unwanted_muffins raze yesterday i spent a few hours with a friend and his new wife. i hadn't met her before. she was open, and funny, and interesting, and she looked a little like sandra bullock. she's a grade school teacher. she has a four-year-old son and an eighteen-year-old daughter. we talked for a few hours, about a lot of different things. she said it was the best conversation she could remember having in a long time. one bit kept tugging at my brain after they left, though. a story they told. a few days before the wedding, the daughter texted her mother to tell her she wanted to make muffins for the reception. it became a text argument, which led into a twenty-minute phone conversation, which boiled over into more arguments later on at home. the muffins were shot down repeatedly. the daughter felt strongly about it, but she wasn't going to get her way. "there are other ways of helping out," her stepfather told her. "cleaning the toilet isn't as exciting as making cupcakes, but it would help." i understand the point he was trying to make. and i get that her mother didn't want her making a mess in the kitchen. but she just wanted to do something special for everyone. it was something she thought of on her own. you tell her no one wants her muffins, without even tasting one, and treat it like it's the worst idea you've ever heard, not worthy of any serious consideration...she's going to remember that rejection, however slight it might seem to you. what's so wrong with random muffins? let your children bake for you if they want to. tell them they have to clean up after themselves. make it part of the deal. but let them make their muffins. 130813 what's it to you? who go blather from