Veg Kids And Non-Veg Meal Times
Print This Post
I began writing for Vegan Month of Food trying to think of a recipe I wanted to share or a story about food and I thought of my childhood.
I was a vegetarian child. So as a kid, meal times often made me feel like an outcast. I was always having to explain or defend my food to other children, teachers, parents, and the like. I grew up feeling like an outsider.
The experience probably made me stronger and I might even be a better person from it all. But explaining, defending, and promoting veganism is a task for adults, not children. Kids just need a safe, loving environment in which to grow.
So how can we make it easier for today’s vegetarian children and tomorrow’s vegan kids?
Here are just a few reminders for anyone who interacts regularly with veg kids:
- Veg kids need veg friends. They need to know they’re not alone. Find other kids who are vegetarian or vegan and introduce them to each other. Being a veg kid at a non-veg meal is a lot easier when there’s another veg kid there, too.
- Veg kids don’t need to be excluded from fast food places like McDonald’s (unless they or their parents want that). A trip to Micky D’s is never about the food anyway; it’s about the toys and the playground. Remember, veg kids can buy the Happy Meal toy without buying the Happy Meal and they can play in the playground without a tummy full of dead cow.
- Let veg kids order for themselves. Ask, ask, ask. Do not assume you know where their boundaries are just because you know two other veg kids. This particular veg kid might be vegan whereas the others you know are vegetarian. Or this veg kid might be veg for religious reasons while the others are veg for health or allergies.
- But don’t grill them. Don’t make them defend their veg-ness. Don’t put them on the spot and expect them to give a speech about it. Don’t assume they want to talk about it. Just ask what they like to eat.
- Step in when someone else grills them.
Got other ideas for how to help veg kids in situations where the food isn’t veg? Please share!
Last night I attended a vegan potluck and talked with D, a fellow veg meetup member who was there with his combined family. His wife of three years had a child of her own and the two of them were omnivores, while D and the second child were vegan, and his intent for the breast-fed baby was that he, too, would be vegan.
D is determined that his biological children will be vegan, but they are currently too young to understand why their sister can eat some things that they cannot. D, of course, hopes that over time his wife and his stepdaughter will move away from animal products entirely, and they have indeed reduced their consumption of these items. Until that time, though, he’s treading on some tricky ground in terms of how his children perceive him and his demands for their diets.
We talked of ways he can introduce the animals’ rights perspective to them. He brings them to places where they can see animals and talk about them, and he hopes to make trips to places like Farm Sanctuary, where they can interact with farm animals and discover for themselves that they are worthy of living their own lives and not being eaten.
I am not close enough to D to be offering wholesale advice but I’d be interested in what others make of this situation.