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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not tell DD

235 replies

Flippetydip · 01/12/2017 17:58

DD is 6, nearly 7. She's been vegetarian since August and has been absolutely adamant about it, brilliant with what she eats and shows no sign of relenting. I'm all for this and have also pretty much gone veggie. DH and DS have not, therefore there is meat stuff in the fridge.

Fridays are our night when we rush from a to b and back again without time to turn round. I WFH so try and fit that in amidst everything else. This is me preparing my excuse for being such a fuckwit. I did oven chips and what I thought were fish fingers for DD tonight before she went out to Beavers (this is not an AIBU about crap parenting and crap food, it's Friday, we're busy, they eat well the rest of the time!) All good, I had one, thought weird consistency but nothing more of it. Got them out to put in for DS later and realised they were chicken fingers. We have never had these in the freezer before, I can only assume DH bought them as part of a Co-op meal deal or some such thing.

AIBU not to tell DD? I don't think it will do either of us any good.

OP posts:
JillyJellybean · 01/12/2017 22:32

MrsLupo

I expect I'll get flamed for pretty much all of that, but I don't care

Not by me Mrs Lupo, and I'm a vegan.

You were clear and concise. I admire that.

LaContessaDiPlump · 01/12/2017 22:33

I think JillyJellybean said she would eat cheese because she is the type of vegan who doesn't want to cause social awkwardness at a family meal. I applaud her, because I cause social awkwardness all the time at family meals and should probably be less of a dick for the purpose of harmony Grin

OP, another vegan here saying it could do no good to tell her, so don't. As an aside, my kids are omni and I lie to them all the time about what's in their food ('Of COURSE there's no leek in your leek and potato soup darling, I removed it from yours especially'). So I wouldn't feel bad. It's not what I'd call an active falsehood.

Btw, did you know they do vegan-friendly 'fish' fingers now? I tried them and hated them 'cos they were too fishy Grin

TheNoodlesIncident · 01/12/2017 22:34

Well, fish are notoriously bastards.

I've kept a few that were a bit narky. Should've strung em up, eh? Wink

FWIW I wouldn't tell her OP. Has she never seen Finding Nemo? The fish look distinctly animal like, even in that.

Corals are animals too. And sponges.

SeamusMacDubh · 01/12/2017 22:35

I wouldn't be surprised if OP doesn't return! Check out all the vegetarians slating a child expressing an interest/desire to be vegetarian. Yes, fish aren't vegetables - but vegetarians don't just eat vegetables, that comment is designed to belittle the OP and her DD. It's probably easier to describe her DD as a vegetarian rather than have to explain what a pescatarian is to someone who isn't au fair with the term.

Just in case anyone was interested, I used to be a lacto-ovo-vegetarian and was a vegan for several years but now I'm not. I wonder how many vegetarians are that specific when describing their dietary habits. Though no doubt they think it is none of anyone else's business anyway.

MrLovebucket · 01/12/2017 22:37

In which case why wouldn't you use an extra word or two to make your meaning clear and save yourself trouble.

If only it was as easy as that.

I'm vegan so explained it as "I don't eat meat, fish or anything that comes from an animal, i.e. dairy and eggs" I thought that was fairly comprehensive but clearly not as they replied "but you eat chicken though?".

Turns out they work in a supermarket and, as there are sections for 'poultry' and 'meat' they didn't think that chicken/turkey also count as meat. This person was in their 50's btw, not some 15 year old on work experience.

roundaboutthetown · 01/12/2017 22:37

One of my favourite Roald Dahl "Tales of the Unexpected" was about a man who made a machine that enabled him to hear plants talk and translate what they were saying. He could hear them scream when they were dug up or cut down. It ended with a tree falling on top of him and laughing...

JillyJellybean · 01/12/2017 22:38

All vegetables were once alive, and many of them still are as you're eating them

Grin There's always one.

ButchyRestingFace · 01/12/2017 22:39

YABU for allowing your 6yr old to be a vegetarian

I quite agree.

OP should have started her daughter off with level 5 veganism (Google it) before progressing to fruitaranism and ultimately maxing out with breatharianism around the age of 10.

MrLovebucket · 01/12/2017 22:43

@Butchy I'm at Level 6 - I don't even eat shadows that cast shadows.

CorbynsBumFlannel · 01/12/2017 22:47

I wasn't trying to be petty by picking the op up on her use of the term vegetarian when she meant pescatarian. But I'm intrigued by a 6 year old who has decided for herself to exclude all meat except fish. It doesn't seem the op is coming back to elaborate though.

