[QuickTidal]

Tiste Simeon, on 05 February 2026 - 03:02 PM, said:

Try having twins QT haha literally everything is split but it matters not. Sometimes we get two of the same thing to pre-empt any arguments but nope that's not good enough they both want the same one despite the fact that each one is identical to the other.

I feel your pain !

Right?! it's insane. They become little Lawyers analyzing every thing they get for how close it is to what their sibling got, and then calling objection the minute something is different.

[Macros]

Man, if we ever have kids they will not like Dad.

I just would not tolerate that nonsense. You got cake.

You ate cake.

This conversation is over.

( I say this fully aware I have no kids and we have rapidly gone from dog is not allowed in the bedroom to dog now gets weekend morning cuddles, but I will be the mean parents who does not tolerate it I say!!!)

[QuickTidal]

Macros, on 05 February 2026 - 04:08 PM, said:

Man, if we ever have kids they will not like Dad.

I just would not tolerate that nonsense. You got cake.

You ate cake.

This conversation is over.

( I say this fully aware I have no kids and we have rapidly gone from dog is not allowed in the bedroom to dog now gets weekend morning cuddles, but I will be the mean parents who does not tolerate it I say!!!)

I should be clear, most times when I've said no (and coordinated with my wife to stand firm; which the kids know and will often rush to the other parent to get a different more likeable answer) we can do so. But every now and again it doesn't work perfectly (in this case it was them dividing and conquering with my wife offering up half her piece to the kids who didn't need more cake on a third night), so disaster occurs.

But yeah, I come from the type of home that was "You get what you get and you don't get upset" so we try to maintain that...but yeah it's hard sometimes.

Like when my son came down sobbing to me...my heart lurched as I hate seeing my kids upset about anything....even when it's a selfish cry over his sister cutting the piece wrong...my instinct is still to hug him and tell him its okay.

[Cause]

I can only imagine the frustration but the 'nonsense' in this case is how kids learn. They cant express themselves well or necessarily even understand their feelings and this is part of growing up. Fighting over the bigger cake piece is learning about boundaries, fairness, fighting over who is loved more (neither is but the anxiety is real). The cake even though they may not have baked it or bought is nevertheless in their minds symbolic of you getting what they think you deserve, to be happy on your birthday, and them showing you love. They are upset you didn't get it and are demanding you get new cake is them expressing remorse for ruining it for you. It comes out bratty and like the cake is the big deal and yes I am sure part of it is just wanting a treat but there is a lot more going on.

Anyway that's just my two cents as someone without kids. I look back with Horror that little Cause would ask his dad for his litle hotel or airplane travel chocolate first thing when he got back from a work trip. I wanted the chocolate but his remembering the small gift was what I really wanted. It meant he thought of me as I was home alone bothering my mom every night asking him when would he be back because I missed him. My dad didnt see me the previous week though, he would have just seen me asking for a gift the moment he would come home.

This post has been edited by Cause: 05 February 2026 - 05:12 PM

[QuickTidal]

Oh 100% accurate. In fact the thing that I took from this most was that BOTH kids had enough empathy on display that even while fighting to get something for themselves, they were devastated that I might not get cake on my own birthday.

This tells me we are doing something right in raising them.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

QuickTidal, on 05 February 2026 - 02:12 PM, said:

But my wife had had enough of the whining and wheedling and arguing and so she took everyone's cake pieces (including mine) and tossed them all in the garbage.

Well this created an even worse uproar. My 9 year old started SOBBING uncontrollably that I would not get a piece of my own cake now and my 7 year old son opened his mouth and screamed at my wife with a demonic voice how evil she was for the fact that I would not get a piece of my own cake.

I came upstairs again at this point and tried to explain that it didn't matter to me, and cake is not as important to me as it must be to them...but both demanded my wife now buy me a NEW cake so that I could have a piece.

There was a tentative agreement that something would happen, but nothing concrete. I don't know if another cake will be bought.

I don't even really want any cake...I'm not a huge cake person. I'll eat it occasionally, but I don't mind not having any. I was happy the initial night to not have any and watch everyone else enjoy...the only reason I said no on the third night was so my kids didn't eat sugary cake three nights running.

They're demanding a whole new birthday cake just so you can have one piece? And they probably realize that you're not a huge cake person and you and your wife probably won't want to eat the whole cake yourselves?

I don't think they're consciously plotting to get more cake for themselves, but it's an all-too-human tendency to rationalize desires with moral justifications, or to fixate on possible moral justifications for those desires.

[worry]

There has to be a way to combine a "You get what you get and you don't get upset" philosophy with an all-cake diet.

[Cause]

worry, on 05 February 2026 - 05:46 PM, said:

There has to be a way to combine a "You get what you get and you don't get upset" philosophy with an all-cake diet.

It exists, The Mary Antoinette diet. The diet succeeds because you can eat as much cake as you want but there is no cake. The cake is a lie!

[Abyss]

"Let them eat cake."

- Atilla the Hun, circa 1914.

[Slow Ben]

 QuickTidal, on 05 February 2026 - 02:12 PM, said:

The Birthday Cake Incident; Kids are Ridiculous: a tale of my household

So on my actual birthday, my wife bought a small cake to have, between the four of us. I was full from dinner so I chose to not have a piece right away. The kids did, and my wife did. That's fine. The next night my kids wanted more of the cake for dessert, so did my wife, which again was fine, but once again I was full from dinner and didn't feel like having any.

