I’m vegetarian for ethical reasons, and have been for a long time. I don’t talk about it a lot unless asked directly, but it’s a part of my life I feel very passionate about. When Alec and I were pregnant with Cheese, the topic came up, because we had to decide how to raise our daughter, in our mixed-food family. Our home is vegetarian because I do all the cooking, but Alec eats some types of meat when he’s out.

We made the decision to raise Cheese as a vegetarian. The idea was that I would teach her how to eat a balanced diet without meat as part of the equation, so she would be able to make her own decision later in life with a good knowledge of all her dietary options.

At home, it’s been easy. When we go out, sometimes a bit more challenging. There would be times where Alec would order meat at a restaurant and she want to try whatever he was eating, and also occasions when we’d visit friends who;d serve the kids things like fish fingers, and she’d want to try what the other kids were having. Learning how to handle these situations with a baby and young toddler were not the easiest.

Generally, I’d let her try most things. She had a bite of a fish finger and spat it out. She might have eaten a tiny piece of chicken stuffed into pasta once. If avoidable without a meltdown though, I’ve distracted her with something else to avoid the meat situation.

Up until today, I’ve felt a bit strange about it all – basically enforcing my values on another person who doesn’t understand why. I’ve doubted my hard stance on and off, because she’s been so little and it didn’t seem fair to deny her things that other people eat, just because I believed it to be wrong.

We had a moment tonight, however, that changed my mind and made me glad that I persisted with this path for us. We were reading a book before bed: Meg And Mog In The Fog, where Meg and Mog get stuck on an island, and Mog catches and eats a fish. We get to this spot in the story and Cheese interrupts with “Why?” Why did they eat the fish?”.

Cheese hadn’t been aware until now that people ate fish. She thought fish were just spending their lives swimming in the ocean. I explained to her, “Some people eat fish when they’re hungry. Mog was hungry, so he ate the fish.”. “But why?” She asked again. I tried to go with a broader answer that encompassed the larger issue. “Some people eat animals like fish as part of their food every day. We don’t eat animals though, because we’re vegetarian. That means we don’t eat animals.”

This explanation made sense to my animal-loving kid. “That’s right,” she said. “We don’t eat animals, we just eat FOOD”. Super cute way to describe it. And suddenly, everything about the lifestyle I chose for us felt right.

I’m really not surprised that she feels this way now that she is starting to be able to understand what it all means, because she is a really empathetic kid. She absolutely adores animals like I do. I mean, she LOVES animals, all animals, so it makes sense that thinking of eating one is repulsive to her.

I find the age Cheese is at to be absolutely wonderful in so many ways. The best thing is her new ability to understand and reason – I love talking with her about why things are the way they are, and helping her learn about the world. Shaping this little person’s life is a hugely scary responsibility that I do not take lightly.