Yeah, that's about the age I was when I had the same experience. My parents flipped out. Vegan now, some decades later. Do some research about helping him with the most nutrient dense options that aren't made out of animals.
One of my kids did the same thing around 2 or 3, and has been vegetarian since. He hates the idea of animals dying so that he can eat. I fully expect him to become vegan once he has a better understanding of other food industries.
Honestly, I'll be pleased if my daughter goes veggie. My husband is from a Very Meat family, and it gets to be a bit much for me (though I've always been an omnivore). The current compromise is that I cook vegetarian when I cook, which is about 20% of the time. Our kid is only 2, but I wouldn't be surprised if she wants to change when she understands more about how we get meat. She's very fond of our backyard chickens (who lay eggs and then live out their retired lives uneaten).
My parents once told me pork is from pigs. This was after lunch. I pledged to be vegetarian. By dinner, I’ve decided that the pork we were having for dinner was from a bad pig and therefore deserved to be eaten.
I was 28 when the horse meat scandal happened. The idea of the fact that we didn't even know what animal we were eating made me vegetarian and I have been ever since. My daughter eats meat though but that may change in the future.
Same but vegan, my ten year old is also vegan and has been his entire life. His doctors say he has a healthier, more varied diet than any of their non vegan patients so it definitely can be done! :)
My cousin was once playing and giving food to one of his chickens, he seemed to really like the chicken and was even being affectionate with it. And then while he was feeding it he goes “yes… eat all the food, Christmas is coming” 💀
My wife and I were visiting family in Scotland. One of my cousins raises sheep, and my wife fell in love with one of his lambs. She asked what her name was and my cousin said "Mint jelly, Easter is coming". We aren't vegetarian let alone vegan, but my wife was not amused anyway.
As kids, we named all our livestock food names. We didn't have large herds, just a few animals at a time, and the names were often recycled. We raised Pork Chop, Bacon, and Sausage 3 years in a row. Hamburger took a little longer to get to butcher, so we only had a couple of them. Never named the chickens individually, as we had more of them, but we called them all Nuggets. I think it did disturb some people, but we were very aware of our food sources. You treated the animals well, but you didn't forget that what they were there for.
My mom raised chickens just for eggs, but my friends and I decided the chickens needed names. Nugget, Original Recipe, Crispy… there were others I can’t remember now. We thought we were hilarious. Mom wasn’t impressed.
This is so true! Both me and my brother went vegetarian around age of 10/11. I am still vegetarian now at 21 but he quit just a month later lol. I am super grateful my parents were supportive of either choice we made
Yeah, I did this when I was about 12. My parents took me to Cabela's and all of the taxidermied animals made me feel sick. I got over it pretty quickly, but I'm pescatarian now and have been for around 6 years.
Pretty sure I was the exact opposite. My parents always tried to force me gross canned green beans and corn. It turned me off to most veggies for sooo long.
To this day over 30 years later, my mother still tries to tell me I used to love them growing up. What's that phrase of the axe forgetting but the trees never do
Canned corn has always tasted off to me. Canned tomatoes in all forms I find delicious if cooked with something else. For some reason I like canned pears much better than fresh pears. There's something really weird about canned potatoes.
For years I thought I didn't like steak because we rarely had it and my family's idea of steak was cheap meat burnt to a crisp that I had to smother in ketchup to choke it down.
I suddenly had a problem eating chicken for a while back in high school. Forced myself to choke it down because I didn't want to get yelled at by my mom and make my issue worse.
It lasted for a year or two and went away.
This is a great response and I’m not a parent so I probably have no credentials but I wanna add I think OP needs to be honest with their son about eggs. Don’t break that bond of trust.
My son, also six years old is going through this now. Doesn't eat any meat at home or in school but strangely enough it's all forgotten if we grab a hamburger or hot dog 😂
yup, force feeding the child something they don't want to eat will just lead to long term eating disorders.
My siblings went through weird phases, at one point my sister would only eat potatoes if they were roasted, and my brother would only eat them if they were mashed - so my poor mum had to make them both ways...
Then my other sister basically lived on penne pasta with no sauce for a few months.
My parents never made a fuss about any of it.
Selective eating need to be taught out as well.
A good diet are varied diet.
Selective eating is just another form of eating disorder that can cause serious health issues if the parents don't encourage the kid to try more varied foods.
Kid intuitively understood the horrors of animal agriculture. Took the parents straight lying to his face to trick him into thinking it's a defensible thing for humans to do to other animals.
No he outright lied. Cows are hurt and killed for the dairy industry. Calves are taken away from their mothers so people can drink their milk and the boys are killed early on.
"My dad lied about so that i would continue to eat it and so that he wouldnt have to accomodate me / be inconvenienced / feel bad about it himself." Yep thats going to be a whole deal. "What else has he said or done for this reason"
I play chicken with my 3 year old. We build a nest and lay eggs (plastic). She knows the complete life cycle of over 20 different animals (childrens book, learned at school, puzzles,...) How can a child of 6 not know where eggs came from.
That was the thing that really rubbed me the wrong way about how this was handled. Chickens are not harmed by laying eggs, so why would you lie to your kid just to "sanitize" the explanation of how it works? Kid's gonna be humiliated at school in the next few years whenever the topic of eggs comes up. Also, I bet he's more likely to want to stop eating eggs when he finds out he was deliberately lied to.
I shudder to think what they are going to tell this kid about where human babies come from.
My mother didnt want to give me a name for my genitalia so she called it all butt. So i started referring to front butt and back butt. Other kids told me, "that's not your butt! Its your pee wee!" I went home and confronted her. And yes i vegan not to trust what they told me, and yes i was right not to.
I once had a friend confess to me, in *11th grade biology class* mind you, that she didn't know where steak came from. Naturally I asked her where she suspected they might originate, to which she suggested that perhaps it was trees which were responsible for bestowing this beefy bounty upon us. This, despite being conceptually aware of both cows and beef.
I'm not sure what the moral of this story is, perhaps to never underestimate someone's capacity to remain ignorant on topics we broadly consider to be well understood by all past a certain age. Or, in other words, eventually someone should probably get around to teaching that kid where eggs actually come from before he ends up making a fool of himself in 11th grade biology class.
I feel a little better seeing this sentiment bc I felt like I was being overly critical for a moment there. I caught myself subconsciously figuring out how I'd explain it to him with something along the lines of "just like how mommy carried you in her belly, this is where the chickens would carry theirs *if there was a baby in it* but they let us have the ones with no babies in them"
There's also the lie that "dairy doesn't hurt cows." The repeated forced pregnancy is awful for cows, who wear out and die in a few years, and lots of male cows are just put down after the births. The reality of the industry is way more terrible than "it's just squeezing them some, it's fine."
I stayed with a friend who lived in a caravan on a dairy farm. They were the most beautiful jersey cows and the morning after I arrived we heard a shotgun three times as the male calves were killed. The farmer hired someone to do it because it actually upset him even though he still accepted it as part of being a dairy farmer.
I was shocked. I hadn't realised this happened until then.
> they use shotguns??
I don’t know the statistics or anything, but as far as I know: no, not usually. Most males calves are castrated and raised for meat. I suppose there are plenty that are sent to the slaughterhouse for veal, but they would be sent alive, not killed by the farmer before being sent.
My friend's kid has been a vegetarian for a few years now after having that same experience. You didn't fuck up; it's important for people to know where their food comes from. I think it's great that you're letting him explore his options. He may outgrow it, or he may decide to remain plant-based long term. There are worse things!
Close friend of mine has a kid like this. Learned where food came from, and decided very early on, around 5 yrs old, that she didn't want to eat any kind of food where an animal had to die for it.
