# Distasteful Birthday "Traditions"



## LuckyTrish (Dec 29, 2008)

The lack of common sense in some people really amazes me.

I went to a "First Birthday Party" for my friend's DS yesterday. It had been a long party, but finally they brought out the cake. His mom helped him blow out the candle, and then an older friend of the family said "Ok! Now it's time for our birthday tradition!!". They held the cake up close to the baby, and his mom pushed his face into the icing!!!









Of course, he started crying!! They all acted so surprised that he was crying, and someone said that it "must be because he had been grouchy today."







Because, of course, it COULDN'T be that his mum had just shoved his face into a large cake.

I have NEVER heard of this "tradition" before, and honestly think it was plain awful...! I'm not very good at keeping quiet when I get upset at something, so I excused myself and went home. Am I crazy for finding this sad and unfortunate? Or is this a more common and accepted practice then I thought?


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## grniys (Aug 22, 2006)

They pushed his FACE into the cake? Seriously? Awww, poor kid!

For 1st birthdays we always get a small smash cake in addition to the regular cake and smash babies hand in the cake and let them play with the cake. Ds had a blast shovling tons of chocolate cake into his mouth (and all over his face!) for his birthday. But of course we didn't put his face in the cake.


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## georgiapa (Sep 29, 2007)

Sounds pretty mean and awful tacky to me! ugh- poor little birthday boy! I told my husband I'd divorce him if he shoved cake into my face when we got married, so I can't imagine doing that a little one!


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## aprons_and_acorns (Sep 28, 2004)

I've never heard of that before!


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## onlyzombiecat (Aug 15, 2004)

I've never heard of that tradition before.


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## Storm Bride (Mar 2, 2005)

The only tradition involving cakes and first birthdays that I've ever heard of is to give the birthday child a piece of cake (or a "smash cake" - only heard of that recently) and let them make a huge mess of themselves with the cake and icing.

Shoving a baby's face into the icing is messed up!


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## Ivan's Mom (Jul 10, 2006)

Never heard of that. I am really sad for that little sweetie. People never stop pi$$ing me off when it comes to the way they can sometimes treat children.


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## EKSmith (Jan 15, 2009)

We do the "mini" cake for baby too - but we definitely don't shove babies face into it!! We just put it in front of him and let him go to town....I've never heard of anyone shoving a child's face into the cake - how rude!!


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## KJoslyn78 (Jun 3, 2007)

wow - i never would push a babies face INTO a cake! I cant believe people thought that was OK

In our family we do have the "tradition" of allowing baby to be as messy with cake as possible.. even encouraging the mess - but not physically doing anything either. At most we try to get the 1 yr old to mimic hand motions of rubbing their now caked hands in their hair...


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## gabeycakesmama (Dec 5, 2008)

That's one of the meanest things I've ever heard. Poor baby. I want to shove a cake in that lady's face and see if she enjoys her birthday.


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## LuckyTrish (Dec 29, 2008)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *gabeycakesmama* 
That's one of the meanest things I've ever heard. Poor baby. I want to shove a cake in that lady's face and see if she enjoys her birthday.

I know, right? I was so mad at her... My friend even said "well, I don't know if he's going to like that..." right before she did it anyway.


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## mrspineau (Jan 15, 2008)

Okay, so that is totally bizarre in so many ways. Weirdos.


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## Super Glue Mommy (Jan 4, 2009)

WHAT?! wow....


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## Amylcd (Jun 16, 2005)

That is definitely strange.


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## becoming (Apr 11, 2003)

Must be a family tradition only. I've never seen or heard of that before, and we've been to a LOT of first birthdays! We always just set a big piece of cake on the highchair tray and watch what happens.


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## maylanna (Jul 22, 2006)

Geez! My daughter would have freaked! She cried at her first birthday b/c she got icing on her fingers and it wouldn't come off and she didn't like the taste. She still won't eat cake.


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## alegna (Jan 14, 2003)

I've heard of it.







And not just babies. Seen it done to kids too. In laws of my inlaws.

-Angela


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## momtokea (Oct 27, 2005)

sick.


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## texmati (Oct 19, 2004)

My dh did something like this to me on my 19th birthday.I still haven't forgiven him. Poor baby. Why do people think that this is fun?

I have one aunt in the family that loves icing fights. I can't stand them, especially when I make the cake. That's heart and soul in that icing!!!


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## ashleyhaugh (Jun 23, 2005)

now i did that as a teenager, and even as an adult, but for a baby, thats crazy!!!!


