My declaration of vegetarianism was a godsend to my mom. Before then, I was simply a picky eater. I didn’t like nearly anything I was served. Then, one day I relized that I just didn’t like meat, and moms job was a lot easier, because she no longer had to rely on guesses to figure out what I might like. In fact, I took over a lot of the kitchen duties, because I knew that I now had resposibilities there.
When meat dishes were served (not often since I took over much of the kitchen) I would subsist of either healthy veggie TV dinners (mmmm…Cedar Lane enchilada pie), side dishes, or variations of the meat dish (a portion of the dish before the meat is added).
It was never really an issue.
If my kiddy decided to go omniverous, I wouldn’t really have a problem. But, I have literally no idea how to cook meat, Beyond that, I find handling dead animals disgusting and probably couldn’t do it. The kid would have to learn to cook its own meat, or be content saving his or her carniverous tendancies for visits to restraunts and the like.
But the two situations arn’t really analogous. Vegetarians parents have an aversion to meat that carnivorous parents (hopefully) don’t have to vegetables. Veggie stock may seem second rate to you, but beef stock is actually sickening to me. Carnivores can “make do” with a vegetarian meal (you might actually like it) whereas you can’t ask a vegetarian to “make do” with a meat meal (it would be like me asking you to “make do” with a dish of human flesh).
But all in all, vegetarianism really isn’t a big deal. Perhaps three or four times in my entire veggie lifetime it has been an issue. My friend, who flat out refuses to eat most vegetables, has a much harder time accomidating his dietary needs than I do. Veg-people eat the same things that everyone else eats, just without the meat. We eat Chinese food, Italian food, Mexican food- everything except for pot-o-beef. It is not all that drastic of a change, and it doesn’t really cause that many problems.
I don’t think it’s really fair of you to assume that an eight year-old is unable to make an “ethical choice.” Granted, the vast majority of eight year-olds are too preoccupied with Pokemon–or whatever TV show is popular right now; I haven’t bothered to check recently–to worry about the moral implications of eating meat. But there are always going to be those precocious, Lisa Simpson-like children who will actually worry about whether things are morally sound or not.
I was one of those kids. So is my sister. She hasn’t eaten meat in five years, so she was about eight when she made the decision. My parents didn’t go along with it at first, but she, being one of the most stubborn people on the face of the Earth, just refused to eat dinner. The kid would go hungry before she would eat a pork chop. If that doesn’t show strength of will, and a definite moral conviction, I don’t know what does.
I’d pretty much fall into the “Kids eat what is prepared, or they make their own” camp.
In reality, that position would probably be softened or hardened by what I gleaned from conversation with the child.
Is it really an ethical decision or are they just wanting to differentiate themselves in some way or do they just want to get out of eating your liver surprise? If the former then I’d probably go to some lengths to help them out, but expect them to help out in return. If the latter I’d probably take a more hardline approach.
If they prepare it for themselves, though, they would have to get approval from me on what to eat. No pancakes for dinner, etc.
I’d let the kid become a vegetarian, with the caveat that when I made a meal that didn’t fit their dietary whims, they could cook their own alternative–a healthy alternative.
Cooking for a family every night is a lot of work. I don’t see any reason why Mom and Dad should feel obligated to put themselves out every single time because of their child’s “ethical objections”. It would be the same thing if my child decided she wanted to be religious–sure, go to services, but I’m not going to drive you there. I’d make them find safe, mom-approved transportation arrangements.
Making kids take on the responsibilities that go along with their convictions is GOOD for them.
I don’t think the validity of the choice is as important so much as the motivation. I wouldn’t want to put my daughter in the position of feeling that I am forcing her to compromise her principles, even if I felt that they were misguided. If, for example, she came across the writings of the Pythagorans, and came to believe that it was morally abhorrant to eat beans, (because they possess souls,) I would not force her to eat them. I would give her my reasons for finding beans an acceptable source of protein. Since it would be easy to arrange a bean-free menu that would be nourishing, I would. (I’d quietly hope that it was just a phase, too.)
Your poser 'bout a child in a vegetarian household asking for meat dinners is a toughie for me. I wouldn’t deny a child meat if they insisted on it. (If they felt it was necessary, though, I’d explain to them why it isn’t. If they want to spend their allowance on beef-jerky, so be it. If I kid is old enough to fry up liver-and-onions and that’s what they want to do, liver’s on the grocery list. I wouldn’t feel good about it, though.
