Raising vegetarian children

[Benn Roe]

It seems like there are a lot of parents on here. Are any of you raising your kids vegetarian? My wife and I are both vegetarians, and we're raising our daughter the same way. She's 14 months old, and she's eating more and more "adult" foods. Recently she really took a liking to the Boca chik'n patties. She can't really talk yet, but we're a little conflicted about calling them "chicken patties" or "chicken burgers" because we don't want to confuse her about words just as she's beginning to use them. We've been calling them "veggie patties", but that's pretty vague. Anyone else have this issue with their kids? Are we making a thing out of nothing? I realise this is about as #firstworldproblems as it gets, but I just wondered if other parents here had any wisdom they could share. I was raised vegetarian too, but my parents can't really help because there weren't a lot of widely available fake meats in the 80s. Anyway, thanks.

[oldangelmidnight]

We're not vegetarian but we eat a lot of vegetarian foods. We really like the Quorn stuff. We'll just call it patties or burgers or nuggets. Our oldest is 5 years old and is just starting to ask about the difference between fake meat and real meat and I think she's old enough now to start to get it.

[SPACERITUAL]

Whenever I hear someone talk about raising children to take part in their lifestyle choices I always think about being raised Christian and how uncomfortable it is as an adult. Im neeeeeever going to have children but I can only think that, if in some circumstance children were thrust upon me, lifestyle or personal morality is the absolute last thing I would give a shit about when in came to instilling things into them.

Basically, if youre going to say "I've made the choice that youre going to be a vegetarian" youre putting alot of import on a future decision they are going to have to make. Theres always going to be that point where, should they not choose to be a vegetarian, they are actively rejecting an element of how you raised them. Like it or not theres always going to be animosity about that.

Wouldnt it just be better to say "Hey your mom and I are vegetarians, so the food in this house is going to mostly be that way, but if you want to be different out in the world hey no big deal, we expect you to be able to make the choices about what you think is right for you based on your own feelings and not based on outside pressure."

[Benn Roe]

Your suggestion is exactly how we plan to raise her, actually. My parents always said "we won't cook meat for you, but we'll never tell you what you can or can't eat", and I plan to say the same. For the purposes of my above issue, though, I didn't think those details were necessary. I'm an extremely ideological person, but I'm staunchly against imposing my ideologies on others.

[DRodriguez]

you stick their feet in the ground and water them every so often if it's not already raining. #badjokes

but spaceritual is right overall

[popvulture]

I agree with Space. And...

I'm an extremely ideological person, but I'm staunchly against imposing my ideologies on others.

Right on

[Benn Roe]

Spaceritual's totally right, but that's not a conversation that's possible until her language capabilities are way more sophisticated than they are now. I mostly just want to know if calling fake chicken "chicken" in the early days of her language development is going to be too confusing for her.

[popvulture]

Ahhh... that's a bit of a conundrum. I'm not sure what I'd do in that instance (I don't have kids, but think I'll go that route someday), probably would just call it chicken for the sake of keeping it simple, then start differentiating later when she's actually old enough to get it.

[ritz]

I'm not actually a vegetarian, buuuuut I feel like if we're talking about indoctrination of values it usually goes the other way. Most children are indoctrinated to be meat eaters, and to consider that morally acceptable. And they actually have a hard time with that, and will be like "why are we eating the cute animals?", and the parents will indoctrinate that empathy out of them.

So if you consider meat eating to be neutral, and consider not-meat-eating to be non-neutral indoctrination, then I think that's a reflection of the ideology of the culture that you are living in.

[oscillateur]

I'm vegetarian, my wife is not (though she is vegetarian-friendly, basically). My son is not old enough for "proper" food (getting there slowly) but I won't impose anything on him. If he eats like my wife it won't be meat everyday anyway,

Once he gets older I'll be happy to talk with him and explain why I don't eat some types of food but I'm not going to do anything that could cause him any issues. Kkids can be assholes and difference is not always a good thing when they're young, and he's already half-japanese so I don't want to add anything that could make him too different from the others (I'm talking about little kids here, not teenagers or older).