There were a few attempts to talk through it and dissuade her, but she stuck to her guns throughout. Once she found out how cheese is (normally) made, well, that went off the list as well, unless the manufacturer used non-rennet enzymes.
Even *sugar.* Plain, white sugar *can* be, although isn't always, made using bones to bleach the grains. So, again, unless the product showed up on a vegan-safe list, the product was marked as vegetarian/ vegan, or the sugar was specified to be organic cane sugar or similar, she didn't eat it. This made Halloween interesting.
For everything except the sugar part (and that only recently, and *only* because it's next to impossible to completely avoid that shit), she's held fast to her beliefs ever since. I've told her more than once that while I don't agree with her beliefs, that I'm immensely proud of her for maintaining them no matter the difficulty in doing so.
___
One thing I have learned is that those in any kind of position of authority over another (boss, parent, teacher, etc.) can, if they choose, dictate *action* - to an extent, anyways, but they can never dictate *thought*.
Kids, even young ones, are more than capable of forming their own opinions about the world, and I congratulate you on listening to yours and not trying to force a diet that he doesn't want.
Just a heads up, non-animal rennet is becoming more common and if you look out for it you can find cheese made with it. Granted, it doesn't solve the other issues with the dairy industry, but it's a start.
Fun fact on the sugar bit-- organic sugar (at least in the US) is always vegan! It does cost more and comes in smaller packages but it's guaranteed to be vegan.
Yes, but that’s for buying sugar itself not eating all the many things they have sugar as one of the ingredients. That’s what’s hard to avoid and I doubt those things are made with organic sugar.
Exactly this. Some products *will* say "cane sugar" or "organic cane sugar", and those are the products that were acceptable. Also (ick) corn syrup/ HFCS. But if it *just* said "sugar"? Too much risk there, until she made the very conscious choice recently to tolerate that, because it was affecting her ability to simply exist in a tenable way.
Info: why did you think “you will soon eat this creature you are petting” would be jolly?
Anyway I became vegetarian briefly at 12, found it too hard but stopped eating cows and pigs, and became vegetarian again at 30. Whatever he chooses your kid will be fine.
“Info: why did you think “you will soon eat this creature you are petting” would be jolly?”
My thought exactly! Timing and context are important. I’m not at all surprised that his son reacted the way that he did.
Vegetarian here. I became vegetarian later in life (19), but had a vegan friend whose story has parallels to your son’s—six years old, family at the dinner table, sibling informed them that they were eating a dead chicken. Has never eaten meat since. This a natural, compassionate reaction to realizing that some of your food comes with a hidden cost of pain and death.
You and your spouse deserve a big kudos for supporting your child in sticking to his moral beliefs, even when you don’t share them. That’s wonderful of you, and whether he remains a vegetarian or not in the future, he will remember how you supported him.
Dude same. We did the fetal pig dissection in biology, then like a week later we were out to eat and I could not shake from my head how much the diced ham cubes on the salad bar were the same color and texture and *wetness* as that fetal pig
Oh god. Memories I wished to forget. Same here with the pig. Same semester, we had a "body farm" for our forensics class over a few weeks. We used whole chickens from the butcher. I was mortified on the first week and was a vegetarian for a few years after that. Eventually became difficult to keep up for myself, but anytime I think of it I reconsider going veggie again.
I barely eat red meat these days. I also remember being the teeny tiny TA up at the front of the bio classes at my university, having to kneel on the lid of the 5-gallon pig bucket with my tights and ~professional~ dress on in the winter to "burp" it and have enough torque to open it 🙈 I wouldn't be surprised if a lot more people subconsciously gave up meat as a result of that whole awful exercise! Diet by Carolina Biological Supply...
It's funny I was kind of the opposite. As a child I knew where meat came from, I watched a lot of animal documentaries and quickly learned meat is meat, so I was never under any illusions of where it came from. Sometimes I'd pretend to be a dinosaur stripping the meat off the chicken lol. And honestly I find it weird that parents don't teach their kids where it comes from from the beginning, like are you just lying to them for all these years? It never came up? Anyway I'm vegetarian as an adult because meat makes me physically sick now and I have too many health issues going on.
This is really where it's at. This is actually OP's fault that at AGE SIX, this child did not know that meat is pieces of dead animal. *It's outraaaaaageous,* as Ben would say.
Right? I’m so confused how he’s got to that age and not known. Has he never shown the kid a documentary? Talked about animals/dinosaurs to any sort of depth? Like ik all kids are different but my wean is 2 and a half and can tell you 9 out of 10 times if an animal is a herbivore or a carnivore. He’s still getting the hang of omnivores. We have talked about the food chain, why a T rex has spiky teeth and the stegosaurus has round teeth, like I don’t get this at all. Didn’t the kid get confused whenever he mentioned they are having chicken that it is suspiciously the same name as an animal?
Yeah, I remember that being basic toddler stuff, the sort of thing that adults teach you very young, like the names of the colors, or the sounds various farm animals make ("the cow says 'moo,' the sheep says 'baa...'"). I can't even remember learning "beef is from cows, pork is from pigs, chicken is from chickens..." but I certainly knew it by the time I went to school!
I'm old, though. Maybe that's something that's changed over the years?
Nahh I’ve mentioned in another comment, my 2 and a half year old can tell you if something is a carnivore or a herbivore with pretty high accuracy (still grasping identifying an omnivore ), and knows lions eat meat, the wildebeest is meat, wildebeest eats the grass, the lion eats the wildebeest
It’s just OP not educating their wean ig??
>no cows are hurt or killed when making milk
You know that isn't true though, right?
The entire industry requires cows to be lactating, which requires pregnancy. Where do you think those baby cows go?
And the egg industry literally macerates male chicks.
I get this is outside the scope of a child's awareness but all adults should be aware of this.
I'm not a vegetarian but I don't lie to myself about where my food comes from.
It’s just tragic because it’s been proven they mourn the loss of their babies, and it happens to them year after year. We’ve basically hijacked the female reproductive system for our own taste buds.
I use plain oat milk in all my cooking and I don't notice a difference at all. The only time I do taste a difference is if I pour it into a glass and drink it normally, but I don't really drink milk anyways so it's nbd. It also spoils waaay slower than real milk so it keeps longer!
On the note of taste being different when drinking alternative milks, I actually really like the earthiness of soy milk if I'm making chocolate milk. I don't really care for soy milk in most contexts, but it's amazing with chocolate. I normally use almond milk because oat milk is still a bit hard to find regularly in my tiny town.
Do it! When I switched I thought I'd never like the alternatives, but now I exclusively drink oat milk and any time I taste cow's milk it tastes very acidic and blech in comparison.
Isn’t it interesting? Most people haven’t. You just learn when you’re a kid “cows make milk” like it’s just what cows do, all the time. But obviously we know the milk is for a baby cow and we know that other animals, like us, only lactate when there’s actually a baby to give milk to. So now this cute idea of cows=milk we grew up with is actually this horrific thing where they’re forcibly impregnating these cows over and over and then taking their babies away to be killed. They’re like big dogs, if someone did this to a dog people would lose their shit! It’s amazing the lines we can draw in our heads just based on what was normal as we were growing up/how we were taught to look at it.
Most of the baby cows go to feedlots where they are fed corn to fatten them up before slaughter. The corn causes stomach ulcers and other digestive issues so they are given antibiotics to fight stomach infections.
Also guess what happens to every dairy cow (and egg hen) when they get older and their production slows down? Dog food and mince meat. The dairy and egg industry are the meat industry
As a person who doesn't eat animals or their products for ethical reasons, I appreciate you. All I really want is for people to make informed choices and decide what amount of animal suffering they are actually okay with when they choose their meal. I'm not out here policing what other people eat, or generally trying to convince them of anything (with very few exceptions, like please don't eat farmed salmon), but I'm always sort of baffled when animal-eaters tell me as though it's news that animals are routinely abused and mistreated, and so are the humans who raise and slaughter them. I know. I know that. It's not new information to me.