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## Logan's mommy (Jan 19, 2007)

I've heard of letting the lo get as messy as possible on their b-day, we did that with ds1.
I couldn't imagine smashing a babies face into cake!


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## Justmee (Jun 6, 2005)

Wow, that's horrible


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## JSerene (Nov 4, 2004)

My family always did the birthday spanking. One swat on the bottom for every year. I thought this was universal, but so far no one's mentioned it. Was it just us? It wasn't a real spanking, but they always teased us that it would be. I never liked this one as a child - made me nervous.


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## mazajo (Nov 3, 2004)

I've heard of pushing the baby's face in the cake unfortunately. Pretty much everbody I know does the 'smash cake' and I've seen a couple times when the baby doesn't dig in and get all messy fast enough people will 'help'







I hate it and would never do that to my baby.

I hate birthday spankings too.


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## Biscuits & Gravy (Jul 17, 2008)

That is pretty awful.


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## mntnmom (Sep 21, 2006)

We always assumed that the birthday kid would get cake all over their hands, and probably face. But shoving baby's face into it is completely out of line.
I always thought the whole thing with shoving wedding cake in your new spouse's face was horribly tacky. But they are adults. I don't think I could allow my kids to spend much time around folks who have so little consideration for a child's feelings.


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## marlne (Mar 15, 2006)

That is so sad, the poor baby..








How in the world is a newly one year old going to even understand what is happening to him?

We always let our kids have their own little cake and let them have at it themselves. If they enjoyed it, then great. If not, then we didn't push it.
Never would we force their face into it.


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## forthebest (Jun 19, 2006)

That is ridiculous and horible, I guess some people think they just do what they've heard done before. I've never seen or heard of this done in uk before and I don't get the idea to make as much mess of food and eating as you can kinda strange. A pp mentioned birthday slapping, good grief, they do birthday bumps here though, pretty sure not to little ones. In school on your birthday you would get picked up by several kids hands feet etc and bumped on the ground corresponding to your years, of course this could be painful.


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## aisling (Apr 26, 2004)

so....I can't help but wonder, as I read about smash cakes, if this family is, well, lacking common sense? I mean, it sounds like they've see lots of pictures of first birthdays where the baby is all messy and covered in cake, never actually attended one and so didn't really reach the correct conclusion on just _how_ baby got that way. It sounds to me that they thought someone helped. Weird and awful and just *duh*.


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## accountclosed3 (Jun 13, 2006)

like the others i haven't heard of this either. 'smash cakes' seem to be the norm.









the biggest 'tradition' that i hate is the "birthday spanking." my immediate family never did it, but one summer, i was at m grandmother's for my birthday (we happened to be staying there between houses (one sold before the next was available). my aunt (who is crazy) was also there at the time, and she said and did a lot of nasty things to us.

usually, my mom or dad would step in--for example, once i didn't want to eat boiled spinach, and my aunt said that if i didn't finish it, i'd have to take all of my meals on the floor like the dog,, and then proceeded to put my plate on the floor with the dog--and my parents said no.

but for some reason, they didn't say no to the spanking. this might be because the whole family was there--all 4 of my father's siblings, their SOs and children, and apparently they ALL did this at every child's party. (prior to this, we lived far away and so we always had family parties that were the immediate family, no GPs, Aunts, uncles, cousins, etc). so they allowed it.

i was humiliated and mortified. i really dislike that crazy aunt too. and her children are seriously f-ed up.


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## mags (May 4, 2004)

What a weird tradition. Never heard of it before, frankly it sounds pretty trashy...


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## AnalogWife (Sep 8, 2007)

I'm feeling pretty fragile and PMS-y, and that just put me near to tears.


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## potatocraft (Apr 4, 2008)

Ummmm.....Wow, a cake in the face. So they want their kid to fear frosting.
I don't get it.
Now for my ds I am totally going to make him a little smash cupcake. And let him go at it. My mom has the pictures of my first b-day cake that I mashed all over myself, but I did that to myself, not someone else.
I mean come on, have some respect for your kid.
Shawna


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## AuntLavender (Apr 22, 2002)

And they also gave us another smaller cake! I think it was 6-8 inches so not tiny really. It wasn't as fancy as the Winnie the Pooh cake I ordered but the frosting matched and it said "Happy 1st Birthday Joey" and was really lovely.

Well I served the larger cake at the small family party we had and we ate the smaller cake the next day! Only later did I learn the smaller cake was meant for my son to destroy! No way would I waste a lot of food that way!

My son ate most of his cake, got a lot of frosting on his face, and swirled the rest on his plate!