[Benn Roe]

I'm not actually a vegetarian, buuuuut I feel like if we're talking about indoctrination of values it usually goes the other way. Most children are indoctrinated to be meat eaters, and to consider that morally acceptable. And they actually have a hard time with that, and will be like "why are we eating the cute animals?", and the parents will indoctrinate that empathy out of them.

So if you consider meat eating to be neutral, and consider not-meat-eating to be non-neutral indoctrination, then I think that's a reflection of the ideology of the culture that you are living in.

It's a tricky philosophical question, for sure. To return to spaceritual's comparison, I have no intention of raising my daughter with any religion, and it's easy for me to justify considering atheism to be a natural religion-neutral starting point, free of indoctrination. But a lot of people will absolutely tell me my "atheist indoctrination" is wrong, despite my having no intention of taking a hard "no god" stance (tempting though it may be).

I happen to agree with you that vegetarianism is a more neutral starting point, but that's obviously contentious, and considered explicitly wrong from many sociological and even biological perspectives. It all comes down to your perspective on what makes something ideologically neutral: is it always the position closest to abstinence, or the position that conforms to cultural practices? I tend toward the former, personally, but that's probably not what most people's guts tell them.

I will say that as someone who was raised vegetarian (with a choice), I was always extremely grateful that my parents never imposed meat on me and let me choose for myself, but I think my sister would have preferred the opposite. My brother, sister, and I were all raised the same way, but I went vegan, my sister started eating meat, and my brother started eating chicken (but no other meat). The real takeaway, I guess, is that parents have to do some amount of decision-making for their very young children, and some level of indoctrination is probably unavoidable.

[Benn Roe]

I'm vegetarian, my wife is not (though she is vegetarian-friendly, basically). My son is not old enough for "proper" food (getting there slowly) but I won't impose anything on him. If he eats like my wife it won't be meat everyday anyway,

Once he gets older I'll be happy to talk with him and explain why I don't eat some types of food but I'm not going to do anything that could cause him any issues. Kkids can be assholes and difference is not always a good thing when they're young, and he's already half-japanese so I don't want to add anything that could make him too different from the others (I'm talking about little kids here, not teenagers or older).

I spent most of my childhood in Kentucky, as a vegetarian with an english accent. You're right. Kids can be really mean. But the differences I had from my peers really helped to shape my relatively open-minded worldview. I don't know that diversity-sheltering will end up being any more effective or desirable than other forms of sheltering, but I certainly empathize with your reasoning.

[UglyCasanova]

1. I don't understand why you need to call it chicken if it's not chicken. That doesn't make sense to me.

2. Comparing it to raising a child to be religious is senseless. Raising your child to be aware of unnecessary suffering is not the same as believing in the supernatural.

3. You don't seem to be pushing your child into anything. As long as you let your kid make up their own mind, you're in the clear in my book. You're teaching them moral values and ethics the same way any other parent would.

[sears]

I'm not actually a vegetarian, buuuuut I feel like if we're talking about indoctrination of values it usually goes the other way. Most children are indoctrinated to be meat eaters, and to consider that morally acceptable. And they actually have a hard time with that, and will be like "why are we eating the cute animals?", and the parents will indoctrinate that empathy out of them.

So if you consider meat eating to be neutral, and consider not-meat-eating to be non-neutral indoctrination, then I think that's a reflection of the ideology of the culture that you are living in.

"Mommy, can we have a cute piglet?"

"How about smoked? Let's go to the Paulina Meat Market."

[jrfox92]

1. I don't understand why you need to call it chicken if it's not chicken.

It's chik'n.
Looks like chicken.
"Tastes" like chicken (I don't remember, it's been something like 5 years since I last ate meat).
Plus, it's easier to sell something called "chik'n" than "sort-of like breaded chicken but it's actually some soy based fake meat thing".