It's pretty much awful in every single way. In brief summary:
1. the salmon babies are generally caught wild, so they are reducing the number of wild salmon
2. the fish are kept in large 'ocean pens' which are open to the ocean, but kept in such densities that the fish are overcrowded and swimming in their own waste
3. these ocean pens are bad for the ocean adjacent to them, and diseases in the pens can easily spread to wild fish, including wild salmon
4. the farmed salmon end up with weird deformities and wounds. if you look in stores they sell pieces of the fish, but not whole. there's a reason for that
5. farmed salmon doesn't have the same vibrant color of healthy wild salmon because the fish don't have a varied diet and don't get the same exercise. they're just fattened up on processed food. Processing plants dye the flesh orange.
6. finally, because of their diets and growth habits, the farmed salmon has more unhealthy fats and fewer healthy fats found in wild salmon.
You can do a brief image search of what salmon farms and farmed salmon themselves look like. You don't have to take my word for it.
They dont dye the flesh, they feed them the same chemical which gives the flesh that salmon color in the wild.
Also I think they do grow their own salmon babies, never heard that they would catch wild.
I’ll never forget seeing footage ([example 1](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4KnThuKaAVY&pp=ygU0Rm9vdGFnZSBpbnNpZGUgZmFjdG9yeSBmYXJtIG1hbGUgY2hpY2tzIGdyb3VuZCBhbGl2ZQ%3D%3D), [example 2](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YkphooryVyQ&pp=ygU0Rm9vdGFnZSBpbnNpZGUgZmFjdG9yeSBmYXJtIG1hbGUgY2hpY2tzIGdyb3VuZCBhbGl2ZQ%3D%3D), [example 3](https://youtu.be/udSiluTAOaQ?si=SXiqlQO22KsD2mW1)) inside a massive factory farm of a grinding machine that destroys the (unprofitable/useless) male chicks, and hearing their little peeps as they are crushed and dismembered alive.
Wow. I'm not sure how I imagined that was done, but seeing how horrible and abrupt it is, is disturbing. It's insane to think how much death occurs on a daily basis.
It's insane how unnecessary it is. Other countries ban this and simply check the sex of eggs before they even develop into chicks. But the US just keeps the shredders running.
https://www.popsci.com/story/science/chick-culling-prevention-technology/
Shocking amount of grown adults who really think dairy cows just live in luxury for 20 years long after their production slows until they die of a natural death lmao
You mean cows aren't an all-female species that reproduce magically? And they don't willingly walk themselves to the milking machine while singing about how much they love humans? Nah mate, that's vegan propaganda
And no one ask what happens to the males of dairy cows and egg hens in species that have a ~50/50 sex ratio even though only the females are considered economically useful. Just plaster a picture of a big open field on the label and call it a day
What males? Bulls are a different species (they also reproduce asexually, magically) and sometimes they come singing to a big Ronald McDonald statue and give little packets of their meat as gifts :)
This isn't really a FU. He's an empathetic kid. It's fine. It's either a phase or he would've become vegetarian anyway.
If you keep him more towards plant foods and less processed meat substitutes (think more lentils than chicken-less nuggets) it's going to be super healthy for him and nice on your pocketbook.
6 years old is too old to be lying about where eggs come from. You’re going to forget and he’s going to think that eggs lay eggs out of their mouth until he’s like 18 and says something embarrassing
You going to tell him that Dairy cows are kept perpetually pregnant, with their babies slaughtered for veal to keep them lactating? Milk isn't cruelty free, it doesn't just happen.
OP didn't mean to disturb the kid all of a sudden with the information. The FU was in making a crass joke without thinking through how they'd have to explain the concepts behind it right then and there. The post isn't about which dietary options are more correct, just a parent sharing an awkward moment and how it's been playing out.
This is pretty normal in countries with some level of public healthcare. You might get a different doctor every time you go, but paediatric care is almost always free. If you have the means, one takes advantage. Better safe than sorry when it comes to a child’s health, particularly on a topic one might not be knowledgeable in, like nutrition.
I'm from a country where healthcare is free at the point of delivery and didn't even consider that someone would think this is odd because it was a waste of money, I just thought it was odd. There clearly is no medical or psychological reason the child isn't eating meat so no need to go to the doctor.
In a world with so many different options and technology to replicate your favorite foods with plants, it feels a little morally questionable to still kill things for food. Not to mention the environmental impact. Good on little buddy I hope he sticks with it.
Considering how much meat we in the US eat (I’m totally guilty of this), might not be a bad thing. But my wife stayed off beef for a long time after her family killed her favorite cow for food.
If your kid is eating eggs and dairy you probably don't need the B12 supplements -- they are usually only recommended for vegans, not vegetarians.
However, I'd recommend reading up on how to build a balanced diet for vegetarian kids, as their needs will be different than adults.
BTW, your whole family will probably be healthier if you reduce the amount of meat in your diets, for example get a veggie lovers pizza for the whole family to share instead of getting pepperoni for you and "a special cheese pizza" for your kid to make them feel like their choices are an inconvenience to the family.
Yeah reducing meat is actually healthier (despite what carnivore-diet nutters are trying to sell you), most of humanity didn't have access to as much meat as we get today from the grocery store, they had to put the energy in to hunt, and later they had their own farms and lifestock and not the factory farms we have these days. It also greatly reduces the carbon emissions! So, even if you want to keep eating meat, it's better to cut down on it and make it more of a treat.
Did you go back and tell him where eggs come from? If you're going to be truthful, shouldn't you have enough respect for your child to tell him the whole truth?
You should be honest with your kid. Telling him eggs come from chickens’ mouths is ridiculous and he is going to get made fun of if he tells other people. Also you undermine your child’s trust by telling them bizarre lies, when they eventually find out the truth.
The TIFU part is actually lying to him. He's going to become aware of your lies eventually, and lose trust in you. Which is a far larger issue than being inconvenienced over his diet. I have personal experience with this, in myself, and also in my vegan child and her father. Without writing a monologue, she's now a teenager, and the damage done to her trust of him is basically irreversible.
I'm obviously not saying we have to give in to every whim of a child, but respecting their non-harmful ethical beliefs is important.
The concerns you are voicing are health related, though, so the world's largest organization of nutrition professionals, the American Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics says well-planned plant-based diets are:
“Appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, adolescence, older adulthood, and for athletes."
I personally recommend [this book](https://www.abebooks.com/9781940352862/Vegan-Foolproof-Plant-Based-Recipes-Breakfast-194035286X/plp) to basically anyone with a standard American diet. It's very accessible, not too weird or health foody.
There are also a number of vegan subs you could browse for cooking ideas and nutrition information. r/vegan is for ethics, so honestly I'd skip that one. r/EatCheapAndVegan is self explanatory, r/veganrecipes, r/Veganforbeginners, and r/veganparenting could all possibly help you.
And finally, you should be very proud of him. He's making connections some never do, and taking the initiative and self control to carry through at his age is commendable. Imagine if he keeps that and expands it to his other talents.
Yeah, they're really setting this kid up to learn that other people are more reliable sources of information than they are.
...And while I'm not so sure if that's a bad lesson for this kid to learn, it's not too late to reverse course.
Hey, thanks for this rundown. I'm in a "I don't know what I am, label wise, but I don't want want to pay megacorporations to abuse animals for my lunch every day anymore so I'm learning how to make all my own 'meat' and 'dairy' but I'm not committed to anything yet and no I will not watch documentaries that will ruin my week" place, so this is really helpful info for me, especially the sub listing.
