Daughter age 6 wants to be vegetarian...think I may be BU?

[SnakePlisskensMum]

This is my first AIBU, I'm a long time lurker but I genuinely need help with this one please.
As a family we eat meat approx. four times a week and always enjoy a roast dinner together on a Sunday. I have always been totally open with the kids about what they are eating, where it comes from etc. We shop at the local farm shop whenever we can so they have seen the animals wandering about and understand that they are what ends up on their plate.

My DD (6) is a complete animal fanatic and as such has said that she doesn't want meat anymore. I can sympathise with her as I have half-heartedly considered vegetarianism on occasion. I cook for all four of us and do not want to make special meals for a 6 year old. I've told her that she will have to eat the same as us until she is old enough to have an opinion. Obviously this would be different if she had any allergies or intolerances but she hasn't.

My husband comes home late in the week so often I make two meals and do not want another complication thrown into the mix. However, I'm not sure if I'm being fair to her to make her eat something she has clearly said she doesn't want because of her beliefs (albeit a 6 year olds) which may/will probably change at the drop of a hat. If she was a teen it would be a different proposition and I would assume it was more considered, IYSWIM?
Please tell me, AIBU? I'm quite prepared to accept I am.

I would agree catsareevil, DCs brought up as vegetarians should be able to choose outside the home at 6 and DCs brought up as meat eaters should be able to choose outside the home from 6 yrs. All I would say is that if it requires a change in eating habits in the home, then it would be sensible to give a time scale to make sure they are serious. (not a long one).

I was 4 years old when I turned vegetarian, about six when I was able to articulate it. It wasn't anything to do with animal welfare, just a desire not to eat meat. We're a family of 5. Mum didn't make anything different, I would just leave the meat part of the meal, and when I was about 12 I started making my own evening meal if the one mum was preparing wasn't easy to create a vegetarian version of.

What I'm trying to say is that it is perfectly possible for a young child to make a rational decision not to eat meat, and it is not very difficult to slightly adapt family meals so that everyone is happy and so that no extra work is created for anyone.

There are plenty of sources of vegetable protein - it's not essential to have it in every meal as long as the diet is balanced over a week your daughter will be fine. It will also provide lots of opportunity to discuss nutrition - something sadly lacking in many families. I do feel the protein argument is over-played though, and often by people with very little understanding of nutrition and how it works.

I'm now 42, still vegetarian, still healthy.

yabu

dd1 said this to me when she was 6. Seemed fair enough to me but I said sometimes she'd just be having extra veg with bread and cheese as I couldn't make separate meals. She was fine with that.

Didn't last long, she liked sausages and chicken too much!

Agree catsareevil. OP, your DD is not only expressing a considered opinion but one which is actually likely to be better for her long term health.

You say you are worried about the hassle involved in cooking two meals. It really doesn't have to be that difficult. For starters, 4 meat based meals per week is an awful lot for your family to be eating - could you cut that down in the interests of all your family to say, 2 meals per week. Then you would only be looking at 2 nights per week when you need to cook something different for her. You could also use it as a way to encourage her to learn to cook, eg 'Yes, you can be veggie but you will need to help me cook your veggie meals twice a week.'

Also, if you post on here the sorts of things you typically cook, I'm sure MNetters will come up with suggestions for how to make a simple, healthy veggie alternative that doesn't involve shed-loads of cooking.

FWIW, I decided to become veggie at the age of 7 on moral grounds. More years than I care to remember later, I am still veggie and hugely grateful to my parents for respecting my choices (and have turned my mother veggie too).

IMO that is too young for health reasons alone, but i think the suggestion of going along with it - within reason- until it wears off is good.

This is really interesting, I expected to see people saying 'it's a phase, ignore and it will pass, don't encourage fussiness' etc but it appears the world has changed, in a good way (or all the veggies are posting here and few others).

I think your recent update is a good way forward. Having a few sausages and burgers of both sorts in the freezer might be good, as they are so easy to throw in the oven, if either interest group feels something is lacking.

I was aware of vegetarianism as a child (in fact I recall with shock my mother feeding sausages to a friend whose family were veggie, saying 'you don't get much meat at home do you?' when we were about 7. I hope the friend wasn't exclusively veggie!). I was also aware that we ate what we ate and it wouldn't have been an option.

At 11 I declared that I wanted to be veggie and my mother refused point blank. She believed it wasn't nutritionally adequate (she used to make comments about an adult friend, brought up veggie, being 'small and weedy') and that while she was responsible for my nutrition I would be eating meat. As a working mother, she didn't want to spend extra time cooking either. I held out for about a week before giving in to chicken noodle soup(!) but it was clearly not workable.

At 14 one of Mum's colleagues, to whom she'd obviously talked about my inconvenient interest, gave her a veggie cookbook for Christmas. That was it, I started cooking and have been veggie ever since. The sad thing is that because she remained resistant, seeing it as a 'fad' for about a year, which I found insulting of my reasoning capacity and a sign that she didn't know me very well so which reduced my respect for her, and she still wanted to eat her food, we just cooked separately from that point on, which was massively unsociable and detrimental to our relationship.

