Do most Vegetarians/Vegans not associate with non-Vegetarians/Vegans?

[Escaping]

I was at a natural parenting playgroup today and it was brought up that that particular group of people didn't associate with non-vegans and they wouldn't want their young children seeing people eat meat.

Is this common?

I don't mean to start any arguments, I respect Vegans and Vegetarians, but it never really occurred to me that eating meat would exclude someone from "natural parenting"?

[dovey]

Our family is vegetarian (nearly vegan), and we would never dream of doing this.  Even if we wanted to, I think we know only one other child who is vegetarian (his parents are not), so it wouldn't make for very much of a playgroup!  It doesn't seem like a good idea to me - it would encourage children to be self-righteous.  The phenomenon you describe is very odd to me, anyway.

[greenemami]

umm, not at all!!! Not only is that not very realistic, it is also kind of...restrictive? prejudicial? to refuse to associate with anyone who eats meat. 

I am vegetarian and so are the kids, but their dad and older sister (my stepdaughter) both eat meat, as do both of our extended families and many of our friends.  Has it been awkward at times explaining why they are not allowed to eat certain things? Absolutely.  Would I refuse to share a meal with those people to avoid that awkwardness? Of course not! 

FWIW, I am one of the few vegetarians I know these days, even in my fairly crunchy homeschool co-op-I think the trend is more towards paleo these days ;)

[catnip]

I do deliberately seek out vegans and vegetarians as friends, it's certainly a desirable quality in a friend for me. So I have ... 1 close friend who is a lacto-ovo vegetarian, one that is a pescitarian, and 2 vegan families that are not particularly close friends. Everyone else eats meat.

Yeah, not so much so. 

[Escaping]

Thanks! That makes me feel better :)

They seemed to all know each other and have their own little clique going so I don't want to intrude on that, but I was hoping this wasn't a common thing... I felt so self-conscious and wanted to get out of there before I was "outed" LOL

...Next time I'll have to read invitations a bit more carefully I guess :)

[sassyfirechick]

Wow.  That does seem pretty elitist, not to mention unrealistic.  Do they also live in a commune with walls so their kids never see what people on the outside do??  I'm not veg, I toy with it ocassionally, I don't eat a lot of meat, I really feel drawn to more of a raw focused diet but I'm in a junk food funk right now that I need to drag myself out of.  I've got 1 vegan friend and I get good recipies from her for dairy free stuff since we are a dairy free house, but I couldn't imagine telling my child she couldn't watch someone eating something just because we don't eat it, that's so bizzare.

[Escaping]

They were all trustafarians lol (well I'm not sure where they got their money but normal people can't exactly afford to stay home and homeschool their kids just by switching to cloth diapers and growing thier own veggies around my neighborhood )
So they can pretty much pick and choose who they and heir kids associate with (I won't lie, I AM jealous!)