Family Rules How Do You Butter a Muffin

Family Rules

How do you butter a muffin?

Butter individual pieces

 Family rules we all have them, we follow them without even knowing they exist and we expect others to intuitively follow them as well - there in lays the problem.

So how do you butter a muffin? This was cause for raised voices and tears the other day.  Sitting at a table near us one child cut the top off their muffin and proceeded to butter both halves, this child was clearly following the unspoken rule of the family. Whereas his sister started to butter the top of the her uncut muffin she had violated a family rule and the adults with her responded with  "what are you doing! Butter that muffin properly" and as identified earlier there was an ensuing argument which included:

• I like to eat it this way (I don't care)
• Mom lets me eat it this way (I don't care followed by an eye roll to the female's adults male partner) and it ended with tears and an uneaten muffin.

Buttering the muffin top uncut

I asked our grandchildren how many ways they could think of to butter a muffin.  What fun they had exploring this question:

1. There is the traditional cut the top off the muffin and butter top and bottom.
2. The equally traditional cut the muffin in half from top to bottom and butter both halves
3. Ruth's favourite butter the top, eat the top with butter, butter the next level and continue eating this way.
4. Butter the bottom and eat up to the top.
5. Emily's favourite pull off a piece of muffin butter it and eat repeat until the muffin is gone.
6. And my favourite butter any piece of the muffin you want, dunk it in your coffee and eat.

All result in the muffin being eaten,

 all were acceptable in this achieving the objective

Family rules as seen through the experience of buttering a muffin is light hearted at worst yet many family rules need to be seen through this lens and then relegated from a rule to personal preference, because many of the "rules" we carry with us are just that the personal preference of some long ago forgotten relative.

Grandma Snyder

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