Despite all that and knowing that six-year-olds can have an instinct for things that they would otherwise arrive at later and will always gravitate towards, I wouldn't assume that your DD definitely means this - children are influenced by friends, other people and passing enthusiasms. I would offer some options and keep talking with her about it. Information is power and knowing what meat is, where it comes from and that there are different methods of production will allow her to develop and even change her view, for good reasons, as she goes along.

you don't need to cook 2 different meals, my Mum (vegetarian) makes food such as curry with vegetables, removes her portion then adds prawns of chicken (fryed off seperately) just do her quorn sausages when you have sausages and things like that, i'm Pescetarian, so when i ake things like Spaghetti i use quorn mince, and it seems to go down well with carniverous Dp and Dc

Btw, DP is veggie too and the bump (24 weeks) will be too (of course!). I'll be interested to see how this works the other way, so whether bump will be interested in eating meat when friends do (and to what extent I'll be able to control this when with other people) and what will happen as he/she grows up. I woudn't have meat in the house but would have too allow bump to make own decisions outside the home, probably fairly young.

Veggie nutrition is so easy. I've been vegan for 20 years (very healthily, being able to cook is key) and will check but think this isn't a reasonable diet for a small child, as their needs are different, also too hassly for everyday life. So from my point of view, veggie food offers a vast world of possibility!

why not get her to help out with the cooking, or setting table etc, that way you are accomodating her, but she is doing you a favour so it's not such hard work! I would definitly say go with it, children are human after all! They have consciences, hearts, and opinions, so why would you disregard their views, force them to do something they consider inhumane?

Sorry for brief hijack but lottie I'm veggie, DH carnivore and bump 23.5 weeks will eat fish (compromise!) we will allow him to make a choice to eat meat once he understands what it is. Interesting stuff, be good to see how it works out that way around.

I am a vegetarian.

Everyone else is vegetarian in the house but outside of it, they can eat what they like.

YANBU.... Age 6 they get what they're given and a good parent makes sure it's a balance of everything. Imagine if you had a kid that announced they were never eating foods of plant-origin again. There would be uproar!

I was your daughter.

By 6 I knew I couldn't eat something that I knew had previously been standing in a field. I hit some resistance by by 7 my mum relented and I've not eaten meat since. I'm now 36.
Children that age DO know their own minds. And bless my mum, she always came up with a non-meat alternative for me when they had meat, despite there being very little to choose from in those days.
Don't underestimate how horrible being made to eat something you have an emotional connection to feels. I still have memories of crying over a lamb chop (I know, I know).
Give your daughter the choice, she might change her mind in the future but for now I think you ought to respect what she wants.

How much hassle it is to leave meat out/replace it/ add it at a later stage of cooking really depends what you usually cook tbh.

YANBU

But not because she isn't old enough to have an opinion.

Rather, because she isn't old enough to cook her own meals (and I fully agree you should not have to do extra cooking).

I think the answer is to tell her you will do vegetarian meals 2x a week (say) and then she can go fully vegetarian once she's old enough to cook.

That way you are taking her preferences into account but also the rest of the family's preferences too. And not creating extra work for yourself.

My mum went veggie at age 4/5 as soon as she realised the association with animals and the food on her plate. This was in the 50's and she remained a veggie all her life (although she did eat animal rennet in cheese as at the time there really weren't available alternatives).
Some children do know their minds at a young age and the conviction stays with them.
I can understand it's not as easy as if your DS was a teen and could help with cooking her own veggie alternatives, but my suggestion would be to carry on cooking your 2-3 veggie meals a week, use quorn etc substitues wherever possible for spag bol, lasagne, stir fries another 1-2 times a week etc.

Will she eat fish/seafood as that could be another 1-2 meals.
When you are cooking for meat for the rest of the family 2-3 times a week, plan it so she can have the same as the rest of you, minus the meat but so her meal will still contain protein - eg (sausage) egg & chips, (chops) jacket potato & baked beans or with an easily substitutable quorn product eg pie, sausages etc.

no way would i pander to it

if they want to be veggie/vegan/Pescetarian/insert other fad when they can shop for and cook their own meals, fine go for it. Otherwise you eat what I buy and cook

end of

I was a vegetarian by the age of your daughter, OP, and I still am (in my 20's) so certainly not always a fad, as some people seem to think
Luckily my parents supported me in this (both eat meat)- I am also bringing my children up to be vegetarian. In my opinion, you really should respect her choice.

I think definitely YABU.

Throwing a veggie burger in the oven in its own pot doesn't take any extra time.
seriously, you're basically telling this child that her morals count for nothing - that she doesn't want to eat animals she loves, but that you, as her carer and nuturer are forcing her to.

In our family, growing up, we as vegetarians had everything except the meat (and that means that gravy has to be veggie - use bisto and the veg water, and that stuffing is veggie too - paxo is good for that)

It's not hard.

I would say that you know your own daughter best to know whether is a proper opinion or a fad.

