To think that parents shouldn’t force their children to follow their dietary preferences?

[TVD2103]

I’ll start by saying that I am a vegetarian, I haven’t eaten meat for years. I have a child who likes meat, therefore I always buy them the snacks and meals that they enjoy, I don’t restrict their eating at all just because I choose not to eat it.

I follow someone on social media, for recipe inspirations, they have a child younger than mine (I would say maybe 6 or 7?) and they mainly eat raw vegan food. They also have a toddler and they make both the children eat the same as them, I know this because they post what their children eat everyday. They’ve just posted a lunch for their child from the other day and it hardly had anything on it! It was literally like a couple of small tomatoes, salad leaves and humus and that’s supposed to be one of the main meals that fills a child up? They are quite restricted in their eating and are also passing this onto their child, I’ve noticed that a lot of vegan families on social media are also like this and it just feels quite extreme, especially when the children are too young to understand the choice of lifestyle and why they have to eat a certain way.

AIBU for thinking that your child should have a diet of everything including meat, regardless of your own dietary preferences, until they are at an age where they can choose for themselves?!

35% of animals in the UK are not stunned before slaughter for halal meat.
They are killed whilst still alive.

There are 24 no stun abattoirs in the UK for halal meat killing sheep.

Asda, sainsburies, Tescos and Morrisons all sell non stunned meat. !

A survey in 2022 indicated that half of the cattle slaughtered without stunning first were sold in the general market without being labelled and there is still no requirement to label it.

I think it’s reasonable for parents to feed their child according to the parent’s preferences when the child is very young. It makes sense because the parent is preparing the food. Once the child starts going to school and socializing, they will be presented with other choices. Children should be free to make choices that conflict with their parent’s preferences and beliefs. That does not mean outside of the house a child should eat nothing but sugar, but as long as they follow something resembling a healthy diet, the parent has to step back and give them some autonomy outside of the house.

as they get older, they may need to make space for food autonomy within the household. That is a discussion that can be had within each family.

Surely killing all animals is cruel
How could it not be

My parents raised me vegan in the 80s when veganism was virtually unheard of.

I hated it and felt I stuck out like a sore thumb. I was fed up of fruit and veg and ended up sneaking chocolate and meat as soon as I could.

I'm neither vegan nor vegetarian now and have a very sweet tooth. Parents can try but kids have their own preferences.

Well unless they are very careful with a vegan diet, those children aren't likely to have strong bones. Vegan does not in itself mean healthy. I remember when Gwyneth Paltrow admitted her extreme vegan diet left her with osteoporosis.

So what you are really saying is that you are concerned about someone neglecting their child - of course that's not OK.

You're being a bit blindsided by the whole vegetarian/ vegan diet. That's irrelevant. Many children have these diets and are well nourished.

If they're not giving their child adequate nourishment then of course that is neglectful.

90% agree - I also don't eat meat. I do eat fish and everything else and my husband eats meat, just not pork.

I've said to him I actively want him to feed our future kids meat as I feel like I had the privilege of being able to choose to stop eating meat at a young age and I want our kids to have that choice as well.

We don't eat lots of meat at home, more fish, so they would have a balanced and healthy diet regardless, and no processed meat anyway, but for me it's just about their choice over eating entire food groups.

However as previous posters have said, we wouldn't feed them pork and I have an aversion to one type of seafood (there's some history of an allergy in my family) so I'd be okay with them trying it as long as it was somewhere near medical help if necessary but I wouldn't be putting it on the menu at home!

YABU
meat isn't essential for a balanced diet. Feeding kids meat isn't neutral, it's still making a choice for them, the choice to eat meat. You may have issues with iron and whatever as a vegetarian but that's by no means common. I'm a vegan and as of last month my iron and vitamin b12 levels are normal (as well as all the other things they tested for, bang in the middle) and I have a life long vegetarian son who is very sporty and tall. He's chosen to occasionally eat chicken and I don't stop him as he's old enough to make that choice but when he was an infant and child of course I chose what kind of diet he followed - every parent does.

Gwyneth Paltrow has an eating disorder. Her health issues are not related to being vegan, they are related to malnutrition because she chronically under eats.

There's a difference between parents who provide a healthy balanced diet and a positive attitude to food and those who don't understand what children need and pass on anxiety about food what ever the lifestyle. I think it's often thre calories/fats children need which is misunderstood by parents who would say they eat cleanly or very healthily.

