I've raised my girls as vegetarians from birth, so they've never eaten meat. I'm also a vegetarian, but my DH is not (he will eat chicken, turkey, and fish only though, no mammals, and he rarely eats meat at home because we just don't cook it here). He is perfectly ok with them being raised veggie and agrees that the choice is up to them when they get older.
Anyways, that's the backstory. My question though is when do you start talking about WHY we don't eat meat? And explaining what meat is (a dead animal)....
Yesterday my DD1 asked her friend for a slice of deli meat when we were at a park day, the mom knew we had food allergies (younger DD is severely nut allergic) and told her to ask me, and that's when I saw it was meat and told her no, lets just eat our own snacks. She asked why, and I said because we're vegetarian. She was ok with that answer in the moment, but I wasn't sure what I would have said if she wanted a better answer than that! She is a SERIOUS animal lover, she's told me she wants to be a doctor for animals when she grows up, she gets ecstatic when she sees cows out her car window, things like that, and I think it would upset her to know that her friends (or her dad) were actually EATING an animal. For reference, she got a zoobook that showed an owl with a mouse in his beak, and she was pretty upset over it. She told me to tell the owl to put the mouse down so he could run away. I tried explaining that owls eat mice, cycle of life thing....didn't go over so well....
She's going to be 4. Do you think that's old enough to get a gentle intro into the truth, that some people eat animals, but we've made the decision not to do that?
I think she's under the impression that when I tell her she can't eat things (like a hot dog at a BBQ when she could eat one, tofu version, at home), that it's like with her sister's allergies, that those versions of the foods are just not "safe" for her, even though she does not have allergies, so she just sort of takes that as the way it is and moves on.
Thanks for any input!
Anyways, that's the backstory. My question though is when do you start talking about WHY we don't eat meat? And explaining what meat is (a dead animal)....
Yesterday my DD1 asked her friend for a slice of deli meat when we were at a park day, the mom knew we had food allergies (younger DD is severely nut allergic) and told her to ask me, and that's when I saw it was meat and told her no, lets just eat our own snacks. She asked why, and I said because we're vegetarian. She was ok with that answer in the moment, but I wasn't sure what I would have said if she wanted a better answer than that! She is a SERIOUS animal lover, she's told me she wants to be a doctor for animals when she grows up, she gets ecstatic when she sees cows out her car window, things like that, and I think it would upset her to know that her friends (or her dad) were actually EATING an animal. For reference, she got a zoobook that showed an owl with a mouse in his beak, and she was pretty upset over it. She told me to tell the owl to put the mouse down so he could run away. I tried explaining that owls eat mice, cycle of life thing....didn't go over so well....
She's going to be 4. Do you think that's old enough to get a gentle intro into the truth, that some people eat animals, but we've made the decision not to do that?
I think she's under the impression that when I tell her she can't eat things (like a hot dog at a BBQ when she could eat one, tofu version, at home), that it's like with her sister's allergies, that those versions of the foods are just not "safe" for her, even though she does not have allergies, so she just sort of takes that as the way it is and moves on.
Thanks for any input!
