Mom Makes Elaborate Birthday Cake, Parent Is Mad When She Refuses to Make Another

A mom isn’t sure if she’s in the wrong after she refused to make another woman’s daughter an elaborate birthday cake.

The original poster (OP) shared her story on Reddit’s AITA and explained that she used to work at a bakery in college, but currently works full-time at a very demanding job that often requires her to be on-call.

However, when she worked at the bakery, she picked up some cake decorating skills from the confectioner and has made a few elaborate cakes over the years. OP went on to say that she leans on her engineering background to make the cakes as unique as possible.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. 

For her daughter’s fourth birthday this year, OP decided to throw her a birthday party where she invited some of her preschool friends and their parents. OP made her daughter a Rapunzel cake with a tower, since her daughter has been obsessed with Rapunzel. She had to take a week off work to make the cake, and it turned out amazing.

“My daughter was incredibly happy and it was the talk of her friends’ circle for a while after as well,” OP said.

Recently, one of the moms who had been at the party saw OP at her daughter’s school and told her that her own daughter had loved the cake. The mom, whom OP calls “Aly,” told her that her daughter had been repeatedly asking for OP to make her a similar cake.

“She asked me if I would be willing to make a cake for [her daughter] as well,” said OP. “I told her it took me a lot of time and effort to make the cake for my daughter and I am not sure I could accommodate it.”

Aly kept insisting and wouldn’t take no for an answer, so OP told her she’d think about it and gave away her phone number. Later in the evening, OP asked her daughter if Aly’s daughter was a close friend. OP’s daughter said that the other girl was “bossy” and “doesn’t like her.”

Ultimately, OP decided that it wasn’t worth the hassle of making the cake and texted Aly to tell her. The other woman replied, saying she’d really like OP to bake the cake and that it would make her daughter very happy.

“I told her I understand but that it wasn’t about the money so much as it was about the time and effort involved, and I’d be happy to recommend some excellent bakeries in the area that could make a custom cake for her daughter,” said OP.

Aly responded by saying that if OP could manage to find the time to make her daughter a cake, surely she could find time to make another one. OP was “miffed” by Aly’s reaction and told her she wasn’t interested in doing it. Aly replied by cussing OP out and said she wasn’t thinking of her daughter’s happiness.

In her comments, many agreed that OP was not in the wrong — especially since she’d offered to recommend other bakeries.

“HER daughter’s happiness is not your responsibility. You told her you didn’t have the time and offered to recommend some bakeries, and she got snarky with you,” said one commenter.

“You may have dodged a bullet here; if you made one for [her daughter], you might have had entitled moms popping out of the woodwork demanding that you make a cake for little Snotfuss or little Reebeckhah. No means no.”

Another said that Aly might’ve realized that cakes like the one OP made are expensive and wanted to find a loophole.

“I’m starting to think that she asked around and found out a cake like the one you made are very expensive and thought maybe trying to get you to do it she could pay you less,” they said. “Sounds like she doesn’t want to pay the cost to find or work to find a bakery to make that type of cake and she doesn’t want to deal with her kids tantrum or meltdown when she doesn’t get said cake.”

“It’s ludicrous that she thinks making time to do something for her kid is equivalent to you making time for your own kid,” they added.

A third said that even if Aly’s daughter was a close friend of OP’s daughter, OP would still be in the right for refusing to bake the cake.

“Even if [her daughter] was a close friend of your daughter’s, you’d still be right to say no. This is your time, effort, and money going into this and just because you found the time to make one for your daughter does NOT mean you have to find the time to make them for anyone else, even if they’re willing to pay,” they said.

“You get to decide who gets your super special homemade cakes, not anyone else, no matter what they or their children want.”