I got told today I shouldn't raise kids because I'd purposefully raise them in a vegan household, without animal products of any sort. I was told this would be dangerous and unfair to the kids.

It was a weirdly direct thing for this person to say to me (one of my coworkers). It's stuck in my head. I was told I should let my potential children choose what sort of morals they have, even though this person is raising their kids Catholic. Their advice to me was to allow my potential kids to choose every night between a meat-based meal and a vegan meal (???). And several other coworkers agreed. Where do they come up with this? No carnist raises their kids like this.

So is anyone raising vegan kids or does anyone know about what it's like? Or was anyone here raised in a vegan household?

  • Antiwork [none/use name, he/him]
    ·
    8 months ago

    I do not have experience with this but I've talked with people and I think the biggest issue isn't what you do at home or even what they do at school, but getting family to understand you don't want them to feed your child animal products when your not around. It's not funny to sneak them a nugget. But I guess that also depends on your relationship with family and how much they respect you.

    • carpoftruth [any, any]
      ·
      8 months ago

      this is a great point. my partner's family was used to veganism but mine wasn't. getting them used to staunch veganism with us adults meant a lot less bullshit when it carried over to our kid too. it would be so fucking frustrating if I had family sandbagging me like that with my kid

    • axont [she/her, comrade/them]
      ·
      8 months ago

      I'm pretty much cut off from my potential family due to my politics and gender, so that's not much of an issue. And I'd probably only have a vegan partner if I were to have kids, so this kind of solves itself I hope.

      I'd be really worried about the kid's classmates and peers though. I'd hate a kid to get bullied over coming from a vegan household, or get peer pressured into getting some nuggets at the lunch counter. That would suck and I don't know how to mitigate that.

      • WalrusDragonOnABike [they/them]@reddthat.com
        ·
        8 months ago

        I’d be really worried about the kid’s classmates and peers though. I’d hate a kid to get bullied over coming from a vegan household, or get peer pressured into getting some nuggets at the lunch counter. That would suck and I don’t know how to mitigate that.

        Not really sure how much you can? I know my mom worried about us having gay parents and being bullied for that because Texas. She tried to encourage us to keep quiet, but we didn't think anything of it, so obviously we didn't hide it. AFAIK, none of us were ever bullied for it. At worst, one of my brother's friends parents just complained to our mom that we got special treatment because she couldn't accept her kids were not academically inclined. Oh, I guess my mom did get me to start taking karate when I was like 4yo. Not that I ever got into any fights at school, but I assume she wanted me to be able to defend myself if I needed to.

      • Antiwork [none/use name, he/him]
        ·
        8 months ago

        The best you can do is build a strong bond of trust between you and your child and then trust they will be able to handle those situations and if they do slip up or get peer pressured that trust is built where yall can talk it out. This just seems like general parenting struggles caring parents go through.