To be mad at FIL for feeding my daughter meat?

[Fruitypebbles]

Hi, just joined the site to ask this.

We're vegans, and my daughter has been raised and weaned vegan. She's 5 and happily eats anything put in front of her. She's very healthy, not lacking in any vitamins or nutrients at all and is beautiful, happy and refuses to eat meat usually because she knows in child friendly terms why we are vegans.

Despite her health being perfectly fine (she rarely ever gets ill, let alone any deficiencies in iron and protein - there's plenty of protein in plants!) my FIL thinks we're evil. We've given him all the information, shown him exactly how much she gets in a normal day and he can see how healthy she is. He fed her a meat casserole, she obviously couldn't recognise the meat in the stew because we use meat subs occasionally. She was very, very sick after this as her body can't digest meat after never eating it. Why can't he just respect our choices to not eat animal products? AIBU?

He's an arse and won't be getting her alone again I hope.

Have you asked him?

What did you say to him? I'd go batshit crazy, if he offered and she said yes that would have been different but hiding it from her in a casserole is a shit thing to do.

YANBU
Horrible of him to do that
What did he say when you told him she was ill?
Interestingly a lot of people in my family are veggie
Mum and Dad aren't, we were raised to eat meat but my sister literally couldn't digest any more than a bit of ham, so we never went to McD etc. To inflict a meat casserole on a child who is vegan, awful!

Not unreasonable at all, I expect my parents and in-laws to respect my choices about eating, bedtimes all kinds of things.

Over time, your dd may indeed chose to eat meat but it shouldn't be encouraged by him, and at 5 you are the parent, your decision.

I would eat a vegan diet myself if I could be bothered to be creative with cooking, I don't believe it to be inherently unhealthy anyway as long as you watch your B12.

You need to confront him about this - what he did was completely unacceptable. I wouldn't have her under his watch either if he doesn't apologise and says it'll never happen again.

YANBU he should have respected your views so is an arse but the getting sick thing because her body can't digest meat is tosh - its just protein and she will have had plenty of other protein containing foods

Not unreasonable at all, I wouldn't be sending her there unsupervised again that's for sure.

I'd go bonkers at this.

The issue for me wouldn't be the actual meat (although that's still awful) but that he utterly ignored your parenting decisions that you've made for your child and that he knows are deeply important to you as a family.
I wouldn't leave him alone with her ever again. How did he justify this when you asked him? What has he said since finding out he has made her sick as a result?

Good for her.

Very sorry to hear that she was not well, but yah boo schucks to the PIL for being so horrid. Hope he had to clean it all up.

I hope she was still with him when she was sick ? That'd show him.

YANBU. Supervised infrequent contact only from now on if she was mine. What a dick.

Has he been confronted?

It was hard not to go crazy, but MIL is wonderful and I didn't want to create a rift there :/ if she chooses to eat meat in the future I would never stop her but she knows why we eat meat (we don't think we're more important than any other life unless it puts our own directly in danger, such as in the case of parasites etc) and she loves animals so she's very happy with the choice.

Because she was sick obviously I asked what she ate when she was there, she doesn't have allergies that I know of so obviously a reaction like that I'd like to know, he told me in earshot of her and she's been really upset about it ever since. I'll definitely have to keep an eye on it and probably send her with her own food in the future in case she doesn't trust him to feed her again.

YANBU such a disrespectful and silly thing to do.

Not unreasonable at all.
It was wrong of him to do that, not only giving her meat but going against a parenting decision you and your dh made.
when you are looking after somebody's else child you should respect the way the parents do things even if it wouldn't be your way.

YANBU. That is terrible. I would be beyond furious.

Was MIL in on it? Or did FIL independently decide to cook meat for your child? (I.e. was she in the house?)

I would be livid and they wouldn't be going back in a hurry. I would let MIL visit at my house, but not much else for the foreseeable future.

Obviously there are issues with him accepting your choices but knowing that I wonder why you trusted him to provide a vegan meal for your dd. Do they normally cater appropriately for you if you visit? Might it not have been better to supply you own meal for her. Where was mil in all this?

While it was an awful thing to do, I'd wait until your anger has calmed a little (I'd be very angry too) and ask him why. What could have possibly motivated him to do such a thing.

He has disrespected your choices and needs to realise that, whatever his thoughts on eating meat, it is not OK to sneak meat to a vegan child.

You are being unreasonable, no 5 year old should be a vegan.

That's awful! Did you actually pull him up on it? It doesn't sound much like you did (or perhaps you were just more restrained than j would have been!) and he clearly doesn't think he is wrong, do you think he will do it again? Poor dd being so poorly. What an arse!

The thing is, if it's his idiotic way of expressing disapproval then he's put her off meat for a long time anyway!

Don't be so utterly ridiculous Lakiey.