Australian reality TV personality Domenica Calarco, from Married At First Sight, has criticised her ex-partner and the father of her daughter Dove after he attended a friend's wedding as a groomsman instead of spending their child's first birthday with the family. Her public complaints sparked a wider social media debate, dubbed "Babygate", over parental obligations after separation and what constitutes reasonable co-parenting behaviour around milestone events.

Writer Jonica Bray, a mother of five, argues in this opinion piece that the criticism is overblown, noting the father had committed to the wedding role months in advance and still spent the morning of the birthday with Dove before leaving. Bray draws on her own experience missing her daughter's first birthday while travelling in India, and suggests the simpler solution would be to celebrate the birthday on a different day, arguing that milestone birthdays matter far more to parents than to the one-year-olds themselves.