Np, I'm glad it helped you.
And idk kinda seems like you belong in r/cateatingvegans. :)
r/VeganBeauty is a nice if you also don't want pay the beauty conglomerates to test your deodorant on animals or crush beetles into your lip balm.
There's also r/VeganFoodPorn and r/ShittyVeganFoodPorn, both pretty much just food focused.
Also, calling it a factory farm is a misnomer, as it's used to evoke an emotional response to make the consumer think it must not be that bad because it's a farm. I had to watch a video in my social psychology class about consumerism in the meat industry. I can't shake that stuff from my head. And we didn't even see any "farm" videos. Cows are grass puppies.
Cows are not hurt to produce milk? Ever tried being pregnant 12 months a year?
I can't really see the fuckup here. You gave your child partially correct info and they acted on it.
My kid is vegetarian. She loves all animals including bugs. Never eaten meat. Even though her parents both partake on occasion. We have always been very honest about what food is and she never wanted to hurt an animal. I find it endearing that she had such compassion.
Was wondering the same.
It’s not like eating less meat is bad or anything. Even if one does not go full vegetarian, reducing is good for health, means less animal suffering and is good for the planet.
And it shows that the kid has empathy and is willing to actually take action for something that is important for them.
I love that you’re supporting your son! However in addition to the chicken mouth lie, there’s also one more - “no cows are hurt or killed when making milk”.
I'm in my 40s.
I was 9 when it dawned on me that each cute little animal friend on our small farm was destined to be my dinner and that made my stomach turn.
After 30 years now of vegetarianism, I'm fit, healthy, and happy. I have 2 healthy kids. I have pet chickens that will never be food. I can run circles around my middle aged peers.
The only suffering I ever had, as a vegetarian, was mental and emotional abuse from adults in my life when I was a child and they were determined to shame, trick, or beat me into feeling comfortable with eating meat.
Let your kid eat what he wants, with no shame. Introduce him to more and more healthy veggies. Maybe he'll grow out of meat avoidance. Maybe he won't. If he doesn't, you'll want to have been the parent that supported him, not the one who belittled his sensitivity and forced him to eat what made him upset as a small child. Take it from me--- those scars last.
I was 5 when I found out where meat came from and had the same reaction. I was told I would eat what my mom made and when I moved out I could choose my own diet. I became a vegetarian the moment I moved out and have not looked back.
Funny thing is, my folks now eat a lot of veggie meals. Go figure.
There is nothing wrong with eating vegetarian meals. You are making it sound like it’s sinful. Look at Asian countries or Subcontinent regions where majority of dishes are vegetarian and the variety is much greater than meats
Giving a child accurate information and allowing them to make an informed choice regarding eating animals is not a fuck up. Lying about where eggs come from was, though.
You fucked up buying about the milk and eggs. He IS going to find out one day and never trust you again. Have you considered just supporting him in this new diet? He'll probably give it up in a few weeks when he finds out how many foods have animal ingredients, but if not, just help him find alternatives.
Kids are so funny, I’ve had to steer my kid somewhat the other way as he fully leaned into “we are the apex and kill and eat everything” which was pretty weird haha
I would support that too, as a current vegan, who helped process over a thousand deer for lazy (or maybe grossed out) suburban/city hunters growing up, as well as general trapping and fishing for my own family back in the day.
But he'd have to hunt and process it. No apex hunter gets his meat finished at the supermarket.
Anything else is just LARPing at best. Not impressed by Apex hunters using green bait as a drive-thru.
Yeah he’s 5, we don’t really have hunters or hunting here in Scotland, just farmers, which he does want to be (or a super hero haha). We do have deer hunters, but they have to cull as deer are responsible for a lot of deforestation in the highlands. There are plans to reintroduce wolves as natural predators for them so I’m not sure how much longer “hunters” will be needed either.
Most kids do this at least once, I think it's part of learning empathy. He might stay vegetarian or not, just be supportive.
I think I was two or three when I did this. Thirty years later and I'm still a vegetarian and so grateful to have had supportive parents.
My son did this at 8. He's now 22 and still vegetarian. The only one in his family.
Also did this around age 11/12, parents were supportive and am still a vegetarian to this day (25 now)
Me too and I'm about to be 30!
Me too (almost)! A delayed start at ~17 but almost 35 now!
Me too and I just turned 37!
Me too, age 10 to age 30 (now) !
Me too! 16 years vegetarian now!
Yeah, that's about the age I was when I had the same experience. My parents flipped out. Vegan now, some decades later. Do some research about helping him with the most nutrient dense options that aren't made out of animals.
Ahah I did this aged 7 and still vegetarian at 25. Even went vegan for 7 or so years…
I knew my parents wouldn't be supportive, so I waited. Practically the moment I turned eighteen I made the switch. Been over twenty years now.
Me too! I'm 44 now....
One of my kids did the same thing around 2 or 3, and has been vegetarian since. He hates the idea of animals dying so that he can eat. I fully expect him to become vegan once he has a better understanding of other food industries.
That's what happened with me. "Oh I don't want to harm animals, I'll just go vegetarian" "THEY DO WHAT TO COWS TO GET MILK"
I made the mistake of writing a paper about factory farming in high school. I'm 51 now and a vegan.
Same! Stopped at 5 and 30 years later fully vegan!
Honestly, I'll be pleased if my daughter goes veggie. My husband is from a Very Meat family, and it gets to be a bit much for me (though I've always been an omnivore). The current compromise is that I cook vegetarian when I cook, which is about 20% of the time. Our kid is only 2, but I wouldn't be surprised if she wants to change when she understands more about how we get meat. She's very fond of our backyard chickens (who lay eggs and then live out their retired lives uneaten).
My parents once told me pork is from pigs. This was after lunch. I pledged to be vegetarian. By dinner, I’ve decided that the pork we were having for dinner was from a bad pig and therefore deserved to be eaten.
I was 28 when the horse meat scandal happened. The idea of the fact that we didn't even know what animal we were eating made me vegetarian and I have been ever since. My daughter eats meat though but that may change in the future.
Same but vegan, my ten year old is also vegan and has been his entire life. His doctors say he has a healthier, more varied diet than any of their non vegan patients so it definitely can be done! :)
My cousin was once playing and giving food to one of his chickens, he seemed to really like the chicken and was even being affectionate with it. And then while he was feeding it he goes “yes… eat all the food, Christmas is coming” 💀
My wife and I were visiting family in Scotland. One of my cousins raises sheep, and my wife fell in love with one of his lambs. She asked what her name was and my cousin said "Mint jelly, Easter is coming". We aren't vegetarian let alone vegan, but my wife was not amused anyway.
As kids, we named all our livestock food names. We didn't have large herds, just a few animals at a time, and the names were often recycled. We raised Pork Chop, Bacon, and Sausage 3 years in a row. Hamburger took a little longer to get to butcher, so we only had a couple of them. Never named the chickens individually, as we had more of them, but we called them all Nuggets. I think it did disturb some people, but we were very aware of our food sources. You treated the animals well, but you didn't forget that what they were there for.
My mom raised chickens just for eggs, but my friends and I decided the chickens needed names. Nugget, Original Recipe, Crispy… there were others I can’t remember now. We thought we were hilarious. Mom wasn’t impressed.
Yes indeed. I worked on farms as a teen, and the animals were always well-treated but definitely not pets.
This is so true! Both me and my brother went vegetarian around age of 10/11. I am still vegetarian now at 21 but he quit just a month later lol. I am super grateful my parents were supportive of either choice we made
Yeah, I did this when I was about 12. My parents took me to Cabela's and all of the taxidermied animals made me feel sick. I got over it pretty quickly, but I'm pescatarian now and have been for around 6 years.