So correct me if I’m wrong, but what I’m hearing is:
kids should have at least some input as to what they eat
parents should make an effort to accomodate their children’s food preferences
a carni parent should either cook veggy meals and/or make separate dishes for their veggy kid to eat because veggy food is good and easy to cook and carnis can “make do” with it BUT
a veggy parent should NOT be expected to prepare meat for their carni kid, because that’s gross and disgusting.
Ummm… don’t ya think this is a little one sided? I mean, what I’m hearing is that it’s OK for veggy parents to not prepare meat because their personal beliefs don’t allow it, but the carni parents who believe that meat is a healthy part of the diet should be expected to prepare veggy meals.
Yes, speaking at least for myself, I think there is a big difference between your two scenarios. I believe meat is wholesome and healthy, in moderation, and I feed it to my kids, but if one of them believed that it was morally wrong to kill an animal for food that would absolutely outweigh my desire for them to eat up all their lovely chicken.
I guess one thing I should mention that I don’t see meat as “an entire food group.” There are obviously plenty of reasonable substitutions for it. I’d be equally willing to put in the extra effort if a child decided they simply didn’t like meat. Functional families are somewhat democratic, but I think they run best if everyones little quirks are accomodated to a degree.
This doesn’t mean that my children can have their own way in absolutely every decision concerning their personal beliefs, it’s just the way I feel about this particular issue.
(BTW, I work full time and so does my husband and we have two kids who I would not describe as “relatively easy.” They aren’t hellions, but they do demand a lot of attention. This is just to give you an idea of where I’m coming from in imagining how a vegetarian child would affect my life.)
Athena, those of us who cook the dinner wield enormous power over the household! Admit it, you know we get to choose to eat what WE want most for dinner most nights of the week. How cool is that? But remember what they say about power. We need to use it wisely and compassionately.
I love to cook-- mainly because I love to eat. Oh, boy, do I love to eat. And you know what? I don’t own a single cursed vegetarian cookbook. A lot of folks overestimate the amount of deprivation that it’s necessary to through to exclude meat. I still prepare plenty of “meaty” dishes-- I just substitute the flesh. (Admittedly, this is easier to do where I live, because there are a lot of asian folks here who have the vegetarian thing down, by god.
Vindaloos, stir-fries, chilies, with textured soya protein may sound alien, but most carnivores wouldn’t spot the difference. There are some taiwanese buddhist shops that sell mysteriously (even disturbingly) convincing “meat” products made fresh from bean curd, wheat gluten, etc. My favourite is veggie “chicken breast”-- Barbequed or curried, it’s wonderful. They even make little “shrimp” that are hard to tell from the real thing, except that they are missing that icky intestinal duct.
I make a knockout mushroom risotto-- No biggie to replace the veal stock with a veggie stock! If my kid decided to go vegan, I would sacrifice the emmenthal & sbrinz and use a soya-parmesan. A step down flavour-wise in my opinion, but a compromise that I would be willing to make for the sake of harmony.
Well, ummm, yes. People eat meat because they like it. People don’t eat meat because it goes against their ethics. I think the difference between the two is rather vast.
You are still stuck on this whole “sererate veggie meal” concept. In the reality that most of us live in, that isn’t how it works. Substituting veggie broth for meat broth in rice is not cooking a seperate meal. Ladleing out a little tomatoe sauce before you put in the meat is not cooking a seperate meal. Filling one of the enchiladas with just cheese instead of filling an enchilada with meat and cheese is not cooking a seperate meal.
This is your family for God’s sake. You would think you would be able to do without your veal broth on a daily for a couple years so that your kids don’t violate their ethics on a regular basis! Arn’t the meals you are cooking for your family to share and enjoy- not for you to show off and not for you to use as a power device?
If it makes you feel better, I would have issues if my kid went vegan (unless he or she was willing to take full responsibility for feeding his or herself. Vegan is a drastic food choice in that you cannot eat almost any commerical products. Even things like sandwich bread become suspect. Eating out and eating with others becomes an ordeal. I admire the fortitude of the vegans out there, but it is not a lifestyle that I could support (or provide for).
