turned and saw they'd cut the cake, why did you not shout stop!

@comeagainx grow up, I'm talking about boundaries. It means he knows I'd be angry and/or upset and he doesn't want to make me angry or upset because you don't want people you love to feel like that.

But equally, he knows he can't just behave like a dick or just live his own life or only be in his own head and not part of a team / involved in the family because I will be angry and I don't want to live my life angry and so I will leave him if he's not fully committed to being a decent part of our family. He knows I love him and want to be with him, but that if he doesn't treat me like he loves and respects me, that will change.

Luckily, we're both pretty chilled people for the most part, who love and respect each other and don't need to enforce our boundaries or get angry or upset.

both are very difficult to distract when they get an idea in their heads

I think this part is what would annoy me the most. How can you put up with this?

I would be absolutely furious, I’d have wanted at least a photo of the kid with the cake and the others singing happy
birthday!

However it is exactly the sort
of thing my mum would do, she only
hears what she wants to hear and once she has an idea in her head she becomes completely fixated, once at my eldest’s birthday party she told MIL I was pregnant, despite being repeatedly told not to and that DH was going to tell her himself once I was a bit further along, because MIL had suffered a lot of miscarriages herself and we didn’t want to worry her unnecessarily.

My mum only knew because she was staying with us and I’d been vomiting non-stop, needless to say MIL was really upset at being told in the middle of a party of screaming kids and at not being told by her son. My mum still denies that she knew she wasn’t to tell her.

Cake is usually cut after the candles have been blown out. In this case, there were no candles, so there was no reason to wait.

Your guests definitely thought you were bonkers for completely missing the point of having a birthday cake.

I can't believe Dh and Fil did something so very stupid. Everybody knows that's not what you do. Have you spoken to Dh about it since? What or earth was his thinking. I would be very cross indeed. Is he normally so stupid?

Surely the ‘point’ to a cake is to eat it? I’m not being an arse there, I realise that for some blowing out candles appears to be a very important ritual but I don’t think it’s that important, and given the birthday party was hosted and organised by me, that’s surely my call.