I remember birthday spankings but ours were done privately and my mom didn't spank us but she hugged us! I remember feeling very loved. This only happened when we were very young.

My DH fed me my piece of wedding cake on his fork! LOL! We paid for the cake ourselves and there was no way we were going to waste it!

I can't imagine pushing a baby's face into a cake.

Sincerely,
Debra, homeschooling mom of 4 ages 12, 11, 9, and 5


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## Faerieshadow (Mar 31, 2005)

I think it's nice of Publix to give free smash cakes for babies' first birthday.







: It's definitely too big for my taste but it's a nice gesture on their part since it is such a popular tradition.

Smashing a baby's face in the cake... not cool.







When I was an (older) child, my granddad used to try his hardest to get a face in the cake, but just the tip of a nose, enough for it to be funny, not mean.


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## LavenderMae (Sep 20, 2002)

That's one messed up tradition and not one I've heard of. Way to make those memories people.









mmmmmmm Publix cake.


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## Tizzy (Mar 16, 2007)

DH and I also refused to do the uber tacky cake smash at our wedding and certainly not to our children! That is just plain disrespectful. For DS1's first birthday, he was pretty tired by cake time, but he did make a bit of a mess with his cupcake. He was actually very clean and neat for his second birthday!

As for birthday traditions, we always had a "hot box" - everyone would form two lines facing eachother then the birthday person would have to run through as many times as their new age while everyone tried to hit them on the way through.
It was more fun than it sounds I swear!


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## chipper26 (Sep 4, 2008)

I think it's disrespectful and ridiculous. I can see letting baby dive in and take a handful or put his face to it if he wanted to, but not to push him into it!!


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## RufusBeans (Mar 1, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *JSerene* 
My family always did the birthday spanking. One swat on the bottom for every year. I thought this was universal, but so far no one's mentioned it. Was it just us? It wasn't a real spanking, but they always teased us that it would be. I never liked this one as a child - made me nervous.

we did this at school! I remember it in kindergarten, and doing it at my babysitters (20+ kids) house. the teacher would even say "and a pinch to grow an inch and a sock to grow a block" and she would pinch (lightly) and pretend to sock us in the jaw. I never thought it was scary though, it was fun.

some of the younger kids at the babysitters were scared of the spanks-I remember them crying- but then they were not made to do it. Unless their older siblings convinced them to.

this was 1983


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## karemore (Oct 7, 2008)

Sounds pretty sick to me.


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## Honey693 (May 5, 2008)

My grandma did a variation of the face smash for me. She waited until I had a handful and kind of smushed it around on my face. I was the kind of baby who loved stuff like that though. It was a red cake though and the dye made my face red for over a week. I think it's awful to smash a kids face in the entire cake and then wonder why they're mad though, especially if you don't know if they like being a mess.


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## Caneel (Jun 13, 2007)

I think cake smashing/pushing by grown, newly married adults was bad enough!

Seriously, that is just awful. Do these people have a brain in their head?


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## Chavelamomela (Sep 25, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *JSerene* 
My family always did the birthday spanking. One swat on the bottom for every year. I thought this was universal, but so far no one's mentioned it. Was it just us? It wasn't a real spanking, but they always teased us that it would be. I never liked this one as a child - made me nervous.

My family did this too. My grandfather would give us "Birthday Potches (yiddish term for spanks)" - it was a family tradition.

My parents don't do this to their grandchildren.


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## RedPony (May 24, 2005)

I agree, awful.







We don't do smash cakes at my house either, I get the concept, but won't waste an entire cake on something like that. A piece, and if the baby smashes, plays with it fine. If not, we move on!









I've always hated the wedding cake smash, too. Ugh. And birthday spanks were always "threatened" in my family when I was a child but in a teasing, loving manner.


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## soccermama (Jul 2, 2008)

That is probably the worst birthday tradition I've ever heard!!


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## limabean (Aug 31, 2005)

I've never heard of that -- poor baby! I don't even like when newlyweds smash cake into each other's faces at weddings -- I know the people who do it think it's all in good fun, but it looks so disrespectful to me, and leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I'm always relieved when they kindly feed each other a bite of cake instead.

Regarding birthday spankings, we didn't really do that in my family, but it was a really well-known tradition in my area growing up. In fact, my kindergarten teacher had the school janitor come in and spank the birthday child!







And nobody thought that was weird -- it was like this beloved tradition. I still remember that his name was Adrian and that he was a really nice, caring man. But can you _imagine_ that being okay with anybody these days???