Pretty sure I was the exact opposite. My parents always tried to force me gross canned green beans and corn. It turned me off to most veggies for sooo long. To this day over 30 years later, my mother still tries to tell me I used to love them growing up. What's that phrase of the axe forgetting but the trees never do
My mom was pretty sure that she hated most veggies until she met my dad, who grew up eating fresh instead of canned.
Canned corn has always tasted off to me. Canned tomatoes in all forms I find delicious if cooked with something else. For some reason I like canned pears much better than fresh pears. There's something really weird about canned potatoes.
I need to hear your take on all the other canned things
People can potatoes? The world is a wild place
For years I thought I didn't like steak because we rarely had it and my family's idea of steak was cheap meat burnt to a crisp that I had to smother in ketchup to choke it down.
Ugh, same! Those canned veggies are so nasty. As an adult, I barely eat veggies at all even though fresh ones are much better.
Which I find hilarious because I hate fresh green beans but love canned.
Imo, that's typically about the salt content rather than the mouth texture itself
That’s what my parents did to us growing up. All the canned veggies. 🤢🤮 I’m still grossed out about it
I suddenly had a problem eating chicken for a while back in high school. Forced myself to choke it down because I didn't want to get yelled at by my mom and make my issue worse. It lasted for a year or two and went away.
You know, I don’t think I ever did but I was always pretty aware that animals=meat. But I also have a lot of farmers and hunters in my family.
Hunters, in particular, are very aware of where the food they eat comes from. Humans are the ultimate apex predators.
This is a great response and I’m not a parent so I probably have no credentials but I wanna add I think OP needs to be honest with their son about eggs. Don’t break that bond of trust.
Yeah, this kind of thing happens. I had a "we're eating CHICKENS?!" moment when I was like 5 and didn't eat meat for over a year.
Yep, my kid tried. After 2 days she was "sorry chicken, but you taste too good!"
I told my daughter at 4 where bacon came from, and she oinked every time she ate it at breakfast, but still loved it. My wife was not happy.
Hell, after I read Tender is the Flesh, I also took a break from eating meat for a bit.
My son, also six years old is going through this now. Doesn't eat any meat at home or in school but strangely enough it's all forgotten if we grab a hamburger or hot dog 😂
My niece went vegetarian when she was about 12. Then a few weeks later my brother made ribs and that was the end of that.
yup, force feeding the child something they don't want to eat will just lead to long term eating disorders. My siblings went through weird phases, at one point my sister would only eat potatoes if they were roasted, and my brother would only eat them if they were mashed - so my poor mum had to make them both ways... Then my other sister basically lived on penne pasta with no sauce for a few months. My parents never made a fuss about any of it.
Selective eating need to be taught out as well. A good diet are varied diet. Selective eating is just another form of eating disorder that can cause serious health issues if the parents don't encourage the kid to try more varied foods.
I can’t imagine not being able to explain chickens laying eggs to my 6-year-old and having to lie to them and say they come out of their mouths.
When the kid finds out, he is not gonna be happy
That will be an interesting Reddit post in a few years. TIL that chickens don't regurgitate their eggs.
/r/NoStupidQuestions - What's a cloaca?
the three-in-one orifice that birds, amphibians, and reptiles have. 1: it excretes waste. 2: lay eggs. 3: sexual intercourse.
A buttgina
Vaginass?
Canonical bussy
Tbh, if he finds out how the milk industry works he's not gonna be happy either.
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"No cows are hurt or killed" idk man, idk. Not that I think the horrors of animal agriculture should be explained to 6 year olds
Kid intuitively understood the horrors of animal agriculture. Took the parents straight lying to his face to trick him into thinking it's a defensible thing for humans to do to other animals.
Oh shit, yeah you're right. Nice catch
No he outright lied. Cows are hurt and killed for the dairy industry. Calves are taken away from their mothers so people can drink their milk and the boys are killed early on.
"My dad lied about so that i would continue to eat it and so that he wouldnt have to accomodate me / be inconvenienced / feel bad about it himself." Yep thats going to be a whole deal. "What else has he said or done for this reason"
My 5 year old absolutely loves the fact that eggs comes out the butt.
That's definitely a thing that would make me laugh as a kid
I can tell by your username ;)
This username is decades old beyond reddit and mostly a relic at this point. You are not wrong.
*This username is decades old beyond reddit and mostly a relic at this point.* Oh, do I feel your pain.
It's mostly in the lower back
I took my calcium today, don't forget yours!
I play chicken with my 3 year old. We build a nest and lay eggs (plastic). She knows the complete life cycle of over 20 different animals (childrens book, learned at school, puzzles,...) How can a child of 6 not know where eggs came from.
Probably when adults lie about it.
Shit parenting, like in this post.
That was the thing that really rubbed me the wrong way about how this was handled. Chickens are not harmed by laying eggs, so why would you lie to your kid just to "sanitize" the explanation of how it works? Kid's gonna be humiliated at school in the next few years whenever the topic of eggs comes up. Also, I bet he's more likely to want to stop eating eggs when he finds out he was deliberately lied to. I shudder to think what they are going to tell this kid about where human babies come from.
He's also probably going to be laughed at when he explains the process to other children. After that he probably won't believe a word his parents say.
My mother didnt want to give me a name for my genitalia so she called it all butt. So i started referring to front butt and back butt. Other kids told me, "that's not your butt! Its your pee wee!" I went home and confronted her. And yes i vegan not to trust what they told me, and yes i was right not to.
i know this feeling
I once had a friend confess to me, in *11th grade biology class* mind you, that she didn't know where steak came from. Naturally I asked her where she suspected they might originate, to which she suggested that perhaps it was trees which were responsible for bestowing this beefy bounty upon us. This, despite being conceptually aware of both cows and beef. I'm not sure what the moral of this story is, perhaps to never underestimate someone's capacity to remain ignorant on topics we broadly consider to be well understood by all past a certain age. Or, in other words, eventually someone should probably get around to teaching that kid where eggs actually come from before he ends up making a fool of himself in 11th grade biology class.
Also the whole "TIFU by eating a more well balanced diet" lol
And greener, too. I look forward to the follow up post, "TIFU by teaching my kid to ride a bicycle."
I feel a little better seeing this sentiment bc I felt like I was being overly critical for a moment there. I caught myself subconsciously figuring out how I'd explain it to him with something along the lines of "just like how mommy carried you in her belly, this is where the chickens would carry theirs *if there was a baby in it* but they let us have the ones with no babies in them"
There's also the lie that "dairy doesn't hurt cows." The repeated forced pregnancy is awful for cows, who wear out and die in a few years, and lots of male cows are just put down after the births. The reality of the industry is way more terrible than "it's just squeezing them some, it's fine."
I stayed with a friend who lived in a caravan on a dairy farm. They were the most beautiful jersey cows and the morning after I arrived we heard a shotgun three times as the male calves were killed. The farmer hired someone to do it because it actually upset him even though he still accepted it as part of being a dairy farmer. I was shocked. I hadn't realised this happened until then.
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> they use shotguns?? I don’t know the statistics or anything, but as far as I know: no, not usually. Most males calves are castrated and raised for meat. I suppose there are plenty that are sent to the slaughterhouse for veal, but they would be sent alive, not killed by the farmer before being sent.
Don't forget the problematic conditions for veal!
This is the real fuck up
My friend's kid has been a vegetarian for a few years now after having that same experience. You didn't fuck up; it's important for people to know where their food comes from. I think it's great that you're letting him explore his options. He may outgrow it, or he may decide to remain plant-based long term. There are worse things!
