Anti-vegetarian Mother getting me down

[Honeysucklelane]

I’ve been a vegetarian for over 30 years. I made this choice as an animal loving child because the thought of killing and eating animals disgusted me. My mother has never agreed with me or people in general being vegetarian / vegan and will make digs about it every chance she gets.

She does cook for me, but there have been occasions where she has snuck meat or fish products into dishes.

Her negative comments have really got to me recently and I fear I’m going to end up falling out with her if she keeps making negative digs about vegetarians. My vegetarianism has been blamed for any issues in my life from basic common cold to divorce - yes really!!

For context I’m the only vegetarian in my family. My husband and kids aren’t vegetarian and I cook meat for them. I don’t ever dictate to anyone else that they ‘shouldn’t’ eat meat, because it’s my personal choice. I choose not to eat it, it’s not my business or concern if anyone else wants to eat meat.

It’s never too late to put a boundary in place. Could you have a line ready for next time it’s raised? ‘You’ve made your opinion on my diet very clear over the years mother, we really do just have to agree to disagree. Can you move on to something else now please or I’ll have to go…’. If she doesn’t leave it, hang up/leave/whatever.

Im also a lone vegetarian - because veggie at a similar age for similar reasons. Neither of the DC are vegetarian, but DH now is. I’d be royally fucked off if anyone in the family tried to have an opinion about it!

It's nothing to do with age. Lots of people were vegetarian in the 1970s (me included) and long before that. It's not a new thing.

I meant that the older generation maybe less accepting of it as it goes against their ‘social norms,’ from when they were brought up. If you asked 80 year olds and 30 year olds their views on vegetarians, I suspect the 30 year olds wouldn’t be as negative about it as the 80 year olds.

Vegetarians and Vegans have increased and there’s wider choices available. When I chose to become vegetarian less of the population would have been vegetarian.

Geezz I would have been livid

I am lucky my MIL has never batted an eyelid about my diet.

It's really not "a theme for that generation", whatever that means. You can be young and ignorant too. I am "that generation". I've been vegetarian since 1980.

A friend came to lunch with me. I did a Greek salad with feta, and with hummus and tabouleh. My friend started talking about how hard it must be, being vegetarian. Then she said, "What do you EAT?!" I said "This!" And I could see the penny drop.

Im 70 and that's not my experience. Many of my friends my age and older are vegetarian.

I have to say it’s probably a bit generational though -at the moment - there are obviously loads of young ‘I need to eat meat everyday ‘ types as evidenced here, but when my darling mum was in her care home, out of 38 residents she was the only vegetarian (80’s) the chef was fantastic though and made her some lovely meals

They just don't think. They eat vegetarian food all the time without the penny dropping. Cheese sandwich= vegetarian. Beans on toast= vegetarian or vegan.
Some people just assume it means you eat only vegetables!

@Honeysucklelane I agree with the PPs who say you need to be much firmer with her, because she's way out of order. Be prepared to hang up on her or walk out if she carries on despite warnings. You don't owe her any more politeness or tolerance, because she's been extremely rude to you for 30 years.

The carping is obnoxious, but sneaking meat into your food is unforgivable, and I'd have walked out over that.

If anyone says that to me i just agree with them and say 'yep, you're probably right, I'm obviously at deaths door and look at you, you eat meat and you're the picture of health!'.

Unfortunately some people are ridiculous in their attitudes towards vegans and vegetarians. You see it on threads here all the time.

it’s not an age thing. There are just as many rude and ignorant people in other generations. And plenty of well mannered older people. And some older people are even vegetarians themselves 😳

it’s a shame ageism had to get brought into the thread.

My mother is in her 80’s. None of her friends / family were vegetarian. I was the first and only non meat eater in our family history on either side, till my cousin became vegan a few years ago.

To her it’s an alien concept and vegetarians can’t possibly be as healthy or age as well as meat eaters.

I’ve had people say to me, “well what DO you eat,” ….err same things as everyone else minus the meat. It’s not rocket science.

People like like are bloody weird. I would have told her to get over it 30 years ago.

That's her though not her age or generation.

How often is your mother, in her 80s, feeding you that this is an issue? You've talked and talked and nothing has changed so why not just quietly arrange plans so she's not cooking meals for you. Go out for dinner, have her over, don't visit at mealtimes.

My own mother is insufferable about food for different reasons and this is what I've had to do.

Phone calls are easy - any mention of it and suddenly you have something important to do and have to go.

I should. I guess I’ve been way too polite and respectful.

Some people are weirdly offended by vegetarianism like it’s a criticism of themself. My dsis has been a vegetarian since she was a child (she’s now 42) and I’ve witnessed so many bizarre reactions to her being a vegetarian. Her in-laws, in the past, used to question her constantly at meal times as to why she didn’t want to eat meat even though she’d explained it over and over again to them. They would deliberately serve up very meat heavy dishes and then make snarky comments about her not trying their cooking or their cooking not being good enough for her!?! Or make a roast dinner and be like “oh we’re sorry…we forgot you don’t eat meat. What on earth will you eat?”. She was quite happy to eat the veg, potatoes and Yorkshires. As soon as her first dc started weaning she kept catching them feeding him bacon and they’re always trying to ply dsis’s children with meat even though dsis has never tried to cut meat from her dc’s diet.

My BIL (prize prick) once grilled me on “what on earth does you sister eat” with a bunch of faux concern and naivety. I just looked at him with a wtf expression and was like “not meat”. That wasn’t sufficient and he wanted examples which I gave in abundance. He then decided that vegetarians are very unhealthy based on nothing but the empty cavern between his ears. I just don’t understand why anyone would care what someone else chooses to eat.

Assert a boundary, if you mention it again mother I will leave. And leave. Don't ever eat with her ie have her prepare a meal for you.

You can't stop her saying it so your boundary is what you will do if she does.

She does cook for me, but there have been occasions where she has snuck meat or fish products into dishes

Maybe you need to stop eating what she cooks?

@Honeysucklelane there is so much of this around - when I stopped eating meat in early secondary school my mother used to tell me that chickens weren't killed, they were just walking around then flopped over. And pretend that mincemeat was soya.

I think you have to be firm with her or just ignore her!

You are not going to change her mind. However, you can assert yourself next time she raises the issue with you. What's the worst that can happen? She might sulk? Next time she brings it up, say very clearly that you are no longer putting up with he criticism and then leave. She will no doubt think you are overreacting but it might just stop the comments in future. Rinse and repeat.

Geez….that is crazy. I’m lucky my in-laws just accept it, my MIL doesn’t attempt to cook me anything from scratch and just gets lovely veggie items from M&S instead she can just pop in the oven which is great.

I think one of my mums issues is that she is a big ‘cook it from scratch’ person and it involves her creating separate dishes. She’d often ‘forget’ and then say, “oh sh.*t I haven’t put anything in for you, bloody vegetarians.” and be annoyed with me / my vegetarianism because she’d forgotten to put something in for my dinner - but as you said about your dsis, I can just eat the potato’s and veg quite happily.

i don’t know why some people take it as a personal affront when you choose a different lifestyle to them, I’m not harming anyone, I’m not critiquing meat eaters.