Well, sven, aren’t we saying the same thing, just a difference of level? I personally wouldn’t want to have to cook for a veggy kid, because with my current eating & cooking habits, it would put an undue burden on me. You state the same, only the relationship isn’t carni cooking for veg, it’s veg cooking for vegan. Why is, say, me refusing to prepare a dish without hamburger a “power device” and an opportunity to “show off”, but you refusing to prepare a meal without cheese/honey/sandwich bread simply a choice you have to make because meals otherwise become an “ordeal”? Why is it OK for you to not support your child’s ethical food choices, but not OK for me not to?
“People don’t eat meat because it goes against their ethics. I think the difference between the two is rather vast.”
Just to clarify. Some people don’t eat meat because it goes against their ethics. I would have no problem killing a cow so that Athena could eat it. I have no problem with me eating a cow (in theory); I just don’t want to.
I’m a vegetarian because I decided it would open me up to new things. When I get bored with it I will go back to seafood and possibly birds. It has been so long since I had pork or red meat that I’ll probably not go back to that, but I don’t have any ethical problems with it.
I have to say that I do take issue with the idea that an 8-year-old cannot make an ethical decision. What are we teaching children if we tell them, even at a young age, “Oh, I know you think you’ve made an important decision about your life, but I know better than you, and you are too young to be able to really think clearly.” I think that might just lead to a lot of resentment on the child’s part.
Anyway, to address the OP, I would certainly make an effort to accomodate the child’s dietary preferences, although as someone posted earlier, I would also try to make sure it really was an ethical preference and not just the child disliking a particular meat dish, or something. But if my child really did have an ethical objection to meat, we would work with it somehow. Children are people too, and they do have the right to make certain decisions about their lives, in my opinion. I could still make my famous meatball marinara (or whatever) and serve it to the rest of the family. The vegetarian child could be served the pasta with non-meat marinara sauce, reserved earlier. Or she could have a sandwich. When I was a kid, Mom had a rule that we could exercise our “sandwich option” two nights a week. So two nights a week, if we didn’t like what she served, we could have PB&J instead. I have always admired her for that, because it saved me from long nights staring down an unappetizing plate of liver and onions (or whatever your particular dislike happens to be – let’s not get into a debate about the virtues of liver and onions ).
Anyway, while I wouldn’t agree that a parent should cater to a child’s every whim about dinner (“No, I won’t eat this pasta sauce, I will only eat pasta sauce with meatballs, and this broccoli has been slightly oversteamed, and WHERE ARE MY CRUDITES???”), I think that a major ethical decision such as deciding to become a vegetarian is something that a parent should respect. It doesn’t mean the whole rest of the family has to go vegetarian, but I don’t think a few extra minutes of food preparation for the vegetarian child is too much to ask. If you were throwing a dinner party and one of the adult guests informed you beforehand that he/she was a vegetarian, wouldn’t you try to make sure there was at least one dish that person could eat? You wouldn’t simply say, “Sorry, in my house we eat meat! You aren’t invited!” And it really wouldn’t take that much extra effort.
This is more of the point I was trying to make. We’re talking about someone you squeezed (very painfully, I’m guessing) out of a small body orifice, wiped his crap from his butt on a daily basis for a couple years, fed special food until he was able to chew solids, made all kinds of sacrifices for, and all of a sudden leaving the anchovies out of the sauce is too painful to you. It seems like you’re elevating the importance of the food over your family.
My interpretation of the OP is not so much becoming a vegetarian, but the upheaval extra meal preparation would involve. When I was growing up, we had breakfast and dinner together and by gum, you ate what Mom fixed; this is not a short order restaurant. I had 6 brothers and sisters, so Mom couldn’t fix different meals for fussy eaters. As time went by and we hit our teens, we prepared our own meals. My parents enjoyed not having to prepare meals, and ate whatever the cook prepared. We liked having a position of authority and expanded our repertoire. I think that mealtime can be abused as a power trip, but I would not tolerate a child attempting to dictate his preferences to me. I would explain that the child needs to eat a varied diet and when he/she is out of my house and paying with their own money, they can eat what they want. I eat practically anything (to my dismay) and I like meat and vegetarian dishes.
So if an 8-year-old tells us that they have decided they have an ethical obligation to spread happiness through blow jobs we should consider allowing it?