JillyJellybean · 01/12/2017 22:50

She's asking for advice about how to handle the fact that her daughter ate something she will subsequently be upset about having eaten, if told. Why not give her some advice about that? You know, since she's asked and all

No. I wouldn't tell her that I accidentally gave her chicken fingers.
It's a one off and it won't happen again. But I would tell her that she is not a vegetarian if she eats fish. Because fish are living creatures and if she eats them she is not a vegetarian.

That's why the fish thing seems to be taking precedence on this thread. The whole OP is flawed and for those of us who are true vegetarians, it's important to point that out. Nobody else will.

JillyJellybean · 01/12/2017 22:53

Het is a word as in het up meaning a bit wound up it might be a northern thing

I knew exactly what you meant and I'm from Hebden Bridge.
So perhaps.

GreatStar · 01/12/2017 22:57

Another vegetarian here just popping in to say how annoying it is when someone is described as a vegetarian. But they eat fish.

Vegetarians do not eat fish!
If you eat fish youre NOT vegetarian !!!!!

Sorry rant over

roundaboutthetown · 01/12/2017 23:08

As a non-vegetarian, my understanding has always been that vegetarians do not eat dead animals as a matter of principle. I don't know why other people with strangely illogical views on what is and is not acceptable to eat have tried to commandeer the term, as it just results in confusion.

Original poster
Flippetydip · 01/12/2017 23:12

SOOOOOO sorry for not coming back to flog myself publically for inadvertently typing vegetarian instead of pescetarian. You know, Friday evening and all, spending time with friends, forgot to check back in. Profuse profuse apologies to all.

DD herself refers to herself as pesky (which makes me smile) so she certainly knows the difference.

Thank you to Mrs Lupo and various others who have offered friendly advice.

OP posts:
JillyJellybean · 01/12/2017 23:12

Surely vegetarians would applaud anyone cutting down on their meat consumption, regardless of whether they eat fish

Carnivores can do what they like, for me. It's been easy for me to be veggie because I just don't like big lumps of meat. My dh and me just turned the age when we got our cholesterol levels measured for free on the NHS,

He eats loads of meat, steak, lamb, pork belly his favourite. I'm vegan.

His cholesterol is 7.2 and mine is 2.6.

He has now to take statins. It's sad for him because he wouldn't be happy to stop eating meat, and I couldn't possibly imagine to start eating meat. I don't like it.

It's not about applauding people who don't eat meat unless it's for ethical reasons. I simply don't like it.

BarbarianMum · 01/12/2017 23:22

OK so she eats flesh. So no need to tell her she ate land fish for once.

MrLovebucket · 01/12/2017 23:30

DD herself refers to herself as pesky (which makes me smile) so she certainly knows the difference.

Good for her. As a 6 year old she clearly has more gumption than her mother when it comes to describing things accurately which bodes well for her future.

Don't tell her that her that she ate chicken, what's the point when it was your husband's 'mistake'.

JillyJellybean · 01/12/2017 23:31

Irritating as it is. If you wrote "vegetarian, no fish" on RSVPs you'd have less chance to get righteously indignant, but more edible meals

I've been vegetarian for 35 years. My dd has been veggie for 20 years.
My sister in law and her dh have been veggie for 50 years. How long do we have to wait before people crack on that being vegetarian means that you don't eat meat? And that fish is meat? That it's a dead animal? It's not rocket science.

We've recently had gender fluid they's gaining admittance to ladies bogs and changing rooms because on that particular day they identify as a woman. Yet people who don't eat dead animals in any form have struggled for 50+ years for people to understand and accept that they don't want to eat the dead flesh of animals?

The world has gone nuts. Let the fish finger war commence.

MrLovebucket · 01/12/2017 23:32

Apologies to your husband - it was your mistake, not his.

CorbynsBumFlannel · 01/12/2017 23:36

Why did she go pesky though? Generally if kids choose themselves to stop eating meat at age 6 it's because they care about creatures. It's only adults ime who exclude fish for health reasons. Did she just say one day 'I want to stop eating animals except fish'????

confuzzled42 · 01/12/2017 23:42

OP here - no she initially started by not eating any meat or fish as a reaction to having seen lobsters in a tank in France. Rather bizarrely she then reverted to eating fish. I don’t know why. I’m not going to judge her slightly confused ethics, she’s six.

confuzzled42 · 01/12/2017 23:43

And sorry for the different names - I’m crap at remembering my login for different devices...

JillyJellybean · 01/12/2017 23:43

If she is willing to eat a dead fish, then it's far from the end of the world that she has accidentally eaten a dead chicken... it's not as if her eating habits relate to a dislike of killing animals, unless she thinks fish somehow deserve it

If this were about an adult and not a six year old I'd do a Grin

But it 'is' about a six year old so it's not really appropriate.

The six year old vegetarian needs to know that fish are animals just like cows and lambs and pigs.

confuzzled42 · 01/12/2017 23:44

Jilly yes she knows that.