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## Sierra (Nov 19, 2001)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Caneel* 
I think cake smashing/pushing by grown, newly married adults was bad enough!

My thought too







. For me, that is a particular wedding "tradition" that has always struck me as bizarre, aggressive, and embarassing for everyone (the couple and everyone watching).

And at my wedding, there is no way I wanted to have to go wash my face and fix up my makeup right when the fun of the party was starting







.

Quote:

Seriously, that is just awful.
Yes, mean _and_ totally without class. Oh joy. Call me stuffy/elitist/whatever.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *limabean* 
Regarding birthday spankings, we didn't really do that in my family, but it was a really well-known tradition in my area growing up. In fact, my kindergarten teacher had the school janitor come in and spank the birthday child!







And nobody thought that was weird -- it was like this beloved tradition. I still remember that his name was Adrian and that he was a really nice, caring man. But can you _imagine_ that being okay with anybody these days???

Yeah, its weird. We didn't do birthday spankings in my (incidently AP/NFL) family either, though I think we knew of the tradition and had heard (somewhere) the phrase "and a pinch to grow an inch." That said, I do have a weird but semi-vivid memory of one of my older sister's birthday parties (she was probably around 8) when all the kids were lined up in two lines or something and she had to crawl between them, and they spanked her as she passed by. I can't imagine kids being encouraged to "spank" each other now, and I have no idea who arranged for that at my sister's party.

As a mom, I would be freaked out by any adult who seemed eager to touch my kids tush/"spank" my kid. Birthday "tradition" or not, seemingly "nice person" or not.


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## reezley (May 27, 2006)

Never heard of the "smash cake" tradition.

And pushing the cake right into a baby's face? That's just a recipe for cake-phobia. Seriously. Simply awful.


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## Sheal (Apr 19, 2007)

My SIL does this. Drives me bat crap crazy.

She only did it once to one of my kids and has never done it again because I let her have it big time. I ripped her a new one for it. I find this "tradition" very mean and very inappropriate.

What do people think is going to happen? I mean I'd cry too if someone shoved my face in a cake.


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## LuckyTrish (Dec 29, 2008)

My DH's family does the "smash cake" thing as well...I'm not sure how I'm going to work with that. Part of me says why not let them be messy with the cake, the other part is saying that I don't really want them eating a lot a sugar...But it's just one day, so it probably won't hurt.

With the spanking tradition, some of my extended family did that as well. I wasn't a huge fan, and it scared me. Even if you are joking, I don't think it's ok to "threaten" a child with a spanking.


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## ChetMC (Aug 27, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *ashleyhaugh* 
now i did that as a teenager, and even as an adult, but for a baby, thats crazy!!!!

Yeah. I've only seen stuff like this done to older kids and adults... sneaking up and putting butter on the birthday person's nose, sneaking in and pulling the birthday person's ear, giving the birthday bumps.... but not to very small children.


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## Storm Bride (Mar 2, 2005)

I've heard of birthday spanking, and birthday bumps (ime, they were usually done to younger siblings by older siblings - not so much by parents).

I've also heard/experienced the "pinch to grow an inch" _and_ the "punch to grow a bunch" (although those were never real punches, ime). They're kind of weird traditions, but never really bothered me. Mind you, I hung out with a crowd in high school who celebrated one another's birthdays by throwing the birthday person in the creek. I guess I had rowdy friends.

Shoving a baby's face into a cake is just messed up. I'm still astonished that anyone would think that was okay. I remember actually being a little disappointed, because my very fastidious little dd didn't get any frosting on herself at her first birthday (a few tiny spots, but that's it), so I didn't get my photo op. But...it wouldn't even have occurred to me to deliberately mess up her face, let alone _smash_ it into the cake!


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## newbymom05 (Aug 13, 2005)

That's seriously messed up. I wouldn't do that to anyone of any age. How is demeaning the birthday person on their special day a tradition?


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## 2pinks (Dec 20, 2007)

I think it's incredibly crass and tacky when adults do it to one another. How very saw for this baby.

I've heard that doing this kind of thing (like at a wedding) is a sign of repressed hostility. Don't know if it's true or not though.


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## pokeyrin (Apr 3, 2008)

Never heard of this tradition, but seen it a few times at all ages. If someone did that to me, they'd get a fistful up their nose back.

It's super cute and funny when they make a mess of themselves as they eat, but there's nothing funny about having an adult do it to a baby. I'll never, ever understand cake smashing into anyone's face at birthdays or weddings.

The genius who started it all probably was mad at the person they did it to. I dunno, to me it's just someone's passive-aggressive mean streak coming out.

