Reasons for kids being vegetarian

[Guest guest]

I have found that children who are raised vegetarian for health reasons

are more likely to " try " meat or become meat eaters when they're older,

than children who are raised believing in animal rights.

 

I've raised my 10-year-old son to believe that it is wrong to kill and

eat animals - " Animal are our friends and we don't eat our friends. " You

can push aside a parent's cajolling that meat isn't healthy for you, but

it's much more difficult to reject your own strongly held beliefs. The

idea of eating meat disgusts my son. He remains puzzled why anyone would

WANT to eat a dead animal.

 

As for friends and relatives who eat meat, I teach him tolerance for

others' right to make up their own minds.

 

 

Wendy

 

 

 

 

 

 

I.M. wrote:

>

> I'm sending this to the group as well, as I feel that it concerns us all.

>

> Dear Clark,

> I am a mother too, my son is 7 and my daughter 3, vegetarians since birth.

> Although my son hasn't reported much teasing, as they don't eat at school

> (they only have a snack, sandwich or apple or something like that at 11,

> then come back home for lunch), the problem is very much there whenever he

> goes to classmates' houses or birthday parties or school outings. In parties

> I'm also there, so I do control and prepare a plate for him, but I'm aware

> that this won't be the case for much longer as he grows older. In a class

> outing, where they stayed for two nights at camp, he did ask to try meat,

> and he did: his teacher told me afterwards, because I had explained to her

> that we are vegetarians etc... But my policy with him is that whenever he is

> out of the house he is free to eat all the crap he likes, although I made it

> perfectly clear I don't like it, and explained many times the why. He wanted

> to see how it's like, fine. After all, I've eaten meat until I was 25 or so,

> when I decided, all by myself and on my own, that I didn't want to do so any

> more (now I'm 42). I am aware that he HAS to try it a few times, and trust

> that, although at adolescence we'll have a crisis of rejecting everything I

> say for the benefit of what the friends say, given the home environment, his

> parents' example, our talks, his good heart, he will finally make the good

> decision.

>

> But the issue in your boy's case -and in mine too, in part- is not, in my

> opinion, of meat or not meat. It is entirely focused on the right to be

> different from everybody else. It could be about his name, his eyeglasses,

> some specific trendy sports shoes that he doesn't have (we had that thing

> with my son: he told me " Why cannot you just buy me those shoes so we are

> finished with that thing? " and I replied " I would have bought you those

> shoes if you had asked me before, if I knew you really wanted them, if it

> weren't just to please others: as it is I won't " ), or how he likes his hair

> cut, or his family's religious or ethnic background, anything. I mean, if

> the teasing was about his parents being, say, Moslems, and his observing the

> Ramadan fast (not eating from dawn to sunset) and stopping activities five

> times a day to get down on the floor and pray, what would his family do

> (supposing they didn't have a Muslim school nearby)? Tell him " go ahead,

> don't observe our religion's tenets? " Unlikely! They would try to instil in

> him a proudness in being what he is, and the courage to be different and to

> stick to his beliefs (which, of course, if we really analyze it, are not

> really exactly HIS beliefs but his family's, but then a child up to a

> certain age to come up with his own, so we do have to make some choices for

> them to give him/her a ground to start with).

>

> What I mean is, and you can tell your son that, if he gives in and starts

> eating meat just to be like the bullies, they will soon find something else

> with which to torment him and to test how chicken he is, and how far he will

> go to please them. Test his limits, as it were, and assert their " dominant "

> position. And I'm not sure whether it is wise to make them see he's afraid

> of them. Next thing they will want him to pull down his pants (symbolically

> speaking -I hope)...

>

> Does this make sense to you?

>

> Irene

>

>

> For more information about vegetarianism, please visit the VRG website at

http://www.vrg.org and for materials especially useful for families go to

http://www.vrg.org/family.

>

>

[Guest guest]

, VINEYARD WENDY <wvineyard@h...> wrote:

> I have found that children who are raised vegetarian for health

reasons

> are more likely to " try " meat or become meat eaters when they're

older,

> than children who are raised believing in animal rights.

 

Well, I think there might be something in between 8-). I don't know

that I believe in animal *rights*, but I do agree with the " we don't

eat dead animals " bit. I myself started out as a vegetarian purely for

health reasons, but I now find meat (and its smell!) truly disgusting.

 

We are observant Jews and keep kosher, so there are many things we

don't eat, simply because " we don't eat that stuff " . It is fine for

other people, but not for us. The same goes for meat. I expect my sons

will go through a big rebellious phase and do all sorts of things I

don't approve of, but it is my hope that they will eventually return

to their roots and the values we are trying to instill in them. I

agree that a purely utilitarian approach ( " it's not good for you " ) is

less likely to be effective in the long run than an idealistic

approach ( " it is a morally objectionable thing to do " ).

 

Be well, Hadass