meateaters are our friends, neighbors, etc.

December 18, 2000

Hi all,

Something Sara said made me think of writing. I don't mean to pick on

you personally, Sara, and *inside* I feel the same as you about the

disgusting-ness of people eating meat, but I don't know if that word

use is the best for the kids. I mean, most people eat animals, and

those people are our neighbors, classmates, and sometimes our best

friends.

I use the word " sad " when I'm talking about the eating of meat, not

" disgusting. " I want to inspire the feeling of sympathy for the

animals, and even for the people, who have been " trained " to eat

animals by their parents and they don't know another way to eat.

Personally, I also think of our vegetarianism as kind of analogous to

a " religion " - for us it's a way of living, living with more attention

to our role in the environmental balance, the spiritual connection to

animals, etc. To most people out there, eating meat is sort of their

" religion " and even if they are " educated " by us as to the superiority

of our religion, they still stick to theirs because it's more

comfortable for them.... The religion analogy also works, I think,

because I believe we should try to have tolerance for those of other

religions, even those who are meat-eaters. Maybe our tolerance and

good will can lead to their conversion to our " religion " someday.

Just a thought.

Warmly,

Emily

December 18, 2000

, " Emily Goodin " <emilyg28@h...> wrote:

> Hi all,

>

> Something Sara said made me think of writing. I don't mean to pick

on

> you personally, Sara, and *inside* I feel the same as you about the

> disgusting-ness of people eating meat, but I don't know if that word

> use is the best for the kids. I mean, most people eat animals, and

> those people are our neighbors, classmates, and sometimes our best

> friends.

I agree. The concept of eating meat grosses me out, but I have to face

the fact that most of our family and friends are meat-eaters. I can't

tell my child that his grandparents are disgusting. But just as we do

not celebrate Christmas, we don't eat meat. Just one of those things

that others do that we don't. But there are plenty of things that we

do and other don't, so I hope he will not end up feeling too deprived

and weird.

Be well, Hadass

December 18, 2000

Thanks to you Emily!

We have a vegetarian kitchen but we are alone in the extended family with this.

Since we feel our kids need to have all the support and love offered by friends and family we also feel that to undermine their (f & f) choice to eat meat would also .. in the eyes of our children... undermine the value of them as people and also the love and support they have to offer.

We have had to take our vegan and vegetarian friends aside from time to time and explain to them that although they are blessed with external influences who don't eat meat and discussions of immorality, disgustingness, evils, cruelty... whatever... may be appropriate in those circles in defense of our extended units (whom we find quite valuable as role models for other things ), and for the benefit of the children, we choose not to single out the behavior of *meat eating* as so horrible that we cannot still embrace them with love and understanding and hopefully eventual enlightenment.

And you are right about lifestyles, we consider it a lifestyle and not an adgenda or a political statement or even a cause, our choice is personal and was not adopted so we could conform to a group or become experts in spouting rhetoric about health statistics or land use or leather/furs or the equality of all " Gods " creatures or anything like that, it was a personal choice decided by my husband and i separately for our own reasons before we even met. Even as vegetarians we get put off by pushy vegetarians. we have often laughed and said the only thing worse than a reformed smoker is a vegetarian with a " cause " .

We have been praised as guests countless times for not exhibiting the " expected " behavior of raving about the dead turkey at the family thanksgiving table, after all in our world we are the odd ones out. We choose to take the first step in modeling the behavior of tolerance and recognition of differences and it really puts the host's at ease and eliminates opening the crack in the door for taunting or rudeness by others. We are also seeing more care taken in preparation of " alternative foods " in an attempt by our friends and family to recognise our diets. it is a slow process but we have actually enjoyed countless family gatherings filled with wonderful lasting memories for us and our children instead of avoiding those gatherings because dead animals will be there and missing out on the family bonding.

thank you again for your words. tolerance, acceptance, the joy of our friends, neighbors, family and teachers is a good thing.

Peace, love and understanding,

dawne, chris, nana, coop and em...

Emily Goodin <emilyg28 Monday, December 18, 2000 9:15 AM meateaters are our friends, neighbors, etc.Hi all,Something Sara said made me think of writing. I don't mean to pick onyou personally, Sara, and *inside* I feel the same as you about thedisgusting-ness of people eating meat, but I don't know if that worduse is the best for the kids. I mean, most people eat animals, andthose people are our neighbors, classmates, and sometimes our bestfriends.I use the word " sad " when I'm talking about the eating of meat, not " disgusting. " I want to inspire the feeling of sympathy for theanimals, and even for the people, who have been " trained " to eatanimals by their parents and they don't know another way to eat.Personally, I also think of our vegetarianism as kind of analogous toa " religion " - for us it's a way of living, living with more attentionto our role in the environmental balance, the spiritual connection toanimals, etc. To most people out there, eating meat is sort of their " religion " and even if they are " educated " by us as to the superiorityof our religion, they still stick to theirs because it's morecomfortable for them.... The religion analogy also works, I think,because I believe we should try to have tolerance for those of otherreligions, even those who are meat-eaters. Maybe our tolerance andgood will can lead to their conversion to our " religion " someday.Just a thought.Warmly, EmilyFor 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.