‘Raised as a vegetarian since birth, my daughter believes animals are our friends, not our food,’ writes Amberly McAteer.supersizer/Getty Images
“Mommmmm!” My four-year-old burst through the front door one afternoon after kindergarten in hysterics. “You’re never going to believe this: My best friend likes hurting animals!”
She was in disbelief that her bestie ate a turkey sandwich for lunch. Raised as a vegetarian since birth, my daughter believes animals are our friends, not our food. There are wild turkeys on the way to our family’s cottage, and she likes to pull over to talk to them, promise that we won’t ever hurt them and wish them a good weekend. To her, they belong in nature – not between two slices of bread. Still, I was terrified that I’d be getting a call from the girl’s mother (it never came).
But I get it, kid. As a vegetarian for 30 years now, I know that having a meal with people who make different dietary decisions can be hard. So many people, including those I love and cherish, support a meat farming industry that slaughters hundreds of millions of animals each year in Canada alone. It’s hard to understand how these same people would likely do everything they could to save a pet or help a suffering animal on the side of the road.
I may have learned how to cope with these complicated feelings, but my little animal rights activist isn’t there yet. Holiday meals such as Easter are especially difficult for her – and for me as a parent when she blurts out what’s on her mind. “I love turkey – but not like you,” she recently told my mother-in-law before a big meal with extended family. All heads swivelled to me as my daughter elaborated: “I love them when they’re alive, not when they’re dead.”
She’s at the filterless age, where she’s confident in speaking her mind and oblivious to what others might think of. In some ways, I’m jealous of her ability to take a bold stance and say the quiet thing out loud. The world is, to put it mildly, not doing so well; part of me is proud to sit beside the person at the table who is asking for more compassion for the planet’s living creatures.
On the other hand, to be successful members of society, we do have to learn to be respectful of each other’s choices, even when they are different.
“Nobody wants to be the parent of the crazed vegan kid, that would be counterproductive, so you do have to be careful,” said Jessica Scott-Reid, a Winnipeg-based journalist, animal advocate and vegan mother.
“What we eat is treated as a family value in our house. I teach my kid that we do things a certain way, but we respect our neighbours and friends who have different beliefs.”
Her eight-year-old vegan daughter, Scott-Reid says, will stop other kids from killing spiders in the school yard, but has also become increasingly aware of the pressure to fit into social circles. “She’s able to compartmentalize her activism. She can respect other people’s choices but also stands firm in what she believes.”
For Nettie Cronish, a Canadian cookbook author and organic, vegetarian icon (she was plant-based several decades before it was cool), the lessons we teach our kids through food are crucial but they can also evolve.
“I raised my kids to reject junk food, to bake, to love home cooked meals – and to love quinoa,” she laughed. “But the peer pressure was tremendous. They would go to a birthday party, and they felt they stood out because they couldn’t have a hot dog.”
Her now adult children have chosen different diets – a flexitarian, an adamant carnivore, and a strict vegan – and holiday meals are as complicated as ever. “Now that he’s an adult, my son does not agree animals are sentient, and he believes we have every reason to eat them.”
Still, Cronish says that instead of making others feel shame or annoying them into submission, the best kind of advocacy comes in the form of kindness, open arms – and good eats.
“There’s nothing better than serving a big family holiday meal that is delicious and happens to be vegetarian, and having all of these meat eaters ask me for the recipe.”
That approach – hope instead of judgment – feels especially fitting for Easter time.
This holiday season, flip the script with these meatless main courses
Together, my daughter and I can offer kinder options to our family meal – she’s chosen some outstanding main courses for our contribution this year – and work on being patient with those who can’t eat a meal without meat.
I’ll remain hopeful that my daughter’s voice will grow more thoughtful as she gets older, but never quiet. And that there will be room at the table for both conviction and kindness in equal measure.
