Okay, I am upset by this.
The dad of one of my dd's closest friends told me this is how he responded to a query by his daughter, who is my goddaughter. We disagree on MANY parenting issues, but this one just bothered me.
His dd wanted to know what the phrase "chicken with its head cut off" meant. He asked her if she'd like to see a video of it and she said yes. She is 6 years old, BTW. So he showed her a youtube video of a chicken running around a farmyard with its head cut off.
FTR, we are not vegetarian and neither are they. We do, however, buy our meat almost exclusively locally, from farms we have visited etc. I don't know why I'm so upset by this. His argument is that "urban children are so far removed from the reality of where their food comes from, they think meat comes from the supermarket..." I did have to point out the irony of using a youtube video to bring his city kid "closer to farm realities." He said there were kids in the video watching the chicken and they were laughing, as was his dd and this was totally "normal." I told him it was our job to teach our children compassion and that while I don't (absolutely) think killing animals for for food is wrong; or that kids laughing makes them cruel or monsters or anything, I would not let my own kid respond that way without talking to her about life and death or whatever. I also pointed out that those kids have probably had an actual relationship with those chickens, maybe been responsible for feeding them and have a MUCH different understanding of what they were seeing than his child. My daughter has been to the farms we buy our meat from, she knows better than his child where meat comes from. Yet I have never felt the need to have her watch a slaughter!
This is one of the many reasons I will never leave my dd alone with him. But then again, I am a very conflicted omnivore who has been vegetarian in the past; so maybe that's affecting my take on this?
Do you think this is actually a good way of introducing this type of subject? Would you do this with your child?
The dad of one of my dd's closest friends told me this is how he responded to a query by his daughter, who is my goddaughter. We disagree on MANY parenting issues, but this one just bothered me.
His dd wanted to know what the phrase "chicken with its head cut off" meant. He asked her if she'd like to see a video of it and she said yes. She is 6 years old, BTW. So he showed her a youtube video of a chicken running around a farmyard with its head cut off.
FTR, we are not vegetarian and neither are they. We do, however, buy our meat almost exclusively locally, from farms we have visited etc. I don't know why I'm so upset by this. His argument is that "urban children are so far removed from the reality of where their food comes from, they think meat comes from the supermarket..." I did have to point out the irony of using a youtube video to bring his city kid "closer to farm realities." He said there were kids in the video watching the chicken and they were laughing, as was his dd and this was totally "normal." I told him it was our job to teach our children compassion and that while I don't (absolutely) think killing animals for for food is wrong; or that kids laughing makes them cruel or monsters or anything, I would not let my own kid respond that way without talking to her about life and death or whatever. I also pointed out that those kids have probably had an actual relationship with those chickens, maybe been responsible for feeding them and have a MUCH different understanding of what they were seeing than his child. My daughter has been to the farms we buy our meat from, she knows better than his child where meat comes from. Yet I have never felt the need to have her watch a slaughter!
This is one of the many reasons I will never leave my dd alone with him. But then again, I am a very conflicted omnivore who has been vegetarian in the past; so maybe that's affecting my take on this?
Do you think this is actually a good way of introducing this type of subject? Would you do this with your child?
