Boy and Girl Cakes, Which Ask A Question

‘What do little girls want?’

The Mine Craft one I could relate to, but what theme is my niece’s cake?

I have a cousin whose children, an 8-year old boy and a 14-year old girl, have birthdays in the same week. The family WhatsApp group lights up with birthday party photos and celebrations. My lawyer cousin home-bakes complicated cakes, a passion in which she is aided by a baker friend of hers. Their cakes are professional-looking and inspire awe.

We were delighted to see any form of celebration, even if it was just a family of four with a cake on the table. The first cake we saw was a Minecraft-themed cake.

The next one, a cake with chocolate dripping and sugar-coated macarons, was baked for my niece’s birthday.

Another cousin of mine has two children, both boys. Her husband asked, “What theme is that cake? The Minecraft one I could relate to, but what theme is this (white-chocolate-macaron) cake?”

I really couldn’t answer for my superwoman baker cousin, but a part of me wanted to explain thus.

‘My brother’s cake took forever, so let me ask for a simple one’ said my niece

Most likely, my niece would have seen the huge amount of work needed for the complicated Minecraft layer cake and the embellishing of the multiple tiny squares of fondue. She might have asked for “just cake” so that her mom and her mom’s friend would have an easier time of it in the kitchen. Girls are so often, considerate, and want their moms to relax — even if it isn’t Mothers’ Day weekend.

‘Nope, young lady. Your brother’s cake was fun. Yours will be sophisticated’ said her mom

In spite of her daughter’s carte blanche to bake her a simple cake, my cousin wouldn’t have wanted to lower her standards, because that’s just not her style.

So out came the second confection.

So what are the cake phases? Are there cake phases? (Should we even care? Swallow ‘em and shit ‘em?)

As a mother of two teenage girls, I could guess, and maybe we’ll answer the universal “what do girls want” along the way.

The Disney Phase

When my girls were really young, about three or four, they wore toon characters with vigor. They graduated from having child toons like Sofia the First, to grown-up toons like Queen Elsa on their birthday cakes.

One little girl came in for dental work with Elsa all over her – from cap, mask & sunglasses to jacket, leggings and socks. At her age, my daughter was big on Elsa, too!

The Glitter-Flower Phase

Then they grew up a little, and they still loved toon characters, but they started wondering about why some characters are victims, and then out went Disney, and in came the flowers. At this stage, the girl herself is the lead character. They picked t-shirts like “Queens are Born in July” and “I’m a Girl, What’s Your Superpower?” Their jeans had a teeny bit of glitter around the pocket hems.

My daughters loved flowers on their cakes and their clothes for a while at this stage.

Then they discovered chocolate

Then they grew a little older, and imagery and themes disappeared from their cakes. They declared chocolate, which is an acquired taste, after all, the world’s best flavor.

This happed after my daughter’s best friend demanded “real cake and not an icing sculpture” on her own birthday.

In dress, my daughters now want to dress like Wonder Woman does in formals, but settle for plain jeans and plainer blouses, with a minimum of printing or pattern.

They’re too ‘busy’ to bother with fashion, and are fascinated with something or the other that they’re actually involved in. So clothes and cake must be as matter-of-fact and utilitarian as possible. Unless of course, someone else forces it on them, and boy, are they delighted when it happens. Cake, I mean. Frills, flounces, and embroidery on clothes? Still suspect.

Kinder? Or just laid back?

My daughters also incredibly sensitive if you say anything against anybody with a disability, even if that ‘disability’ is laziness.

I would have expected them to graduate from My Little Pony To Snow White to Moana/Brave, and on to athleisure like Hima Das/Saina Nehwal, but they didn’t ask me, you see.

‘Mom, we like the songs. We don’t stalk the person who sang them’ phase

I also see them rejecting anything which I say they like. They listen to Justin Beiber, but ‘they aren’t Beliebers’. They listen to One Direction, but ‘they aren’t Directioners’. They don’t admit that they love someone more than they respect themselves.

They don’t admit that they ‘love’ a celebrity. They listened to Ava Max so much that even I fell in love with songs like Sweet But Psycho, but just try to get my daughters to admit that they like her, and nyet.

This, from the same girls who literally wore their hearts on their sleeve, with Elsa on their clothes. Now they refuse to admit they’d like an Ava Max mousepad.

Let me wait and watch during the Pandemic. Every birthday, cake or not, is a celebration that the child made it through another year. Let me hope and pray for more birthdays, and may the children live long enough to have a hundred candles on their birthday cakes.