Vegetarian living with a preschooler

Doodlebug has become rather vehement in her vegetarianism lately, aided only somewhat consciously by our recent movie-viewing experiences. Between Happy Feet, Charlotte's Web, and Babe, she's been seeing very realistic looking animatronic animals profess their strong desires to live...ah, that pesky survival instinct, huh?

I've been a vegetarian since I was fourteen. My mom, like any good Jewish mother worth the title, made a really great chicken soup. It was one of my favorite foods. One night, during my freshman year of high school, I looked down at my bowl of truly beloved soup and saw the oily deposits on the top. "Oh my g-d," I thought, "I am eating juice squeezed from the flesh of a dead bird." Of course, I'd always known that, but somehow, that was my lightbulb moment, and I told my parents I'd like to try being a vegetarian for a couple of weeks. That was 18 years ago. Aside from one time several months into my vegetarianism, when I took a bite of a hot dog but decided it was just too nasty, I haven't had meat since.

I don't remember every moment of the past 18 years, of course, so there have probably been times when I was shrill and tried to convert people, but certainly in the last ten years or so, I've adopted quite a live-and-let-live attitude about it. If people ask me why I'm a vegetarian, I gently tell them that there are a lot of good reasons to avoid animal products, but that unless they really want to know, I'd like to offer them an opportunity to retract the question. Many people do just that. Some want to know, and so I tell them the usual stuff...and usually it doesn't affect people all that much one way or the other. The only time I get cranky is when someone tries to talk me out of it...but that  doesn't happen all that much.

However, when True and I had kids, we had to decide what to do about them. I felt strongly that I didn't want them to eat meat, but True is not a vegetarian. He does, however, have a terrible family history of heart disease, and higher-than-ideal cholesterol himself, so he mainly eats vegetarian food at home, but when we go out, he is not a vegetarian by any means. We've had a few intense discussions about this over the years, but he is not going to become a vegetarian, and that just has to be ok with me. We decided not to make meat for our children at home, and not to offer it to them when we're out, but our plan was and is that if either of them ever asked to taste his meat, we'd let them try it. So far, no one has asked.

Doodlebug has one classmate at preschool who is also a vegetarian, so they get to share the vegetarian version of the school lunch. Probably mostly because of this, she's aware that some people eat animals and some don't, and that the ones who don't are "vegetarians." For a good long while, this assessment held no value along with it, and I certainly didn't push any. It was a matter of course. However, after these movies, and after thinking about it on her own (and for some reason, falling in love with the pigs on The Muppet Show), she's started becoming indignant about her vegetarianism. To wit:

Doodlebug: Mommy, why did the humans in Happy Feet eat all the penguins' fish?
Me: I guess they were hungry and wanted to eat fish.
Doodlebug: But then the penguins had no fish to eat!
Me: That's true.
Doodlebug: And the penguins can't make noodles for dinner.
Me: Nope.
Doodlebug: But WE don't eat fish, right?
Me: No, we don't .
Doodlebug: Because WE are vegetarians.
Me: That's right. You and I and Little Shmoo and Zayda (her grandfather) are vegetarians.
Doodlebug: And my friend Ginny at school.
Me: Right.
Doodlebug: Will I always be a vegetarian?
Me: That's up to you. You can decide when you're big if you still want to be a vegetarian.
Doodlebug: I am ALWAYS going to want to be a vegetarian. For a million years. Forever.

That's ok by me. I hope she is, because I do think it's the right thing to do, and as parents, don't we want to pass our values on to our children? The selfish part of me is maybe partially just proud of ME for indoctrinating her without being heavy-handed, but I can't help but also be proud of her compassion, and her sense of outrage over anyone wanting to kill an animal, even if it may just be a phase. I just need to keep it quiet...so if she decides against it someday, she won't worry about my loving her less, or disapproving.

In the meantime, pass the hummus!