Cake for 1 year old... Trashy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is hilarious. Who knew letting your baby have a little fun could outrage so many. There are so many things to be disgusted about. This is not one if them.

I haven't seen anyone (well, hardly anyone) complain about babies having fun or eating cake. The trashy part is spending lots of money for said fun, when not necessary. That is more like conspicuous consumption.

I'm seriously stuck on the idea that, when Thorstein Veblen invented the idea of conspicuous consumption, he was talking about a birthday cake for a one-year-old's birthday party. Now if the OP's sister had ordered a hazelnut dacquoise from Patisserie Poupon specifically for the purpose of taking pictures of her one-year-old sticking its face into it, that might be different. But I'm guessing that the OP's sister didn't.

First, he named it, not invented it. Second, according to wikipedia:

"In the 20th century, the significant improvement of the material standard of living of a society, and the consequent emergence of the middle class, broadly applied the term “conspicuous consumption” to the men, women, and households who possessed the discretionary income that allowed them to practice the patterns of economic consumption — of goods and services — which were motivated by the desire for prestige, the public display of social status, rather than by the intrinsic, practical utility of the goods and the services proper."

That's exactly what the smash cake trend is about.

What pray tell is the intrinsic, practical utility of a birthday cake? It is going to get smashed either inside your gut or out of it. Whenever I give my 1 year old food, he smashes it and wastes a ton. Am I trashy for doing this?