My child is a toddler who has been raised not consuming anything from an animal. I am very happy that my partner and I have always agreed on this and our child is healthy and happy. However, my family all eats meat. My child is very close to her grandmothers on both sides of her family. They are not so much the issue as her grandfather is. He eats meat at least 2 of his 3 meals every day. When we were visiting my child’s grandmother and grandfather he began eating chicken remarking that is was good. My child said “yummy chicken”. That disturbs me. We’ve talked with our daughter about the way we live, but it’s been limited to these like, “cows milk belongs to a baby cow, we like (insert plant milk) instead.”
I ask my father not to say these things around her but he does not care to understand or respect the ways we want to raise our child. He doesn’t listen to anything we say. We asked him not to give her old toys as we didn’t want her exposed to lead or other contaminants in older toys but he continues to. We ask him not to swear around our child but he does anyway.
I’m just so terrified that our child will ask to eat whatever he is eating. It makes me want to visit my mother less because of how much my father actively goes against what we say. My father has many other issues I won’t get into, but it is so frustrating to constantly be on edge around him. I want to explain to my child more but I don’t know what more she can understand at this age of what is appropriate. I know there will be immense societal pressure on my child to eat meat and she is already different in so many ways including religion, ethnicity, etc. I want her to have vegan friends her age but it’s so hard for me to make friends and I want her to have vegan examples aside from her parents. When her own family is normalizing the consumption of animals it worries me that she’ll push back in the future. I know I need to prepare my self for this but it causes me so much anxiety.
Thank you for reading.
I think you just gotta let the kid figure it out. Dictating stuff to kids doesn't always work in the long run. All the kids I know whose parents were strict about junk food ended up super obsessed with it, or went nuts for it whenever it was on offer. Kids rebel. They'll rebel against anything if you impose it too strictly. Look at all the lib sons and daughters of prominent Marxists, lol.
My sister on the other hand wasn't raised vegan at all, big meat eating family culture, and now she's vegan. My mum's turned mostly vegan. People find this stuff by themselves, or are shown the right info by others. Lots of people I know are making vegan dietary choices, gradually cutting stuff out. I think to a lot of people it just makes sense.
I think if you want your kid to end up vegan then let them find their own way to it. Maybe they'll end up eating some meat on the way, but perhaps less meat than they would if a strict diet was imposed on them that they don't fully understand.
I agree with the other posters, you don't want to push a kid too hard or be too strict, that's counterproductive. Them eating a little meat just to try it doesn't harm much in the grand scheme. However, I do favor being honest with kids about the horrors of the world as soon as they're able to understand. Why don't we eat meat mommy? Because it's made by torturing animals who are almost obviously conscious beings and who suffer in ways very similar to humans. Because cows, chickens, and especially pigs are actually quite smart, to the point where one might want to consider granting them at least limited personhood status. Fish are also smart, they can remember things and even recognize their owners, snails are smart af, if you keep one as a pet you will develop an emotional attachment, social insects, they're all much smarter than most people think and we don't know what goes on inside their heads but it almost certainly does feel like something to be all of these animals. There's wiggle room for philosophical disagreement here but if you dont think it feels like something to be a pig you're an idiot or a psychopath. When we breed, raise, and harvest these animals we do it in the most brutal way imaginable because that's the cheapest way to get their flesh into our kitchens. So just think about all that when grandpa hands you some bacon Timmy, remember babe pig in the city? Imagine him growing up in a worse version of guantanamo rather than on a farm, the only way he gets to see the city is after being disassembled, that's where bacon comes from little guy. Ooh, actually I've got some videos to show you about factory farming, one sec....
I can't believe every comment is saying you should let your kid eat corpses. I assume you wouldn't let your kid kick puppies or hurt their peers. It's the same thing. It's actually good to teach your kids right and wrong. Veganism is not a personal choice or journey. It's an issue of justice. It's not like you're teaching oppressive, reactionary ideology. There's no both sides here. It's good when leftists teach their kids to fight racism and sexism and injustice; it's bad when fascists teach their kids to have no respect for anyone different from them. It's good when vegan parents teach their kids to respect non-human lives; it's bad when carnist parents teach their kids it's okay to harm other animals for entertainment and flavor.
I ask my father not to say these things around her but he does not care to understand or respect the ways we want to raise our child. He doesn’t listen to anything we say. We asked him not to give her old toys as we didn’t want her exposed to lead or other contaminants in older toys but he continues to. We ask him not to swear around our child but he does anyway.
What grandparents don't seem to understand is that they do not have the right to see or interact with their grandchildren in any way. If they openly disrespect you and your kid like this then the next time they should see the kid would be after an apology and a promise not to do it again. They're the ones who (presumably) want to see the kid, so if they want that, they need to learn their place.
Not a solution to the general problem of animal abuser social pressures, though. You're just going to have to recognize that the kid might decide to become an animal abuser someday and that it's probably more likely the more aggressive you are about it.
