I refused to eat my nephew's smash cake, my sister was furious
"After he had gone at the cake with his grubby hands and stuck his whole face in it, we were offered a mangled slice..."
If you've been to any small child's birthday party in the last couple of years, you've likely seen the smash cake trend.
After singing 'Happy Birthday', the little one completely demolishes the cake to reveal the lollies and chocolates inside.
It's messy and there's icing everywhere, but the joy in their eyes is totally worth it. Oh, and the photos are usually really, really cute, too.
Then typically guests are served a different dessert, ie. one that hasn't been manhandled by a toddler.
But that wasn't the case for one particular partygoer, who's now gone viral online for venting about what happened at their nephew's recent party.
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"I declined because... seriously?"
Taking to a popular forum, user @Bright_Mango82 asked, "Am I The A**hole for refusing to eat a smash cake?"
"Yesterday was my nephew's first birthday and my sister and BIL had a little get-together at their house. When it was time for cake, they brought out my nephew's smash cake," the woman begins.
Then the woman explains that she thought that the cake would be the size of a "big cupcake," as it should just be a tokenistic size for the baby to smash.
But instead, she was confused when they bought "a regular-sized cake."
The poster explains, "After my nephew had gone at this cake with his bare hands and stuck his whole face in it, my sister started scooping up the mangled remains and distributing servings to guests and everyone else was actually eating it!
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"I declined because... seriously? I didn't want to eat something that had a baby's grubby hands and body all over it and I was surprised that anyone else did. My sister insisted I take a portion and I said 'Really, no, that's gross'."
The next day, her sister called her "in a phone call that was way longer than it needed to be for the severity of the infraction" to tell her how much her comments had hurt her.
"She thought I was being extremely judgemental, that it wasn't a big deal, we're all family and don't participate if I really don't want to but don't call her gross," she recalled.
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"I've never heard of someone trying to serve a smashed cake to adults"
The thread now has 14k upvotes and over 4.4k comments, with several thousand people backing up the poster's feelings. Others simply said that while she was justified, she could have phrased it better.
The top comment, with 30k likes, said, "NTA, smash cakes are supposed to be only for smashing and for the baby to eat. There is usually a second, non-smashed cake for adults to eat, or the adults are just adults about it and don't eat any cake. I've never heard of someone trying to serve a smashed cake to adults."
Another person echoed: "100% agree. A smash cake is for the child. There should have been a regular cake for consumption by the partygoers. It’s ridiculous to think people, even if they are family, want to eat something another person has mangled. Also, kids' hands are gross. Babies have their hands in their mouths all the time.
"I won’t even eat little kids bday cakes where they just blow out candles. They spit all over them when they blow out the candles. It is gross."
Then someone else added, "Why do people think they can force someone to compromise their health to be 'polite'? It is gross. It's gross and unsanitary."
"You’d think we didn’t just live through a pandemic," another said, tongue-in-cheek.
Then this person mused, "Smash cake pics are not even nice anyway, they are wasteful and anyone who has one is getting silently judged anyway."
"The fact that your sister even offered up the smashed cake to people to eat is in such poor taste," another pointed out.
And then some people suggested she could have tweaked her delivery slightly. "You could have just said no thanks, I don't feel like cake right now," someone suggested. Another added, "Gross is a strong word so I can understand your sister being taken aback by this, but I don't think it warranted a full call the next day."
Lastly, the OP wrote in a follow-up comment: "I can see how 'that's gross’ can be interpreted as 'you're gross for doing it.' And maybe I shouldn't have said anything at all, just taken the plate and not eaten anything."
This article was originally published in May 2023 and was updated in March 2024.
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Originally published as I refused to eat my nephew's smash cake, my sister was furious
