AIBU? "forcing" a child to be remarkable

[bidibidobidiboo]

NC for this. Pretty much since reception child has been heavily tutored to be ahead on the school curricula, parents don't miss one single opportunity to boast about how clever the child is and the number of extra-curriculum activities the child is involved. The child is 7yo and is vegetarian (parents are not, child's decision on moral grounds apparently) and has been involved in intense physical activity to fundraise for another child. I have been interacting with the child a bit as my own child goes to the same school. A few play dates and chatting with parents. The child doesn't come across as particularly bright or morally developed. They were once playing video games with my child and apologised profusely for losing a match. We were eating out with the parents and child asked to have some of my child's non vegetarian sandwich as their lunch was late (asked for parent's permission and they declined as the child is vegetarian). Without going into too many details the fundraising thing feels heavily engineered by the parents. AIBU to feel sorry for the child? I had a difficult childhood and I am very sensitive to children not be able to grow up carefree.

Pushy parents are never great but it does sound as if you are responding from your own experience. Unless the child appears unhappy I’d assume they’re broadly fine, it might not be ideal parenting but there are many worse things.

Yes i feel sorry for kids like this.

It is pretty sad. All you can do is have a safe environment when they visit and use positive and realistic language and phrases. Hope they can stand up for themselves when they are older and be resilient if they really don't fit in the box their parents are putting them in. Hope their parents cam recognise the talents and positives that do exist in their kid too.

I generally don't like pushy parents.

But in defence of the vegetarianism. My 6YO has decided recently he's vegetarian and doesn't want to eat meat anymore. Fair enough. He's decided he still wants to eat Haribo and we've accidentally given him ham sandwiches for his lunch a couple of times () that he's eaten without incident or comment. He likes to make a big deal of saying he's vegetarian (yup he's one of them!) and if we're eating elsewhere I will say he's vegetarian so he isn't given meat. But I wouldn't say no to him if he asked for something with meat in it.

I agree about the veggie thing, lots of kids get into it (and stick with it) from a young age. They don't always get the intricacies hence the occasional meat or non veggie food stuffs.
It's the other stuff that is a bit worrying but not much an outsider can do, it's just different parenting.