Baby Jesus himself, at age 8, could have come up to me saying “I have a moral obligation to do X” and I would have replied “that’s fine, now go ask your mother.”
I don’t have a problem with an 8-year-old deciding to be a vegatarian, but then I don’t have a problem with the parents saying “no”.
And for those who say that eating meat is a habit and vegetarianism is an ethical choice, I have an uncle that believes god meant for us to eat meat and to not do so is an insult to His plan. Since we’ve established that it is more acceptable for a vegetarian parent to refuse to prepare meat, is it ok for my uncle to force his children to eat meat?
See, even the smell of meat makes me want to vomit. I’m not even that much of an “ethical vegetarian”–more of a “vegetarian by birth and habit”–so I have no problem preparing meat in theory. In practice, however, I would be preparing meat-and-vomit dishes. Not particularly appealing to those of either persuasion.
No, but you should have a better reason for not allowing it than simply, “An 8-year-old is not capable of making an ethical decision.”
My personal opinion is that if my child said he or she had decided to become vegetarian, I would respect that belief and act accordingly. I understand that not everyone shares my opinion. However, I do think that it’s seriously unfair to a child to dismiss his or her opinions simply on the grounds that an 8-year-old (or however old the child happens to be) is incapable of making decisions of their own.
“I’m sorry, but in my house the whole family is going to eat the dinners I prepare,” or, “I don’t have time to consider special dietary restrictions,” or, “I don’t believe you’d be getting the proper nutrition if I made you meatless dinners,” or whatever, are all valid responses. (Even if I happen to disagree with the reasoning behind those responses.) “You are 8 years old and therefore incapable of higher reasoning, so you simply have to shut up and do as I say and like it,” is not.
I wouldn’t see a problem with it. I have never believed in forcing a child to eat something they don’t want to eat. And I would want to help my child(ren) to make healthy food choices that go along with their personal preferences and/or beliefs. If they started getting “preachy” (i.e. demanding that the rest of the family stop eating meat), that would be entirely unacceptable.
I would like to add that I don’t believe in forcing a child to eat anything for any reason. My parents used to “force” me to eat liver and peas (the two foods that I hated most). By “force” I mean that I was not allowed to leave the table until those foods had been eaten. Eventually, they just started asking if I would eat whatever was in the meal that night. If it was liver with potatoes and green beans, I would eat everything but the liver. I think that might be workable if I had a vegetarian child. Whatever they don’t want, they don’t eat it. Usually (in my experience) there’s only one meat part to the meal, so they would skip that. Sounds simple enough to me. If I know that my child will not be eating the meat, I would make extra veggies or pasta or whatever.
Well, ummm, no. People eat meat for lots of reasons, not just because they like it. Same as for veggies, there are numerous reasons why people don’t eat meat. But it seems your response about the difference between #3 and #4 is hypocritical and a bit condescending. Are you really saying your reasons for not eating meat are somehow better than someone else’s reasons for eating meat?
I’m vegetarian, and started trying to not eat meat at age 11, out of concern for killing animals. My Mom listened to me, but said “OK, but you’ll have to cook for yourself if you don’t want what I’m cooking for everyone.” I was stubborn, so did. Mom worked, and we had 6 kids for a good part of the year, so I well understood that there was no room for self-important hissy fits in our house. I educated myself, and have stuck with my dietary choice.
So I’ll voice the “If my (luxury of the hypothetical) kid were to choose to eat meat in my vegetarian household” opinion. Well, hell, any veg knows that’s bound to come up as the child grows older. I’d explain my reasons for my decision, and would hope to have a decent discussion, at 8, 11, 15, whenever. They would certainly have the right to their own choice. My best scenario is that I would buy some meat, let them prepare it with me, and try to be as honest as I could as to why I’ve found it abhorrent. I wouldn’t lead them on how they Shouldn’t, but be realistic about where meat comes from, and that they can make their own decision.
That sounds nice, since it is a hypothetical child, and faced with cooking at the end of a working day, I might say “Just eat yer goddamned tofu”, but ideally, I’d raise ‘em to live in the Real World, with an ability to discern everything Life wants to throw down the ol’ gullet.
Admit it, you know we get to choose to eat what WE want most for dinner most nights of the week. How cool is that? But remember what they say about power. We need to use it wisely and compassionately.