feeding the foundlings- prejudice at panel

We are not strange. We are in a growing number. We are pescatarians.

We eat fish but not meat.

This is usually so hard to understand that we tell people we are vegetarian (another growing number of people).

I have encountered some alarming viewpoints about how we feed our children (and indeed when they were prospective children). Views range from it being tantamount to child abuse to not feed children meat to befuddled views about how we manage to feed children without meat.

We faced hard questions at panel for our children, what if they will only eat chicken nuggets? (Yes seriously, this was a question!). Well A: they should be trying other foods, has the FC of 10 months really restricted them like this and not tried to change it? and B: have you heard of quorn and soya products? As far as A was concerned it was a question not even based on the children we were hoping to adopt as they would eat most food and with B apparently some of them hadn't! (it is not exactly a bizarre food, it is in every supermarket and most smaller shops!).

I was rather shocked that our diet would cause several questions (these were children who had been given the odd sausage roll here and there with no dietary goodness or set mealtimes- was our diet so strange that it could be seen as something to worry about?!). It seemed incredulous that we would come under scrutiny for providing a healthier diet than eating meat with every meal! (and yes, quorn and soya are healthier protein with very little fat). to be honest, it felt like we may be turned down for dietary choices, we truly did have this fear. We had to agree to let the children eat meat if they asked for it.

I have had the question so many times, 'Are you going to bring them up vegetarian????'. Yes, of course we are. I put it to you this way- no one questions someone bringing up a child as a meat eater- and yet this is as much a forced view on what we should eat as being brought up Pescatarian (or vegetarian). It is also no different to bringing a child up in a religion or not as the case may be- all of these are based on parents choices and what they believe is correct for them as a family. All of them involve very little to no choice of the child when they are young.

So why is our diet, based on moral choices, so strange and frightening to others?

What is okay= asking us polite questions about our moral choices.
What is not okay= belittling our choices, mocking us, repeatedly telling us about the virtues of bacon (seriously, you think I haven't heard it before- yawn!). Or worse, telling us we are cruel or somehow depriving our children because they don't eat dead animals.

We are trying to teach our boys, slowly, about moral choices. We have some books that explain about being vegetarian and how it is okay to be different (no, not Vegetarian propaganda about how everyone else is cruel). We want them to understand that everyone makes a choice and their choice is valid for them.

It is hard. We try to not let them see friends and family as 'cruel' for eating meat and Watson in particular seems upset when he asks if certain people eat animals and was distraught when he saw a packaged chicken whole in the supermarket and kept asking me 'Why?'.

Do meat eaters explain to their children why others don't eat meat? I have heard a friend call people like us 'weirdos' in front of their child for not eating meat. Do they explain why they have decided the meat industry is cruel and do not want to be part of it? Maybe some do but I guess that most don't because they are in the majority- doesn't make it right, it just makes it an opinion.

I am blessed that my children go to a school with an awesome vegetarian menu (and they understand pescatarianism) and there are lots of children who don't eat meat for a faith based reasons in their school.

They still do, however, come home with Haribo sweets on people's birthdays (contain gelatin) and we have ignored it if they have started eating them and replacing them if we can, Watson has started to say,'me not eat, they have piggies in'.

So- food related issues- well actually my boys will eat most things, spicy, sauces, almost anything- we are so lucky at the moment that this is the case. Eating out is sometimes hard if they spy the pictures on a menu and we have to have a chat about how the restaurant doesn't have burgers without cows or sausages without piggies like Mummy and Daddy can buy. They are getting it though and we continue to try so hard to not make them judge others negatively for eating meat (I wish all meat eaters would afford the same courtesy, of course many will, no way am I tarring everyone with this brush).

What if they want to eat meat in the future? Well we will cross that bridge when we come to it but my boys will be aware of the meat industry and how it gets to a homogonised lump in the supermarket with no clue to what animal it once was. They will have an informed choice and if they choose to eat meat, they can when they are older (certainly not going to show them a slaughterhouse video at this age! I think I saw one at 11 in school).

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Confessions of an adoptive mother- all about fear.

"Where's the mummy? Where's the daddy?" the not so normal viewpoints...

Top 5 of everything! Adopting start to finish.