Let them eat cake!

As I may have mentioned before my mother and I have a small baking business. For her it is a full time thing as she is now retired but my role is marketing the business and decorating the cakes (mainly piping). We made this cake just before the weekend for a child's 'princess' themed first birthday. It weighed 10lbs and is the largest cake we have done so far. We were very pleased with the results.

Kiddie birthdays are a big deal in Karachi these days especially for the affluent. One of my colleagues at work has two kids; her 5-year old daughter goes to a very posh private school and she said to me one day that even though she doesn't want to spend an arm and a leg on her kid's parties she feels she doesn't have a choice because everyone else does it that way.

I worked in an ad agency a few years ago and I remember one day we had a very different sort of client. A young mum who was planning a 'racing' themed birthday party for her 3-year-old. She was going to have the party at a pro race track and she wanted banners and t-shirt designs from us. I was pretty shocked that she wanted a professional ad agency to design those things for her (they are expensive after all) just for a 3-year-old's birthday!

But that doesn't even come close to describing just how GRAND (and often ridiculous) birthday parties can get. A friend of mine who used to live in Lahore had three kids going to a private school. One day they were invited for a classmate's birthday. When they got there they found a red carpet and a marching band!!

When I was a kid most of our parties (my brother and I that is) consisted of my mum or grandma baking a nice cake, having a few friends over and a nice dinner at home. Clearly times have changed! And while it is good for business I am not so sure about what it is teaching kids.