To tell Dsis (9) that if she "won't sit at a table where people are eating non free range turky" that she can eat her christmas dinner alone on the balcony.

[honeytea]

My lovely adorable and slightly precocious little sister is 9 and has been a self declared vegetarian since she was about 4.

My family are coming to stay with us for Christmas and my mum has kindly offered to cook Christmas dinner which is fab as I am due to give birth on the 8th (but feel like the baby is happy in my tummy and won't be here till much closer to Christmas.) I was talking to my mum and sister today about what I should buy for dinner, they fly to us on the 23rd and we have a christmas day celebration with my DP's family on the 24th so I need to get prepared. I went trough all the vegies and stuff for a nut roast, then I said maybe I will get a big chicken instead of a turky and my little sister said well you had better make sure it is free range as I won't sit at a table where there meat that is not free range, I said to her that is fine she can sit on the balcony and eat her dinner.

AIBU and a nasty big sister, I will look for a free range chicken but I don't often buy meat and I have no idea if you can even buy free range chickens in the country we live in.

If my dc had a really good reason for not wanting to go somewhere (something like knowing a bully would be there, or yes it opposed a moral principle for some reason) then I wouldn't take them there. I don't think it's reasonable to disregard someone else's feelings or beliefs just because they're too young or vulnerable to be able to stand up to me. I definitely wouldn't treat my own family that way especially if I wanted a nice Christmas. You can't bully someone into tolerating the disregard of their principles and then expect them to carry on being cheerful and treating you with respect.

Wolf fleeces aren't directly about wolf conservation, but there is a link: they are about creating an image of wolves as noble creatures that then feeds into their relatively high standing in the conservation world.

I shall start making and selling nematode fleeces forthwith, there's obviously a market for 'em

Yes, principles are (usually) more important than manners. But again, people, for the umpteenth time she's not being asked to compromise her principles, her sister is preparing an option in order to avoid her having to do this. What she is actually doing is imposing her opinions demands on her family at cost and embarrassment to them. Having a debate about food production is good. Declining to consume food which is produced in a way you don't like is good. Forcing a bunch of relatives to dance to your tune on this at cost to them is not good, its spoiled and selfish.

You can't bully someone into tolerating the disregard of their principles and then expect them to carry on being cheerful and treating you with respect.

Equally, you can't bully someone into doing what you dictate.

punk thank you! I will talk to her about going to see wolves, she is very aware of bears as we go skiing in bear territory and her main worry is that if she was attacked by a bear the bear would be killed.

I don't think it is attention seaking from my sister as she has lots of attention as she has 5 grown up siblings and 2 parents so she is pretty much always the center of attention, she is used to bossing our mum around and my mum would probably say to her fair enough we will buy free range turky.

ANy ideas for some ethical animal bassed pressies?

I wouldn't want to sit at a table full of people laughing and joking over a turkey which will almost certainly have had the worst life it could possibly have had. I admire your sister. I suppose to her (and to me) it's just like a group of people making merry over a plate of kitten, or a plate of pet hamster. Heartless and crude.

But that does present you with a dilemma. Let her have fun being a martyr out on the balcony, I guarantee she will love "sacrificing" Christmas lunch and picturing herself a a lonely, misunderstood crusader you grow out of being a self important nine year old, what's more important is how much she cares and how compassionate she seems to be.

An Oxfam goat? :o

quesadilla, would you feel comfortable eating somewhere where something you had a moral objection to was being served? Could you sit next to someone eating whale, live animals, monkey, polar bear, people etc (choose one which you oppose the eating of) and feel like it had no effect on you as long as you didn't have to eat it? I know I couldn't sit at table with someone eating any of those things and as an adult I would avoid that situation. A 9 year old can't avoid it (unless she goes to the balcony) but that doesn't mean she would feel any better about it.

Equally, you can't bully someone into doing what you dictate.

The difference being that the op doesn't have a moral objection to free-range meat, it's just inconvenient to get hold of.

teddy I could and I have (except for live animals!) - as long as I don't have to eat it I have no objection to what others put it their mouths.

But Teddy, the OP is not forcing her to abandon her principles.

She's seeing to her dietary requirements and has explained the difficulty in getting a free range turkey/chicken.

She isn't being forced to do anything. Presumably she wants to see her sister and new dn!

I just think a nine year old bossing a grown woman around and making demands is awful. I would never allow my children to act that way!

Teddybare I have frequently had to eat around people eating a lot of food which I don't like and think is ethically questionable -- my DH comes from somewhere where they eat a lot of meat and offal and the like. I don't eat it (I eat meat sometimes but not offal) but I would consider it beyond rude to take myself off in a sulk and ask to eat separately because I don't like it. Admittedly I don't have any ethical objection to meat eating, but I find offal disgusting. But I wouldn't dream of asking to be allowed to eat at a separate table from them.

I would never expect someone to be forced to eat something they didn't agree with but I don't see why they should expect other people who don't share those views to modify their behaviour on my behalf. Its self-centred and disrespectful. Once again, the OP is catering for her sister's strongly-held ethical beliefs. She is well within her rights not to eat the turkey but she can't expect all her relatives not to eat it just because she doesn't like it. And by sitting at a different table she is making the whole meal about her and her beliefs and basically making her parents and sister feel like sh**.