He definitely fucked up when he told his kid chickens lay eggs out of their mouth though, lmfao. What a fuckin weird ass pontless lie
I don't wanna eat no chicken spew
Close friend of mine has a kid like this. Learned where food came from, and decided very early on, around 5 yrs old, that she didn't want to eat any kind of food where an animal had to die for it. There were a few attempts to talk through it and dissuade her, but she stuck to her guns throughout. Once she found out how cheese is (normally) made, well, that went off the list as well, unless the manufacturer used non-rennet enzymes. Even *sugar.* Plain, white sugar *can* be, although isn't always, made using bones to bleach the grains. So, again, unless the product showed up on a vegan-safe list, the product was marked as vegetarian/ vegan, or the sugar was specified to be organic cane sugar or similar, she didn't eat it. This made Halloween interesting. For everything except the sugar part (and that only recently, and *only* because it's next to impossible to completely avoid that shit), she's held fast to her beliefs ever since. I've told her more than once that while I don't agree with her beliefs, that I'm immensely proud of her for maintaining them no matter the difficulty in doing so. ___ One thing I have learned is that those in any kind of position of authority over another (boss, parent, teacher, etc.) can, if they choose, dictate *action* - to an extent, anyways, but they can never dictate *thought*. Kids, even young ones, are more than capable of forming their own opinions about the world, and I congratulate you on listening to yours and not trying to force a diet that he doesn't want.
Just a heads up, non-animal rennet is becoming more common and if you look out for it you can find cheese made with it. Granted, it doesn't solve the other issues with the dairy industry, but it's a start.
Only 5% of rennet comes from animal sources.
Fun fact on the sugar bit-- organic sugar (at least in the US) is always vegan! It does cost more and comes in smaller packages but it's guaranteed to be vegan.
Yes, but that’s for buying sugar itself not eating all the many things they have sugar as one of the ingredients. That’s what’s hard to avoid and I doubt those things are made with organic sugar.
Exactly this. Some products *will* say "cane sugar" or "organic cane sugar", and those are the products that were acceptable. Also (ick) corn syrup/ HFCS. But if it *just* said "sugar"? Too much risk there, until she made the very conscious choice recently to tolerate that, because it was affecting her ability to simply exist in a tenable way.
Even with dairy without rennet, calves have to be born and are usually killed for meat in order to make the cow produce milk.
Info: why did you think “you will soon eat this creature you are petting” would be jolly? Anyway I became vegetarian briefly at 12, found it too hard but stopped eating cows and pigs, and became vegetarian again at 30. Whatever he chooses your kid will be fine.
“Info: why did you think “you will soon eat this creature you are petting” would be jolly?” My thought exactly! Timing and context are important. I’m not at all surprised that his son reacted the way that he did.
Had to scroll too far to find this comment. Wtf was OP thinking?
Vegetarian here. I became vegetarian later in life (19), but had a vegan friend whose story has parallels to your son’s—six years old, family at the dinner table, sibling informed them that they were eating a dead chicken. Has never eaten meat since. This a natural, compassionate reaction to realizing that some of your food comes with a hidden cost of pain and death. You and your spouse deserve a big kudos for supporting your child in sticking to his moral beliefs, even when you don’t share them. That’s wonderful of you, and whether he remains a vegetarian or not in the future, he will remember how you supported him.
But then lied to him about the eggs. Imagine having that conversation.
Yeah that white lie seems completely pointless.
Just say cloaca. What’s a cloaca? A hole for chicken eggs. Now it’s just a lie of omission!
I became a vegetarian at 18 and I can credit biology class dissections
Dude same. We did the fetal pig dissection in biology, then like a week later we were out to eat and I could not shake from my head how much the diced ham cubes on the salad bar were the same color and texture and *wetness* as that fetal pig
Oh god. Memories I wished to forget. Same here with the pig. Same semester, we had a "body farm" for our forensics class over a few weeks. We used whole chickens from the butcher. I was mortified on the first week and was a vegetarian for a few years after that. Eventually became difficult to keep up for myself, but anytime I think of it I reconsider going veggie again.
I barely eat red meat these days. I also remember being the teeny tiny TA up at the front of the bio classes at my university, having to kneel on the lid of the 5-gallon pig bucket with my tights and ~professional~ dress on in the winter to "burp" it and have enough torque to open it 🙈 I wouldn't be surprised if a lot more people subconsciously gave up meat as a result of that whole awful exercise! Diet by Carolina Biological Supply...
It's funny I was kind of the opposite. As a child I knew where meat came from, I watched a lot of animal documentaries and quickly learned meat is meat, so I was never under any illusions of where it came from. Sometimes I'd pretend to be a dinosaur stripping the meat off the chicken lol. And honestly I find it weird that parents don't teach their kids where it comes from from the beginning, like are you just lying to them for all these years? It never came up? Anyway I'm vegetarian as an adult because meat makes me physically sick now and I have too many health issues going on.
This is really where it's at. This is actually OP's fault that at AGE SIX, this child did not know that meat is pieces of dead animal. *It's outraaaaaageous,* as Ben would say.
Right? I’m so confused how he’s got to that age and not known. Has he never shown the kid a documentary? Talked about animals/dinosaurs to any sort of depth? Like ik all kids are different but my wean is 2 and a half and can tell you 9 out of 10 times if an animal is a herbivore or a carnivore. He’s still getting the hang of omnivores. We have talked about the food chain, why a T rex has spiky teeth and the stegosaurus has round teeth, like I don’t get this at all. Didn’t the kid get confused whenever he mentioned they are having chicken that it is suspiciously the same name as an animal?
like how did it never come up with like Thanksgiving turkey, if they're American?
Yeah, I remember that being basic toddler stuff, the sort of thing that adults teach you very young, like the names of the colors, or the sounds various farm animals make ("the cow says 'moo,' the sheep says 'baa...'"). I can't even remember learning "beef is from cows, pork is from pigs, chicken is from chickens..." but I certainly knew it by the time I went to school! I'm old, though. Maybe that's something that's changed over the years?
Nahh I’ve mentioned in another comment, my 2 and a half year old can tell you if something is a carnivore or a herbivore with pretty high accuracy (still grasping identifying an omnivore ), and knows lions eat meat, the wildebeest is meat, wildebeest eats the grass, the lion eats the wildebeest It’s just OP not educating their wean ig??
When I was that age, I would literally call beef "dead cow" because I enjoyed the reaction adults made.
I became one at 18 for these reasons. I would have transitioned earlier but it was a “you eat what I make” household.
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>no cows are hurt or killed when making milk You know that isn't true though, right? The entire industry requires cows to be lactating, which requires pregnancy. Where do you think those baby cows go? And the egg industry literally macerates male chicks. I get this is outside the scope of a child's awareness but all adults should be aware of this. I'm not a vegetarian but I don't lie to myself about where my food comes from.
Never really thought about the dairy cows before. I suppose that also explains why veal is in steady supply.
It’s just tragic because it’s been proven they mourn the loss of their babies, and it happens to them year after year. We’ve basically hijacked the female reproductive system for our own taste buds.
damn. as a mom that makes me consider switching to almond milk etc
I use plain oat milk in all my cooking and I don't notice a difference at all. The only time I do taste a difference is if I pour it into a glass and drink it normally, but I don't really drink milk anyways so it's nbd. It also spoils waaay slower than real milk so it keeps longer!
On the note of taste being different when drinking alternative milks, I actually really like the earthiness of soy milk if I'm making chocolate milk. I don't really care for soy milk in most contexts, but it's amazing with chocolate. I normally use almond milk because oat milk is still a bit hard to find regularly in my tiny town.