I eat meat. The BDA seems to suggest that a well balanced vegan diet is fine for children, and they are the source I would trust. However, personally I would not follow a vegan diet for my children without consulting a qualified Dietician (not just a nutritionist) and I would want to monitor B12 in particular.

I would never enforce a vegan diet on a child going to a party or probably even a play date, although if I felt strongly about meat I would be strict about them sticking to the veggie bit. Personally I don't feel comfortable enforcing very strict 'rules' around food for a variety of reasons, however healthy. But that is just my own personal view.

This essentially.

As long as the diet is balanced and not all ultra processed what's the problem?

We didn’t eat meat when our DCs were young and nor did they. When the youngest was 3 I decided I’d ‘let him’ (and the eldest) eat meat at friends’ houses and that graduated to me going back to eating meat at home, usually just chicken. He was a fussy eater so it was easier to make meat or fish for him than a veggie meal he’d refuse.
I was also brought up not eating meat - apart from a brief teen meat-eating phase I didn’t have meat regularly until
my later 30s.
As for a restricted vegan diet. I think you need to be very careful in your eating to get all your nutrients in / and need to take some vitamin supplements (B12 at least). If you’re dealing with fussy eaters already, that’s hard

When people say this (the OP's viewpoint) what they are actually imagining is a typical, British diet including meat. A family in Sri Lanka will eat totally differently, as will a family living in Siberia. Why is the British, non-veggie diet considered the default? There are hundreds of healthy diets that humans follow. The diet many children in Britain are brought up on is literally shortening their lives though, given how many are overweight and obese. Those parents who are making active food choices for their children are at least probably putting some thought into what they are being fed. Depriving a child or processed ham or chicken nuggets is hardly a bad thing.

I say all this as a British meat eater. I don't for a second think my diet is preferable to that of many vegetarians, vegans or people following religious diets. It's individual.

Meh. My kids have been raised vegetarian: I've been vegetarian most of my life, while their dad is a meat eater. I do most of the cooking and argued for default vegetarianism for both until they reached 7 years of age. One now chooses to eat meat, the other so far has preferred to remain a vegetarian. (I did learn fairly early to let things like the odd jelly or gummie slide though.)

It is cruel, but birds and fish don't appear to me to have a consciousness comparable to animals we keep as pets, and I imagine there would be physical but not so much emotional suffering involved in farming and killing them. At the moment we need birds and fish to feed pets and admittedly it's convenient cost effective and nutritious for growing children

Whilst the brains of birds and fish are different to mammals they still have a high level of consciousness and are aware of and experience emotional suffering.
If, for example, you look at the way groups work together and protect to each other. Lots of scientific reports to back this up.
So we can’t classify them as ‘lesser’ in terms of whether killing them is cruel.

The opposite of cruel is kind.
Many children in the world do not eat animals and a non meat diet isn’t more expensive than a meat one.

We'll need to manufacture a good substitute for pets, and I'm sure it can be done

There are lots of vegan cat and dog foods on the market.
All completely balanced.
I do know the vegetarian society and vets have approved at least some makes as nutritionally balanced.

Really, I bet the smell is better as well

To be honest I wouldn’t know. Although my parents aren’t vegetarian and the tins of cat food they use do reek, but then I would say that

You can get good and bad vegan, vegetarian and omnivore etc diets. As long as the parent provides the nutrition a growing child needs who cares 🤷‍♀️

I will though raise an eyebrow at people who raise their children, especially when older with no free choice or damaging views. I had a friend who raised her child not just vegetarian but so anti meat, the poor child wouldn’t go to parties anymore because someone once inadvertently touched her clothed arm after touching a chicken sandwich and she was so distraught they had to leave.

Everything has its own lived experience of the world. Birds absolutely have emotions. And fish can feel pain too.

We are conditioned from a young age to view certain animals as 'lesser'. Thus making it easy for us to exploit them. It's called species-ism.

If you look at history, eg, the Nazi and the Jews, focus on 'inferiority' is oftem used to justify all manner of atrocities. To placate the masses into thinking these behaviours are OK.

Now, birds might not be as smart as us. But...we're not as fast as cheatas or, as big as elephants. We can't fly. Can't breathe under the ocean. Can't swing through the trees.
Is being smart all that matters? Does being smarter or, more emotionally developed than another creature, mean their life doesn't have value?

All lives are valuable to the individual living it.