(Off topic, but where were you to be near people eating people? Did the person die of natural causes and then get eaten or is it more Hollywood-style sacrifice than that?) I also think that is probably quite an unusual approach. There are a lot of vegetarians who avoid meat in general. I'm not sure there are many 9 year olds with that level of detachment and emotional maturity.
Walter - it would appear to be the case that this particular vegetarian is the sort of vegetarian who would choose not to be around people eating meat. That is a principled argument and she is being forced to abandon it. It is possible to get free range meat in Sweden and it is apparently also possible to get ethically farmed turkeys, so there are options. I think disregarding someone else's moral principles, especially when it's for convenience, is awful. I would never treat anyone that way and I hope my dc wouldn't either!

Really, you would feel like shit?
You would feel fine being responsible for the death of an animal, never mind supporting the demand for a horrible inhumane industry, but a child eating away from the table (which is what happens with us anyway- children eat separately) spoils the whole thing for you? Bit screwed up IMO.

I love precocious kids :o Her morals are admirable but as others have said she needs to learn that other people have different views and sometimes good manners are important too.

That is irrelevant, Teddy. You still can't bully people into doing what you want.

Incidentally, my opinion has nothing to do with the age of the person trying to bully the others. It would be the same if she was an adult.

quirrel think you may be confusing me with the OP. Don't know what the OP's view is. Personally, if a member of my family had strong views on not eating animals I would very much respect that and try within reason to cater for it. What I wouldn't do is enable this family member to dictate that everyone else present had to refrain from not eating them too. I don't think its reasonable for one person's principles, however strongly held, to be given automatic precedence over anyone else's. Call that moral relativism if you like, but I think its just self-centred and bad mannered.

quesadilla I would see a distinction between not liking a type of food and thinking that the way it is produced is unethical. If you dislike a food then simply not tasting, smelling or touching it is probably enough. If you object to the way it is produced then it's the existence of it that is the problem. Clearly no one can change the whole world, but they can choose to avoid situations which feature unethical elements especially if you were hoping to have a nice time. I have no intention of google searching for images of child abuse on Christmas day because I hope to enjoy the day and that would put a damper on things for me. I would choose not to attend an event where those images were being featured on Christmas and if I were forced to attend I would be somewhat resentful about it.
If her family feel bad about her choosing to avoid the problem by sitting somewhere else then that's a shame, but I don't think that the family feeling bad should be prioritised above respecting the beliefs of someone (even if they are young enough to force).

Soupdragon, I think you're being rather unfair interpreting this as a child trying to bully anyone. She is simply trying to avoid something she finds unethical. No one wants to be confronted by things they find unethical. Avoiding them is not really bullying anyone.

TeddyBare
I take your point on the distinction between inethical and disgusting food, but comparing someone cooking a non free-range turkey for their family's christmas meal with googling for child porn is totally over the top. I'll say it again: no-one is asking her to compromise her beliefs. She is simply being asked to tolerate the fact that there are other people with whom she is eating who aren't eating the free range stuff. She cannot expect to go through life totally avoiding situations where she eats adjacent to people who eat things she doesn't like and she's creating a lot of embarrassment and hassle (and probably upset) for her family by seeking to do so.

I very much doubt that this is being driven by her principles at all, unless she refuses to go to any fast food restaurant, or any restaurant, 99% of which don't serve free range food. Would she really not go in any setting without free range meat? Does she eat her school dinners with her school friends?

I think it is no coincidence that this has arisen over a meal all the family will be attending, in which she already gets heaps of attention, This is attention seeking in the extreme when her own beliefs about eating meat aren't being brought into question.

My husband's family are from a culture where wearing fur is commonplace, so is shooting and eating and trapping animals for food (in the countryside), giving children a bit of alcohol from an early age, attending religious ceremonies which aren't my personal choice and so on. Imagine if I made my own protests everytime I went there about every single moral choice I disagreed with? I have friends whose children are brought up in extremely different cultures (e.g. sacrificing animals at feasts)- should they show their distain for the locals by refusing to sit with them to eat (this in most cultures is about as rude as you can get)?

She is used to being the centre of attention, and to be honest even if you sorted this out, by getting a free-range turkey/chicken (which I do myself), I'm betting she would move the goalposts and find something to object to in the lack of free-range gravy or whatever.

I'd just clarify I don't make my children eat anything they don't want when we go into their father's culture, nor do I. But I wouldn't allow them to disrespect their hosts by getting up and leaving the table (sometimes we have to pour the alcohol into a plantpot!)

If the op was in the uk she would have ordered the free-range organic turkey already - that much is clear from her posts. The problem is she's trying to balance her SD's desire for a traditional turkey with her DSis desire for that turkey to be free range, and that seems to be impossible in Sweden.

I can't help thinking the solution is not to serve turkey? Serve a traditional Swedish meal?

What a spoilt little shite she sounds. No adult, no matter how 'principled' would be allowed to behave like that in my house and I certainly wouldn't tolerate it from a 9 year old!!!