My daughter has been a vegetarian for three and a half years since she was 8. It had been going that way for a while, but she asked me to seriously consider it not long after her 8th birthday. We discussed it and there were two main rules that I considered dealbreakers if she broke them in the future.

1. She had to be willing to try different types of protein eg lentils, pulses etc. This has been a success and in fact the whole family has extended their 'food range'.
2. If I ever knew she had voluntarily eaten any meat anywhere outside the home the whole deal was off. She has stuck to this.

I don't like to use lots of Quorn because i I feel it is a processed food. I tend to use it when I am making a casserole and simply have 2 saucepans, one with meat and one with quorn. She doesn't like quorn mince, I make chilli with tinned beans for her. Often I make big batches and freeze single size portions for her.

She likes eggs, which obviously is helpful. She has expressed a desire to give up fish, but I have explained that would be just too difficult so that is a compromise.

She gave up gelatine a year ago, when she realised what it was. This tends to be actually a bigger problem than the meat.

Obviously everytime they are invited out you have to explain, most people are fine. My DD has just started secondary school and has new friends. One MUm just rang to arrange a visit and appeared very puzzled by the choice of my daughter and enquired if it was a family choice. She said well we dont ALWAYS eat meat so I am sure we can manage something. Re-assured her DD doesn't expect fusses made and will always just eat what she can. Found out later new friend is a Farmer's Daughter (livestock).

My daughter is very grateful that we respect her choice. Having just heard this week a friend's daughter aged 13 is in a specialist unit being treated for anorexia I am happy that she has a good relationship with her food IFYSWIM.

Having said all that, I repeat what I said at the start, you know your own DC to know if it is a fad or not.

I wouldn't be prepared to make seperate meals I'm afraid. If I made a lamb hotpot (which would mean I'd have to cook a whole other meal for a veggie) thats what is on offer, it's always been the rule on our house, you eat what is provided or go hungry... If I started providing alternate meals for just one of the kids there would be uproar with the others when it came to other foods that didn't want to be eaten either.

I worked hard getting my 4 year old to eat cooked veg, she would only eat it raw while I was preparing the meal, I just served up her dinners as usual and gently encouraged her to have a taste now and then, it took well over a year and lots of patience but she's finally eating and enjoying cooked veg, that would have all gone to crap if there was an alternative meal offered for one of the others... 'But so and so doesn't have to eat meat so why do I have to eat veg?' What could I have said? Also I wouldn't expect the whole family to eat a quorn mince cottage pie/spag bol etc, because quite frankly it's horrible when you are used to real mince and I wouldn't make two just to please one person. Home cooked meals for a family of six take quite a while to prepare as it is, should I spend another hour on top of the 1.5-2 hours it already takes me just for one person?

It's fine to make a big decision like that, but in reality in my house it would be put on hold until they are old enough to cook a decent alternative meal themselves (not just quorn sausage and veggie burgers).

If you are prepared to provide and able to offer alternative meals then you could give her a one year trial?

Yes YABU

There have been some great responses here but also some misinformation.

A vegetarian diet is far cheaper and healthier. Choosing to ne vegetarian is also completely different from being a fussy eater. Also the lack of protein hooha is a bit unnecessary - it is very easy to get enough protein as a veggie.

Op I think you should respect your dds decision.

DD1 came chose to become vegetarian at the same age.

I explained that I was happy to cook separately for her, but that it would be much easier for me to ensure she got a balanced diet particularly while she's growing if she'd eat fish, which she does.

It's ocassionally a PITA and I have been known to forget to put a meat substitute (quorn sausage) in when harassed and cooking a roast, but its not difficult- we probably eat the same veggie/fishie meal about a third of the time; one half same +substitution and the remainder completely different (ie wer'e having stew and she'll have a toastie)

sorry- she chose.

Well I think you would be being very unreasonable if you were to insist your DD ate meat. I have a six year old DD and I can't imagine how upset she would be if I made her eat meat (I have been vegetarian for over twenty years, and I am bringing my children up with the same diet). Although young, children of this age can still have a strong sense of what is right or wrong, and what they like or do not like. Not wanting to eat meat for ethical reasons is not the same as fussy eating or not wanting to eat peas or whatever. To not provide an alternativve when a child does not want to eat meat would result in a poor diet or a huge upset at the dinner table. I also think it could be quite damaging for your relationship with your DD. It could be seen as not respecting her opinion or her beliefs. Like others have said, it may be a fad, it may pass, but in the meantime I would respect your DD's wishes and provide her with a nutritious vegetarian alternative.

I find that people are becoming more and more aware of the health benefits of a vegetarian diet, and access to key ingredients and veggie alternatives is getting much easier. The Vegetarian Society's website is very good for nutritional info and it has a good children's section which may reassure you. It also has lots of recipes and menu ideas (inc packed lunch suggestions) which you may find helpful. Obviously this is going to mean a bit more work for you but as you get into the swing of what works for your family, and maybe the whole family eats a few more veggie meals, I think you'll find it's not quite as time-consuming or costly as you might think. More importantly, your DD will feel that her opinion matters to her mum and whether or not she stays veggie, that knowledge will stay with her.