What if your vegan child grows up to be a carnivore?

Let’s face it, the second a tiny seed starts sprouting into a baby in the jam-sandwich of your uterus every woman and her dog gains a license to comment on your personal world. Grannies don’t hold back on what you’re doing wrong. Old men make doughnut jokes about your weight, like you’re not aware that you’re the size of a barn. And it doesn’t stop when your baby is born. Perhaps it stops when your kids move out – or maybe not. Maybe someone is messaging Old Brumby right now, telling him what they think of his son’s parenting and shouldn’t he cut his damn hair already?

Of course if you don’t eat the flesh of other mammals that’s a neon flashing invite begging people to judge you. Suddenly the “but where do you get your protein?” turns into “but what are you going to do if your child wants to eat meat when they are older?”

I’m here to answer that question for you. Maybe these very words are burning a hole in your tongue right now. Or maybe you’ve answered this question fifteen fucking times already and you just want to be able to say “actually, I have a link for that.” Either way, here it is, the answer to the question every carnivore has ever asked.

Honestly I imagine my children will grow up and do a lot of stuff I find abhorrent. They might convert to a dangerous brain-washing religion. They might sneak out at night, go to parties and try drugs I don’t even know the names of. They might date someone old enough to be my brother. Or they might inherit the crazy from their mother and cut themselves to pieces in the shower every night.

The fact is we can’t control other people –not even our kids- we can only lead by example, provide support and educate them so that they are internally motivated to make the best possible choices.

For argument’s sake though, how likely is it that they will try meat a time or two? Highly. Either by accident, through a prank, or by choice; it’s bound to happen. Maybe they will spit it out. Maybe they will go home and cry. Or maybe they’ll eat the whole dish, puke their guts out and I’ll find them laying on the bathroom floor moaning when I get back from whatever fun thing parents of teenagers get to do now they have spare time again.

See here’s the thing: If you don’t eat animal products you can’t just wolf down a slab of cow’s arse and go about your merry day. After a while you don’t have the gut bacteria to handle that assault on your body. You can have a morsel or two and be alright, but you can’t suddenly go paleo and expect to show up for work on Monday.

At first we were letting Bast be vegan at home, but vegetarian when she went to other people’s places, just to make it easier on her to have a life. We quickly learned how terrible of an idea that is. For starters, children are very black/white good/evil right/wrong. Hurting animals is firmly 100% always wrong and if Bast thinks she might have accidentally ingested some animal product she’s distressed for days. Secondly, the first and only time we sent her to a friend’s place as a vegetarian, she drank milk, ate a tub of yogurt and vomited all over herself and the carpet. It doesn’t take long to lose the ability to cope with unnatural foods.

Take note of this if you are one of those snarky rellos who like to snigger “I’ll just give her meat at my place,” or “What happens at Grandma’s stays at Grandma’s.” You have to be a real arsehat to deliberately feed a child something that will make them sick. (Not to mention the type of person you need to be to undermine someone else’s parenting.)

So, what if one of the goddesses grows up and -despite my best efforts- decides it is right for her to painstakingly add animal products into her diet? What if despite knowing better she takes up smoking? What if she decides her passion is to be a pornstar? Well friend, I will go on loving her anyway. That’s what will happen. I will cry privately and love her, just as any parent would.

Isn’t that what you will do if your child decides to be vegan?