Don't even get me started on whitewashing.








:


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## limabean (Aug 31, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *pokeyrin* 
Don't even get me started on whitewashing.







:

How do you mean? I Googled it, but none of the definitions seemed to apply here.


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## pokeyrin (Apr 3, 2008)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *limabean* 
How do you mean? I Googled it, but none of the definitions seemed to apply here.

Don't mean to hijack the thread, sorry.

But white-washing (snow smashed in face...just realized I spelled it wrong in other post) is another thing that some parent's seem to think is really funny (and a tradition) to do to their child when they first experience/play in the snow. To me it's even more mean then the cake smashing, every child I witnessed this done too has cried.


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## BookGoddess (Nov 6, 2005)

Shoving a baby's face into the cake? WTF! That's so cruel. What kind of parent does that? It would boil my blood if I saw it. I would have to speak up and say something even if it created a scene.

I haven't heard of birthday spankings either.

We let DD have big slice of cake from her 1st birthday. She got to eat the slice however she liked. She chose to eat it with her hands. She got messy and we got a lot of good photos of her with chocolate icing around her face and fingers.


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## brooks97 (Apr 24, 2008)

Pushing his face into the cake is extreme to me. that's weird that they think it is ok to do it to a small baby.


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## kirstenb (Oct 4, 2007)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *JSerene* 
My family always did the birthday spanking. One swat on the bottom for every year. I thought this was universal, but so far no one's mentioned it. Was it just us? It wasn't a real spanking, but they always teased us that it would be. I never liked this one as a child - made me nervous.

I remember doing birthday spankings when we were little too, but they were in fun and we liked it.

I think it's horrible to smash the baby's face in the cake.







I'm all over letting the baby smash it himself but that's just mean.


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## journeymom (Apr 2, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *maylanna* 
Geez! My daughter would have freaked! She cried at her first birthday b/c she got icing on her fingers and it wouldn't come off and she didn't like the taste. She still won't eat cake.

Yay! Sounds like my kind of gal!









Smashing a cake in a baby's face: if I'd been there I'd have been shaking with shock and anger and probably wouldn't have said anything. I'd probably be speechless.

Smash cakes: a whole mini cake just for the baby to make a mess of? :shiver: Not my thing. I guess I'm neurotic.


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## notjustmamie (Mar 7, 2007)

Never heard of the cake thing--we never had one just to mess with either (my parents weren't big on wasting food).

I definitely remember the birthday spankings. We did them in school, or maybe Sunday school, but I remember being part of the group watching and counting up the numbers. There was always a "pinch to grow an inch" at the end, too. Whose bright idea was that?


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## Ruthla (Jun 2, 2004)

We let DD1 destroy half of her 1st birthday cake, and then the adults ate the other half of it.









I didn't really have birthday parties for my next 2 kids when they turned 1; after DD1's party (which was truly more for the adults than for the baby), I held off on birthday parties before age 3 when the child was old enough to appreciate it. Maybe I baked a cake for the immediate family when the other kids turned 1 and when all of them turned 2?

The only "birthday spankings" my kids have ever had was from friends around their own age. It's not something we do in our family.


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## JSerene (Nov 4, 2004)

Yesterday was my birthday and my mom introduced the concept of birthday spankings to my 3.5yr old ASD child. Not a good idea. We've been working so hard to get her to stop hitting and today she got the green light. My dd didn't get the context at all, she just spent the day trying to slap my face. I explained to my mom why this was a bad idea, but it was too late as the words were already out of her mouth.


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## journeymom (Apr 2, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *JSerene* 
Yesterday was my birthday and my mom introduced the concept of birthday spankings to my 3.5yr old ASD child. Not a good idea. We've been working so hard to get her to stop hitting and today she got the green light. My dd didn't get the context at all, she just spent the day trying to slap my face. I explained to my mom why this was a bad idea, but it was too late as the words were already out of her mouth.









: Irritated on your behalf.

ASD = autism spectrum disorder?


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## Mosaic (Jun 20, 2005)

This is a tradition that is more common in other countries. In Mexico, after blowing out the candles, the birthday boy/girl makes a wish and then leans in to take a bite out of the cake. At that point of course someone pushes their head down a little to "help" them get a big bite and better odds of having their wish come true.

Honestly, every time I've seen it done, it has always been a gentle push because nobody wants to eat cake that has a big ol' nose print on it.









Can't say I care for the tradition, but I did want to let you know that 1) it's common and 2) it's not meant to be cruel.


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