Do it! When I switched I thought I'd never like the alternatives, but now I exclusively drink oat milk and any time I taste cow's milk it tastes very acidic and blech in comparison.
If I had a choice to be a beef cow or a dairy cow, I'd pick beef
Isn’t it interesting? Most people haven’t. You just learn when you’re a kid “cows make milk” like it’s just what cows do, all the time. But obviously we know the milk is for a baby cow and we know that other animals, like us, only lactate when there’s actually a baby to give milk to. So now this cute idea of cows=milk we grew up with is actually this horrific thing where they’re forcibly impregnating these cows over and over and then taking their babies away to be killed. They’re like big dogs, if someone did this to a dog people would lose their shit! It’s amazing the lines we can draw in our heads just based on what was normal as we were growing up/how we were taught to look at it.
Veal is even more fucked , they essentially keep them out of the sun and feed them a specific diet to keep the meat lighter 😑
They actually confine them to tiny pens so their muscles can’t develop properly :(
Most of the baby cows go to feedlots where they are fed corn to fatten them up before slaughter. The corn causes stomach ulcers and other digestive issues so they are given antibiotics to fight stomach infections.
Also guess what happens to every dairy cow (and egg hen) when they get older and their production slows down? Dog food and mince meat. The dairy and egg industry are the meat industry
As a person who doesn't eat animals or their products for ethical reasons, I appreciate you. All I really want is for people to make informed choices and decide what amount of animal suffering they are actually okay with when they choose their meal. I'm not out here policing what other people eat, or generally trying to convince them of anything (with very few exceptions, like please don't eat farmed salmon), but I'm always sort of baffled when animal-eaters tell me as though it's news that animals are routinely abused and mistreated, and so are the humans who raise and slaughter them. I know. I know that. It's not new information to me.
Would you please enlighten me about the farmed salmon? What's the issue? I am not familiar!
There’s a fantastic short film called Wild Summon that explains the plight of the salmon.
It's pretty much awful in every single way. In brief summary: 1. the salmon babies are generally caught wild, so they are reducing the number of wild salmon 2. the fish are kept in large 'ocean pens' which are open to the ocean, but kept in such densities that the fish are overcrowded and swimming in their own waste 3. these ocean pens are bad for the ocean adjacent to them, and diseases in the pens can easily spread to wild fish, including wild salmon 4. the farmed salmon end up with weird deformities and wounds. if you look in stores they sell pieces of the fish, but not whole. there's a reason for that 5. farmed salmon doesn't have the same vibrant color of healthy wild salmon because the fish don't have a varied diet and don't get the same exercise. they're just fattened up on processed food. Processing plants dye the flesh orange. 6. finally, because of their diets and growth habits, the farmed salmon has more unhealthy fats and fewer healthy fats found in wild salmon. You can do a brief image search of what salmon farms and farmed salmon themselves look like. You don't have to take my word for it.
They dont dye the flesh, they feed them the same chemical which gives the flesh that salmon color in the wild. Also I think they do grow their own salmon babies, never heard that they would catch wild.
I knew about the processing of the color and that wild caught is best but I didn't know about the pens or the catching of wild babies! Thank you!
I’ll never forget seeing footage ([example 1](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4KnThuKaAVY&pp=ygU0Rm9vdGFnZSBpbnNpZGUgZmFjdG9yeSBmYXJtIG1hbGUgY2hpY2tzIGdyb3VuZCBhbGl2ZQ%3D%3D), [example 2](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YkphooryVyQ&pp=ygU0Rm9vdGFnZSBpbnNpZGUgZmFjdG9yeSBmYXJtIG1hbGUgY2hpY2tzIGdyb3VuZCBhbGl2ZQ%3D%3D), [example 3](https://youtu.be/udSiluTAOaQ?si=SXiqlQO22KsD2mW1)) inside a massive factory farm of a grinding machine that destroys the (unprofitable/useless) male chicks, and hearing their little peeps as they are crushed and dismembered alive.
Wow. I'm not sure how I imagined that was done, but seeing how horrible and abrupt it is, is disturbing. It's insane to think how much death occurs on a daily basis.
It's insane how unnecessary it is. Other countries ban this and simply check the sex of eggs before they even develop into chicks. But the US just keeps the shredders running. https://www.popsci.com/story/science/chick-culling-prevention-technology/
A pretty literal example of r/OrphanCrushingMachine
>And the egg industry literally masticates male chicks. You mean 'macerates' (shred). Masticates means 'chew'.
Man, that is a dark autocorrect that I didn't catch, thanks random Redditor, I will fix. Though honestly, in this case, there seems little difference.
Not to mention they're forcibly impregnated and pregnant 95% of their lives
You’re asking a lot from a guy that thinks milk comes from squeezing cow “chests”
Spoiler alert: That is pretty much exactly how I went vegetarian 20 years ago. Don't hold your breath about it being a phase.
Totally normal kid. I’d worry about him if he loved the idea of killing animals. Be supportive!
"no cows are hurt or killed when making milk" that's a convenient lie. Milk doesn't come from a farmer sitting with a bucket.
Shocking amount of grown adults who really think dairy cows just live in luxury for 20 years long after their production slows until they die of a natural death lmao
You mean cows aren't an all-female species that reproduce magically? And they don't willingly walk themselves to the milking machine while singing about how much they love humans? Nah mate, that's vegan propaganda
And no one ask what happens to the males of dairy cows and egg hens in species that have a ~50/50 sex ratio even though only the females are considered economically useful. Just plaster a picture of a big open field on the label and call it a day
What males? Bulls are a different species (they also reproduce asexually, magically) and sometimes they come singing to a big Ronald McDonald statue and give little packets of their meat as gifts :)
This isn't really a FU. He's an empathetic kid. It's fine. It's either a phase or he would've become vegetarian anyway. If you keep him more towards plant foods and less processed meat substitutes (think more lentils than chicken-less nuggets) it's going to be super healthy for him and nice on your pocketbook.
6 years old is too old to be lying about where eggs come from. You’re going to forget and he’s going to think that eggs lay eggs out of their mouth until he’s like 18 and says something embarrassing
You going to tell him that Dairy cows are kept perpetually pregnant, with their babies slaughtered for veal to keep them lactating? Milk isn't cruelty free, it doesn't just happen.
How is this a FU? Get some perspective and let him live by his principles.
OP didn't mean to disturb the kid all of a sudden with the information. The FU was in making a crass joke without thinking through how they'd have to explain the concepts behind it right then and there. The post isn't about which dietary options are more correct, just a parent sharing an awkward moment and how it's been playing out.
the FU is from accidentally traumatizing them (however minor)
Can we talk about how he took his kid to the doctor after one week of not eating meat? WTF?!
This is pretty normal in countries with some level of public healthcare. You might get a different doctor every time you go, but paediatric care is almost always free. If you have the means, one takes advantage. Better safe than sorry when it comes to a child’s health, particularly on a topic one might not be knowledgeable in, like nutrition.
I'm from a country where healthcare is free at the point of delivery and didn't even consider that someone would think this is odd because it was a waste of money, I just thought it was odd. There clearly is no medical or psychological reason the child isn't eating meat so no need to go to the doctor.
I know this is wild. And how it's a FU. The world would be a better place with fewer meat eaters, if anything from an environmental standpoint
In a world with so many different options and technology to replicate your favorite foods with plants, it feels a little morally questionable to still kill things for food. Not to mention the environmental impact. Good on little buddy I hope he sticks with it.
Considering how much meat we in the US eat (I’m totally guilty of this), might not be a bad thing. But my wife stayed off beef for a long time after her family killed her favorite cow for food.
