I love my husband but it's not very often that he says something that inspires a whole blog...until recently. While we were busy preparing for Christmas last month, he was busy in the kitchen making his own butter. I shit you not. He'd 'homemade' mince pies, but wanted to see just how 'homemade' he could get them so, he made his own butter. I'll admit, my first instinct was to take the piss. I think I said something along the lines of, "How crunchy are you planning on getting? Hemp underpants? Vegan soap?" and you know what he said to me?

"Don't yuck my yum"

And he was right. There I was taking the piss (probably because the extent of my 'homemade' offerings to the Christmas festivities had been adding a bit of red wine to the gravy I bought) when actually I should have been giving him a high five. I'm not too proud to admit that I was a bit threatened by the fact that my husband was excelling in the Christmas-cook off stakes offering home-homemade mince pies while all I had to shout about was bagging a great deal on Waitrose's Basil & Pecorino dip. I don't know if you've noticed, but I may be a little competitive.

Anyway, somewhere in that exchange I realised that I was being a bit of a dick. Clearly, this kind of behaviour isn't exactly what they call, 'on brand' so I dusted myself off and made a decision to not yuck his (or anyone else's) yum.

Sometimes we're quick to undermine someone else's thing. Whatever that is and whatever that looks like, if we disagree with their 'yum' or don't fully understand their 'yum' or feel that their 'yum' makes our 'yum' look a bit shit, we tend to get a bit defensive. Often, that's a sharp, snide remark that's presented in a kind of, 'You know I'm only joking' way. Sometimes, it's just a bit mean.

Unless you're a real dick, yucking someone's yum doesn't come from a place of maliciousness; it'll come from a place of insecurity, a lack of understanding or just ignorance. That's all normal but what's not normal is speaking without thinking. Making a point of not yucking someone's yum is really about thinking before you speak. It's about assessing whether your opinion on that is a valid addition to the discussion or whether it's just a bit of a dick move designed to make you feel a bit less threatened and them a bit small.

Anyway, it's short but sweet. Whatever their 'yum' don't 'yuck' it.