"What is meat made of mummy'

[Aloha]

I have been avoiding answering this one for AGES...but finally could avoid it no longer while ds was eating shepherds pie this evening. "It's made of animals, darling"
Ds (looking stricken, lip wobbling) "No mummy, it can't be made of animals. (little laugh) Not animals! How could a animal be meat?"
Me: "When animals die, they sometimes turn into meat for us to eat"
Ds (crying quite hard now, not eating) "But they don't die! I don't want them to. They aren't meat! You are telling me things that make me sad!"
Me: 'I'm sorry darling. We won't talk about it any more if you don't want to"

Oh dear.

oh no - how old is he?

Amino acids polymerised into long chains with a complex three dimentional structure.

That would have ducked the issue nicely, and been 100% correct

Four. I knew he would react like this though.

oh no!

I'm ashamed (or am I - not sure LOL) to say that DS's are being brought up from day one that "pork comes from a pig", etc etc.

I bet you wish you had said "protein".

Poor you - awful question to answer for a boy who loves reading and has therefore seen several million lovingly rendered fluffy animals.

Dammit MB, He would have loved that answer (if I could have remembered it!).

how dos he feel about chicken - -that kinda gives the game away doesn't it?

I knew he didn't really want the answer, as whenever he has asked it he has looked really scared and a bit wobbly.

He has announced, 'Fish is a twice word isn't it mummy? There is the fish that swims in the sea and the fish you eat!" To which I, shamefully answered, 'yes dear'.

I had this one a few months ago (we're veggie which doesn't help) DS1 and I were talking about farms.
DS1: Mummy - I know cows give milk and hens gibe eggs. What are pigs for on farms?
Me: err...well, darling, some people like to eat pigs
DS1 (completely incredulous) That's just silly! It would give you a tummy ache

Matianbishop has trumped me! Bob has also been brought up knowing that steak is from a cow, lamp chops from a sheep etc. But I'm sure he'll get upset one day when the penny drops.

The only bad moment so far has been watching one day old chicks be fed to some otters.

aww bless him. DS1 sways the other way "Look at those lovely lambs in the field mummy" - can we have one for dinner !

I have told DS that meat are animals too. I think he should know the truth in a matter of fact sort of way.
Has she seen the 'Lion King' where the father Lion talks to son about the circle of life, the food chain etc. That seemed to make sense to my DS.

mine know where meat comes from - -we had "the circle of life" chat - has he seen the Lion King?

cori - you beat me to it

Dd has been known to sigh loudly and say 'I didn't really want that much of an answer Mummy' when she asks me stuff like this

ah - dd knows about this, she watches with horrid fascination when we kill cockerels and finds the gutting really interesting. Take him to a farm.

Oh blimey, I am dreading this too, particularly as ds and I are veggie and dp eats meat. The questions that will come from that, oh my. We had a great moment over Christmas dinner this year at friends, when the turkey came round and I said "no thanks" on behalf of myself and ds. Ds said "Why don't we eat that?" and I had to say "I'll tell you later". Didn't really fancy explaning it all in front of a table of people enjoying their Christmas turkey

Ds asked about fish - along the lines of 'You know fish Mummy, well is the fish we eat the fish that swims in the sea?' to which I tentatively answered yes, and he set off on a long meandering thought about how the fish might have got from the sea into the packet of fish fingers, and didn't want any more info from me!

Ds is now cheerfully doing a show for dh, in which he wraps himself in a towel, sings the music from Wallace and Gromit, offers some clues (I am big, I live in the jungle, I make a big noise and have a very long nose...) and then says 'What am I?'
He is very cheerful.

time to put the Lion King DVD on then

He's very odd, he doesn't enjoy watching films at home. Think he gets bored. We do have the story in a Disney compendium somewhere though.

Lol at this thread, particularly at aloha's 'twice' word and mb's 'I didn't really want that much of an answer Mummy'

I've posted this before but it still makes me laugh when I think about it. Dh was chatting to ds1 (he was about 3 or 4) about food and he said "well, I love chicken, and beef, and pork, and turkey, and lamb, and dragon!"

To which ds1 replied, "don't be silly, Daddy, nobody would eat a lamb!"

Aloha, DS2 and I have been having this conversation for about 8 months now, and the first time we did he said, just like your DS, "Well, there are two types of chickens, aren't there, flying chickens and eating chickens?" I was callous Mum and told him no, there was just one sort. "But where are the feathers, Mummy?" "Well, somebody else takes them off...."

He gets sad when he thinks of lamb coming from lambs, but he is a real carnivore so wipes his tears away and carries on gnawing on the chop bone!

This reminded me of a converstation I had with DS1 3 a few months ago.

We had been discussing where vegetables grow while eating lunch after seeing something on cebeebies - ie do they grow under the ground like carrots and potatoes or over the ground like broccoli, sweetcorn etc. He then said: where do these sausages grow, over or under the ground?
Me: neither they are made of meat. these sausages are pork which comes from pigs.
DS1: what? out of their bottoms??!!!!
Me - not knowing whether to laugh or run away and hide: No dear, from their bodies after they have died.

He wasn;t that bothered. Maybe too young? He hasn't mentioned it since. Still makes me chuckle to remember it though.