To tell this child where burgers come from?

[Ifyourawizardwhydouwearglasses]

Yesterday we had one of DCs friends (5) round. Went outside and she wanted to see the cows (we live on a farm). She said to me 'these cows all make milk' and I said, 'no, female cows make milk. These are all male and these will make steaks and burgers.'

She looked utterly horrified but it had never occurred to me that a child of 5 would not know where meat came from. The mother was a but sniffy via text later that evening and said that dd was upset but would come around in time.

I think it's frankly ridiculous that she got to 5 without being told this.

WIBU?

FGS! Of course you were being reasonable!! Some people are just sooo precious it's unreal. Poor kid.

I am lol that she let the dd visit you on a FARM and expected you to citify the experience for her. Bonkers. Perhaps you should suggest to the infant teacher that the class come on a visit - would your insurance cover it? (We have a lot of cattle ranches here, and some of the parents started to run annual visits like this so that the kids who weren't rural would understand both the lifestyle of their classmates and the food production aspects of the business. Beef is huge business here, though, so it's an important part of their culture. The kids love it - their favourite trip of the year.

(They don't run it at the more squeamish times, lol, euphemistically called 'branding', although dd2 at about 7 was proud to be put into service as the kid that got to tote the 'nut bucket' around the corral and collect the chopped off testicles one year. I think we can safely say that after that experience she wasn't quite as sheltered as previously!!)

YANBU at all! The mother needs to get a grip, you were educating her child in a positive manner. Grrr Townies!!

OP, why do you call them cows if they're all male?

Just simpler with small children used to picture books. With DH they're cattle or beasts.

I love our local supermarket fish counter. There is a massive fish tank of live fish under a display of chilled fish :-D Am not sure my 5 year old has made the connection yet but she certainly knows the meat we eat comes from animals.

YANBU

Grunt - a cow is the animal, regardless of sex. A male cow is a bull (or a stirk if under a certain age and reared for meat instead of reproduction) and a female cow is a heifer.

We do now play a game where I tell him..........sausages and he has to tell me what animal it came from.

Anyone's guess nowadays, you could be there a while..!

How does it just come up in conversation?

I do cook, and the DC watch, but it's never occurred to me to say "this is beef. It is a dead cow" or "this is chicken. It is a dead bird".

Hmm, are you sure the mum wasn't insulted that you suggested she feed her children BEEF burgers, rather than hand formed bison and chorizo burger, or any steak other than Ostrich?

My DS1 is a massive animal lover, is 7 but has learning difficulties. I must admit I was worried about telling him that those burgers he loved were cows. One day he asked me what they were, I told him it was a cow and he said "cows are yummy".

YANBU. It's just a fact of life.

YANBU. I can't see why it would be a problem for someone to learn about their food. If the parents are uncomfortable with their child eating animals then they should make a lifestyle shift (ie become veggie) rather than fret about their child finding out about the food.

I've had the old fashioned cookbooks out and talked my DDs through which bits of body the different named cuts come from. They're 4.5 and 6yo and meat-eaters.

We look at animals at the local open air museum and talk about it. When they had piglets we chatted with the man looking after them about how long until they were slaughtered and made into dinners. We buy whole fish and go to Sea Life centres where DD1 asks which types of fish end up on dinner plates.

If they choose to become veggies later that'll be fine, but for now they seem comfortable with eating meat.

My DS (3) knows all about this and always tells everyone he is an omnivore. We talked about our cat, killing birds and mice, this lead onto other things. Children these days are very cosseted I don't think it is that healthy. I want mine to know about food provence because it is important to me, how the cattle/sheep/chickens are raised is something they should think about.

My DS is also very interested in death and I tried to make death sound less final and told him about heaven, but it's a bit abstract for him and it backfired. I heard him telling his sister there "if you fiddle with the TV it could fall on top of you and you might die but you would go to Helen, it's nice there you can play dinosaurs as often as you like, but mummy won't be there to cuddle you."

I never felt the need to tell my DC where meat actually came from until they were long past the age of 5.

I just found it a bit harsh to tell them at such a young age, plenty of time for that when they're a bit older.

Now nearly 24 and 22, it hasn't done them any harm by not knowing at 5!

Think I would have just told the girl in the OP that only female cows make milk and left it at that.

I suppose she should have known. She does now and that's the main thing for you so at least one person is happy.

One question. What happens to the cows when they can't give milk any more?

I think I know.

I am 50 and three quarters if that helps.

AuntieDee the word "cow" is the name of the adult female of whatever species it is. Could be elephants, could be cattle, could be moose, could be whales. If they're adult males, they're bulls. "Male cow"? You may as well refer to a "male woman".

Whatsagood we just chat about ... things! Everything, really. When he was about 2 his speech was a bit delayed, so I tried to chat about everything. 'Oh look ds, there's a bus, what colour is it, yes its RED!' Very pfb and annoying i'm sure . We did the whole honey comes from bees, etc thing, this was just extension of that.

It isn't brutal if its presented from day one - its just a fact of life.

Same here Pootles it's just a part of the world around us.

DD1 had poor hearing for a while and now she seems to 'hear' a lot and make connections. So if we're eating roast chicken and then see chickens a few days later the word 'chicken' will link. Same with roast 'lamb'. So after explaining that we eat the cute sheep, pigs and cows were easy to cover. She loves going to the fish counter and picking dinner and it's not hard to see a 'fish' when buying a whole one.

YANBU. At 5, a child really ought to be capable of discovering where some of her food comes from. The suggestion that you should have lied is quite ridiculous.

My dcs benefited enormously from time spent on my dm's smallholding when they were about the same age. DM used to name all her animals but for all that, they still went into the pot. I still remember ds2 thanking her for a particularly nice dinner and saying "Henrietta was delicious, wasn't she, Granny?". No trauma. Nothing to "get over".

in the circumstances you weren't unreasonable.

If this was some city kid and you happened to be out and about in the country and she made the comment i would argue that maybe at five the best response would have been to nod "that's right cows make milk" just in case it was a sensitive issue.

Mine aren't five yet and we havent had the conversation, so hard to judge for me, I would expect to have had it by then though to be honest.

Given you live on a working farm and presumably the mum was aware of this, the definitley yanbu, she should almost have encouraged this conversation as a good learning experience.

She's 5 and her Mum has told her that milk comes from cows, I can see how some children could then struggle with being told no, these cows are for meat.

Doesn't mean that you were being unreasonable OP

I might be a bit annoyed as my son has a very limited diet and I am wary of telling him anything which might limit it even further, but I certainly wouldn't blame you for being honest and wouldn't be off with you about it as I consider it my problem to deal with. Perhaps she would have handled it a bit differently as she knows her daughter and is likely to be able to tailor her explanations to suit her sensitivities, but if that's the case then she's left it a bit late!

I love the fact that people think eating meat is traumatic enough to hide from small children, then carry on doing it

You are a farmer. You have a practical view of life - no reason why you would have even thought of lying about what the cows are for. The friend will get over it (as will her mother).

pootle I agree 100%

Of course you are right to tell her.