Now we are up to last night. There is the equivalent of 2 small pieces left. And I had a small enough dinner to accommodate having a slice...but I was sitting downstairs and my daughter comes up and asks if she can have cake. I said, "I'm pretty sure that there's only really two pieces left, and I think one is for me, and one is for you mother"...she kind of moaned about that and spent the next 15 minutes trying to wheedle a piece of cake out of the scenario, and when I basically stood firm on no and said "If we give you one of the pieces then your brother is going to want one too, and it would be unfair not to let him have one...which would leave us with no cake", she then went to my wife in a different room...now it gets interesting....wife tells her that if she wants to she can split the piece she was going to have of the two pieces in two and give one half to her brother and one half for herself, leaving the final piece for me.

So my daughter, went and cut out the piece of cake and divided it...poorly...with one half of the piece being larger (which she grabbed)....summoned my son from upstairs, who came down and promptly told her that she had cut it badly and was getting more than him. He then came to me crying that he was not getting the same amount of cake.

It was at this point that I basically said "Forget it, I don't need a piece of cake." I said "take my piece and your sister can have the other piece and I just won't have any"...

Well, this was the wrong tactic because kids put a LOT of stock into birthday cake. So they both computed that I would not be getting a piece of cake from my own birthday cake...and it upset them both.

But my wife had had enough of the whining and wheedling and arguing and so she took everyone's cake pieces (including mine) and tossed them all in the garbage.

Well this created an even worse uproar. My 9 year old started SOBBING uncontrollably that I would not get a piece of my own cake now and my 7 year old son opened his mouth and screamed at my wife with a demonic voice how evil she was for the fact that I would not get a piece of my own cake.

I came upstairs again at this point and tried to explain that it didn't matter to me, and cake is not as important to me as it must be to them...but both demanded my wife now buy me a NEW cake so that I could have a piece.

There was a tentative agreement that something would happen, but nothing concrete. I don't know if another cake will be bought.

I don't even really want any cake...I'm not a huge cake person. I'll eat it occasionally, but I don't mind not having any. I was happy the initial night to not have any and watch everyone else enjoy...the only reason I said no on the third night was so my kids didn't eat sugary cake three nights running.

What a complete and total shitshow. LOL

eDIT: Also if you have more than one kid, you will FOREVER being dividing things, getting everyone the same thing, getting equivalent shit to be "fair"....FOREVER in every instance or everything that they get. And gods help you if you get them slightly DIFFERENT versions of the same thing...

It gives me a strange sense of peace to hear this shite happening other than in my own household.

[Slow Ben]

 Macros, on 05 February 2026 - 04:08 PM, said:

This conversation is over.

Ha

Haha

Hahahajaaaaaaaaaasa

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

I think the solution is for the new cake to be an ice cream cake.

[QuickTidal]

The Birthday Cake Incident: Update

Wife bought a pack of 6 cupcakes...the only cupcakes the store had were Superbowl cupcakes. Which made me laugh. I do not like football and the only relevance the Superbowl has for me is movie trailers.

Fine, So I had a cupcake last night. It was good.

The kids wanted a cupcake...one of the cupcakes had a football shaped plastic ring on it, none of the others did. My son laid dibs. I figured that was fine....so I let him have that.

Daughter comes down for a cupcake from her room...first thing she says when I open the pack so she can select one.... "Who took the ring?"

.....


WHEN I TELL YOU THIS SHIT NEVER ENDS YOU UNDERSTAND WHY....

[Abyss]

Nah dude, individual cakes is the way to go. You eat yours, they eat theirs, anyone who goes for someone else's gets stabbed through the hand with a small plastic fork.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

QuickTidal, on 06 February 2026 - 04:58 PM, said:

The Birthday Cake Incident: Update

Wife bought a pack of 6 cupcakes...the only cupcakes the store had were Superbowl cupcakes. Which made me laugh. I do not like football and the only relevance the Superbowl has for me is movie trailers.

Fine, So I had a cupcake last night. It was good.

The kids wanted a cupcake...one of the cupcakes had a football shaped plastic ring on it, none of the others did. My son laid dibs. I figured that was fine....so I let him have that.

Daughter comes down for a cupcake from her room...first thing she says when I open the pack so she can select one.... "Who took the ring?"

.....


WHEN I TELL YOU THIS SHIT NEVER ENDS YOU UNDERSTAND WHY....

... which clearly means you now have to buy another pack of cupcakes.

They're brilliant.

#CakeForever

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 06 February 2026 - 06:34 PM

[worry]

Get some Betty Crocker mug cake mixes.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

worry, on 06 February 2026 - 07:06 PM, said:

Get some Betty Crocker mug cake mixes.

... and the One Ring... it can turn anything (and anyone) into endless cake, right?

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 06 February 2026 - 07:45 PM

[Tiste Simeon]

Come on QT, you're wiser than this. You should have definitely seen that one coming haha

[Cause]

have been reviewing my finances with the end of the year, my job loss and tax season all coming together.

The budgeting software I used closed shop the start of 2024 and was taken over by a different company who replaced it with a rather terrible piece of software.

I’m kicking myself for not acting sooner. I automate my savings and so while I certainly made smart investments. 30% of my income went into retirement accounts and I got my companies full 4% match. My rent, groceries, subscriptions etc seem to have spoken for 40% of my income. Now the part that I’m annoyed with myself for is I can’t tell exactly how much of the 30% remaining went to things like clothes, vacations, etc and what I saved. If I spent the full 30% I’d be shocked and angry with myself but it’s not clear that I saved any money from this pool either. I had a lot of work travel expenses for my job (meals, hotels, flights etc) so my credit card balances and bank balances swings wildly with a lot of activity that makes it hard to track in hindsight if my money was growing or shrinking at any given time.

Good budgeting software is worth its weight in gold! I wish I had acted sooner

This post has been edited by Cause: Yesterday, 04:31 AM