Children as significant others...

[Guest guest]

Well, my understanding is that the children are significant others, too, with

their own learning and developmental processes, and that your reading and

learning about these realities will help you educate, foster, and serve them and

their development and long-term interests better.

 

Prevent cancers of the breast, colon, and prostate begins in infancy and

childhood, but that's in part a result of parental oversight and guidance.

 

Though many conservatives talk about " parental rights, " everyone has a vested

interested in it. Yet parenting is not merely a question of one parent's

" rights " as opposed to the " rights " of the other parent to work out parochial

interests on or in the child.

 

Further, children make their own decisions. But talk with some of those singled

(divorced?) vegetarian parents who are trying to make a go of it alone, with an

" ex " who isn't veggie, who takes the children away to another location on

weekends, or who relinquishes them on weekends, and ask how much influence

either parent has at that time... IMO the greater influences in those

situations would be classmates and age-similar neighbors, and perhaps TV and

other media influences.

 

If I consider any side's interests in warfare, there are many variables which

either side might overlook, but no one's interest is ever BEST served in the

longrun by warfare; the establishment of just, stable, and longlasting peace is

in EVERYONE's longlasting interest, though that historical realization may seem

impossible, or at least very difficult.

 

Sorry to parallel domestic disputes with geopolitical instability and

intransigent international and intergroups conflicts. It's hardly on that

scale, but local police will tell you that sometimes lives are jeopardized, and

I surely hope that you can keep conflicts limited to a manageable level.

 

I'm not particularly interested in going to war for another species, though many

vegetarians and vegans are willing to do so. That rivals what is called

patriotism, but I don't do that. I'm more in the " pacifist " wing of

vegetarianism, and I'd work for reconciliation in truth.

 

When folks finally realize the benfits of plant-based diets, perhaps there will

be " Truth and Reconciliation Commissions " as there are in the Union of South

Africa.

 

Right now, we have conflicts with which we need to learn to live.

 

And there are some really likable persons on both sides of any controversy,

perhaps folks who, were the sides gerrymandered a little differently, would not

be working for the opposition.

 

" All tastes are learned and acquired, " I've often said, but perhaps all ideas

and values and attitudes are learned, sometimes subtly, sometimes through direct

instruction, sometimes by deciding about what information is presently

available.

 

Will you work it out? I surely hope so.

 

As a liberal minister once explained to me, when he told me that he really was

an atheistic existentialist on the model of Jean-Paul Sartre:

" People can change, and I believe in personal change. But change requires the

conditions for change, and that means loving and struggling with people for that

change. "

That's where he found that mandate for working with juvenile ex-offenders.

 

I'd tend to stay out of intimate relationships where conflict is likely, and I'd

be predisposed to wait for a better bet. But I'm also pretty sure that, now

that I've had decades to reflect on the potentials of such situations, I'd wait,

but I'd also try to make a go of things and work out issues, were I involved in

a marriage of that sort. However, that's ONLY hypothetical, and I don't know

what my experience would be like inside such an imbroglio.

 

There are economic issues, too, where there's community property (house, cars,

etc.), and re-establishing oneself economically can be deeply problematic for

divorced or separated parents, as it is for widowed parents.

 

Community support is also important, and IMO the SDA's are a nice group, if it

comes to that, since they're very, very, very friendly to vegetarianism (and

even veganism -- with a great deal of ideological support for the native

individual's being vegetarian).

 

Yes, a nice group, but a pagan is hardly likely to look in that direction --

EXCEPT that the SDA's see the vegetarianism as coming from the original CREATION

(e.g. nature, through God), and how much further can a " pagan " look for ultimate

reality but " right here " ?

 

But, in the best of all possible worlds, there would be deeply mature local

vegetarian societies everywhere with children's educational programs, a lore and

body of knowledge and community resources (schools, educational kits, music,

art, buses and fun educational trips) to support both the children and their

families. But -- alas and alack -- the vegetarians in North America seem

disinterested in an energetic program of building local vegetarian societies.

 

We're left with scrounging for whatever local vegetarian networks we can find -

locally, online, in print, or at annual continental or regional conferences and

other events. That's not much, nor is it a reliable foundation for rearing

children. Sometimes those resources, those networks aren't much more than " an

occasional outing " to children, but that's what there is, like it or not, and

that's about all that there is, except as potentials, except in our minds and

imaginations, except in the yet unrealized historical unfolding that may not be

(but yet could be).

 

Maynard S. Clark

Crystal Huyghe <paganveg wrote: No problem... Your question

actually made me think of what I can do to better the situation and strengthen

my relationship with my husband... I totally disagree with his attitude, as he

disagrees with mine, but in ALL relationships there is [supposed to be]

compromise... He's agreed not to judge the way I feed my children when he is

working and I've agreed to let him feed them how he chooses when he is home...

I am the main one to teach my children morals, values and to put food on their

table... I know my family will not come around to see my point of view;however,

that does not mean that my children won't... My family has agreed to respect

what my children choose to eat...

 

I can only hope that one day my little Victoria will go to school and tell the

teacher that humans do NOT have to eat meat in order to be healthy and have a

respectful debate in DEFENSE of vegetarinaism at school... She is NOT taught by

me that meat is an essential part of diet... ( and out of all who she spends

time with she usually thinks mommy is the one who is right)...

 

 

 

 

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[Guest guest]

Although off-topic, can you explain what these commissions are all

about?

 

>>...there will be " Truth and Reconciliation Commissions " as there are

in the Union of South Africa.<<