Vegetarians Cruel and heartless?

[MikeOxstiff]

At DDs school when a child has a birthday they bring in sweets to share out after school (DD is 5 so the parents go into the school to pick up the children) I know some parents are vegatarian and when their child gets sweets they take them off them and say " They are not allowed those sweets"
The look of disapointment on the childs face breaks my heart

How cruel

My DS will make an informed choice on whether to eat animal products when he is older - I prefer to give him the choice. If I'd started out giving him meat and he turned veggie later, he would spend his life knowing that he'd eaten stuff he fundamentally disagreed with. Far better the other way round IMO.

Plus, as animula said, it's our job as parents to ensure that children eat a healthy diet. That means saying no sometimes - to a second ice lolly or a packet of crisps or a fat filled pork pie or nasty chewy stick-on-the-teeth sugary sweets.

MikeOxstiff - incidentally, does the look on your DDs face when you tell her she can't have another icecream today also break your heart or do you just say no?

Jelly sweets like Haribo are horrible. The dentist that DD uses told me that children in Belgium have many more caries than those in the UK (she has worked there) because Haribo is much more prevalent there.
DDs class take cakes in for birthdays, as there are a lot of Jain and Hindu children at the school, the suggestion is made that the cakes should be egg free so something more like a flapjack.
OP, I do think YABVU, parents make choices for their children, if it doesn't suit or upsets you you are strange person.

YANBU to think it's a bit mean to take a sweet off a child. In my experience, the more you tell a child they CAN'T have something, the more desirable it becomes.

I am a vegan and would prefer veggie DD not to eat sweets with animal products in them, however it is actually in her hand I would say to her something like 'Now normally I would prefer you not to eat that as it contains X but as X has given it to you on this occasion I will allow it'. That way you address the issue without making a huge deal about it and ensuring that Percy Pigs/Haribo become something she wants more than anything else simply because she can't have them.

I think it's a mistake that veggie parents make to be really militant with their kids because you just end up pushing them in the other direction - I'll never forget the veggie boy at older DD's nursery who would cram ham sandwiches in his mouth when parents had left because they were so strict with him.DD knows why we don't eat meat and agrees that it is cruel, and that is enough - she doesn't eat it because of this, not because she feels forced into not eating it.

However YAB a bit U to say veggies are cruel and heartless, we are quite the opposite - it's meat eaters who are a bit cruel and heartless in my opinion!