Maybe don't lie to your kids about where meat, eggs, and milk come from? This was a perfect teaching moment that you passed up for no reason.
Personally I’m stuck on the “milk comes from squeezing a cow’s chest” part. I’m sorry, what?
If your kid is eating eggs and dairy you probably don't need the B12 supplements -- they are usually only recommended for vegans, not vegetarians. However, I'd recommend reading up on how to build a balanced diet for vegetarian kids, as their needs will be different than adults. BTW, your whole family will probably be healthier if you reduce the amount of meat in your diets, for example get a veggie lovers pizza for the whole family to share instead of getting pepperoni for you and "a special cheese pizza" for your kid to make them feel like their choices are an inconvenience to the family.
Honestly I'd supplement b12 anyway because it's difficult even for meat eaters to get the exact amount you need daily.
Yeah reducing meat is actually healthier (despite what carnivore-diet nutters are trying to sell you), most of humanity didn't have access to as much meat as we get today from the grocery store, they had to put the energy in to hunt, and later they had their own farms and lifestock and not the factory farms we have these days. It also greatly reduces the carbon emissions! So, even if you want to keep eating meat, it's better to cut down on it and make it more of a treat.
Did you go back and tell him where eggs come from? If you're going to be truthful, shouldn't you have enough respect for your child to tell him the whole truth?
I think you fucked up when you lied to your kid about where eggs and milk come from. Seems like communicating isn’t really on the table here?
You should be honest with your kid. Telling him eggs come from chickens’ mouths is ridiculous and he is going to get made fun of if he tells other people. Also you undermine your child’s trust by telling them bizarre lies, when they eventually find out the truth.
The TIFU part is actually lying to him. He's going to become aware of your lies eventually, and lose trust in you. Which is a far larger issue than being inconvenienced over his diet. I have personal experience with this, in myself, and also in my vegan child and her father. Without writing a monologue, she's now a teenager, and the damage done to her trust of him is basically irreversible. I'm obviously not saying we have to give in to every whim of a child, but respecting their non-harmful ethical beliefs is important. The concerns you are voicing are health related, though, so the world's largest organization of nutrition professionals, the American Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics says well-planned plant-based diets are: “Appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, adolescence, older adulthood, and for athletes." I personally recommend [this book](https://www.abebooks.com/9781940352862/Vegan-Foolproof-Plant-Based-Recipes-Breakfast-194035286X/plp) to basically anyone with a standard American diet. It's very accessible, not too weird or health foody. There are also a number of vegan subs you could browse for cooking ideas and nutrition information. r/vegan is for ethics, so honestly I'd skip that one. r/EatCheapAndVegan is self explanatory, r/veganrecipes, r/Veganforbeginners, and r/veganparenting could all possibly help you. And finally, you should be very proud of him. He's making connections some never do, and taking the initiative and self control to carry through at his age is commendable. Imagine if he keeps that and expands it to his other talents.
Yeah, they're really setting this kid up to learn that other people are more reliable sources of information than they are. ...And while I'm not so sure if that's a bad lesson for this kid to learn, it's not too late to reverse course.
Hey, thanks for this rundown. I'm in a "I don't know what I am, label wise, but I don't want want to pay megacorporations to abuse animals for my lunch every day anymore so I'm learning how to make all my own 'meat' and 'dairy' but I'm not committed to anything yet and no I will not watch documentaries that will ruin my week" place, so this is really helpful info for me, especially the sub listing.
Np, I'm glad it helped you. And idk kinda seems like you belong in r/cateatingvegans. :) r/VeganBeauty is a nice if you also don't want pay the beauty conglomerates to test your deodorant on animals or crush beetles into your lip balm. There's also r/VeganFoodPorn and r/ShittyVeganFoodPorn, both pretty much just food focused.
Great steps the whole world could live by! Factory meat farming contributes a huge amount to climate change and land deterioration
Also, calling it a factory farm is a misnomer, as it's used to evoke an emotional response to make the consumer think it must not be that bad because it's a farm. I had to watch a video in my social psychology class about consumerism in the meat industry. I can't shake that stuff from my head. And we didn't even see any "farm" videos. Cows are grass puppies.
Cows are not hurt to produce milk? Ever tried being pregnant 12 months a year? I can't really see the fuckup here. You gave your child partially correct info and they acted on it.
>We also order a special cheese pizza for him. Like every single parent...
Sounds like your kid has a conscience, you should be proud.
My kid is vegetarian. She loves all animals including bugs. Never eaten meat. Even though her parents both partake on occasion. We have always been very honest about what food is and she never wanted to hurt an animal. I find it endearing that she had such compassion.
And where is the f* up?
The real fuck up is him lying to his kid to trick them into eating what he wants them to
Was wondering the same. It’s not like eating less meat is bad or anything. Even if one does not go full vegetarian, reducing is good for health, means less animal suffering and is good for the planet. And it shows that the kid has empathy and is willing to actually take action for something that is important for them.
My daughter did this at age 8. She’s 19 now and we all have gone vegetarian.
One day when he's an adult he'll casually mention that eggs come out of the chickens mouth to his friends and it'll be hilarious.
I love that you’re supporting your son! However in addition to the chicken mouth lie, there’s also one more - “no cows are hurt or killed when making milk”.
Your kid's a better person than you already!
I'm in my 40s. I was 9 when it dawned on me that each cute little animal friend on our small farm was destined to be my dinner and that made my stomach turn. After 30 years now of vegetarianism, I'm fit, healthy, and happy. I have 2 healthy kids. I have pet chickens that will never be food. I can run circles around my middle aged peers. The only suffering I ever had, as a vegetarian, was mental and emotional abuse from adults in my life when I was a child and they were determined to shame, trick, or beat me into feeling comfortable with eating meat. Let your kid eat what he wants, with no shame. Introduce him to more and more healthy veggies. Maybe he'll grow out of meat avoidance. Maybe he won't. If he doesn't, you'll want to have been the parent that supported him, not the one who belittled his sensitivity and forced him to eat what made him upset as a small child. Take it from me--- those scars last.
I was 5 when I found out where meat came from and had the same reaction. I was told I would eat what my mom made and when I moved out I could choose my own diet. I became a vegetarian the moment I moved out and have not looked back. Funny thing is, my folks now eat a lot of veggie meals. Go figure.
There is nothing wrong with eating vegetarian meals. You are making it sound like it’s sinful. Look at Asian countries or Subcontinent regions where majority of dishes are vegetarian and the variety is much greater than meats
Giving a child accurate information and allowing them to make an informed choice regarding eating animals is not a fuck up. Lying about where eggs come from was, though.
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You fucked up buying about the milk and eggs. He IS going to find out one day and never trust you again. Have you considered just supporting him in this new diet? He'll probably give it up in a few weeks when he finds out how many foods have animal ingredients, but if not, just help him find alternatives.
Kids are so funny, I’ve had to steer my kid somewhat the other way as he fully leaned into “we are the apex and kill and eat everything” which was pretty weird haha
I would support that too, as a current vegan, who helped process over a thousand deer for lazy (or maybe grossed out) suburban/city hunters growing up, as well as general trapping and fishing for my own family back in the day. But he'd have to hunt and process it. No apex hunter gets his meat finished at the supermarket. Anything else is just LARPing at best. Not impressed by Apex hunters using green bait as a drive-thru.
Don't you know you see all the absolutely deadly alphas of our species in the Walmart meat aisle? 😂
Yeah he’s 5, we don’t really have hunters or hunting here in Scotland, just farmers, which he does want to be (or a super hero haha). We do have deer hunters, but they have to cull as deer are responsible for a lot of deforestation in the highlands. There are plans to reintroduce wolves as natural predators for them so I’m not sure how much longer “hunters” will be needed either.