There's a lot of discussion between vegan moms (yes, it seems they do exist - but only on the Internet and only in closed groups) about the seeming inevitability of vegan children consuming milk, meat or eggs when they reach a certain age. Their position is generally that it is the child's choice to make and they will not stand in the way as they travel along their own path. I do not agree. In fact, I will do everything I can to prevent them from being anything but kind.
For example, say it's 10 years from now my and my little Arver is 17 and madly in lust with a girl in his biology class. He wants to have sex for the first time and he wants to have it with her. She doesn't want to have sex with him. At all. All of Arver's friends are having sex, just like the kids online and on TV and he's feeling left out. Sometimes his friends tease him for being a virgin. So, he comes to me and asks if he can spend the weekend at a friend's house. There's going to be a party and the girl is invited. Arver and his friends are going to get her drunk, maybe slip her a roofie (depending on her level of consciousness) and Arver will finally experience sex. Would I, even for a second, not consider stopping him from travelling any further down this path? Would I consider that I, as woman and his mother, failed to teach him that women are not walking vaginas and they deserve the right to live their lives free from violence and exploitation? That forever emotionally damaging another person to satisfy his wants is seriously messed up? Do I even have to answer this?
Let's say it's 5 years from now and my dearest Arver is 12 and he's desperate to go off on his own for the first time with his friends to a McDonald's. He plans to sink his teeth into a Big Mac, washing it down with a chocolate shake. Would I consider that I, as a woman and an animal, have failed to teach him that cow animals are not milk-making, walking bits of beef, and that their value does not lie in what we can take from them? That I've failed to explain the process of enslavement, confinement, rape, torture, transport and slaughter that is necessary for the making of a hamburger and shake? That what he's considering is wrong and to participate in such violence to satisfy a whim is severely messed up? What is it about our culture that this scenario doesn't get the same shock reaction as the previous one?
I know how pervasive the meat-eating culture is in our society. I get carnism. I'm very well aware of the fact that my two vegan babes are the only vegan children on our street, at their school and very possibly in our entire small town. They've been taunted and teased. Recently, the formerly homeschooled Arver ate some non-vegan pancakes at a school event. We spoke to his teacher (again) about veganism and asked him to remind Arver when we are not present of our commitment to non-violence (especially when he had his own vegan pancakes in his lunch bag)! We spoke to Arver and reminded him, age appropriately, of the what the cow and the chicken endured to make his pancake. He does understand, as much as our speciest, allotting-different-values-to-different-animals society will allow him. I can see the power of wanting to fit in being greater with him than his older brother, but he is also very sweet - and I am his mother. Together, we look upon other animals with awe. We point out our similarities and the differences that make us unique and special. We acknowledge when an animal is happy, sad or frightened. We know when they love us. We recognize violence and do not participate it. Adah and Arver are kind boys that with loving guidance will grow to be kind vegan men, something, I think, the world could use a few more of.
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