staying away from the road most travelled

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.

how i vegan

I was 12 when I stopped eating other animals. It was 1986. My older brother had this incredibly cool girlfriend that I desperately wanted to impress. Her name was Karyn and she was new-wave and she was vegetarian. I dyed my hair black and started saying "no thanks" to my mom's beef chili. I don't know if she noticed the changes in me, the girlfriend, but I started to notice things about myself and the world around me that were previously out of view.

Karyn wasn't an active, outspoken vegetarian. I don't remember her wearing any Meat is Murder t-shirts or shocking me with statistics, yet I wanted to know more about what it meant to be veg. There was no internet in the 80s so I got my info from PETA via all the free literature they sent me through the mail. I remember excitedly ripping open that manila envelope and being - horrified. I couldn't imagine inflicting or enduring that kind of suffering: LD50, the Draize eye test, leg hold traps, anal execution, PAC, rape racks, veal crates...It was too much. I stopped sleeping. I cried alone in my room, but I didn't look away. I don't know why, but I didn't decide that I was too young or too alone to make a difference. I had the information and I had to do something about it, even if that something only affected me and my little part of this insane world.

I was the only vegetarian in my very conservative, very catholic elementary school. Fortunately, the other kids were too confused to be cruel. If there were other vegetarians while I was in my more liberal public high school, they didn't show themselves. The animal rights movement was very new in the 80s and my beliefs were regularly attacked, but, oddly, mostly by the teachers and not all of them were mine. There was also the friend of a friend whose father was furrier and she was getting a coat for Christmas, the cafeteria lady who responded with blank stares when I mention vegetarian options, much like the lady behind the counter at Shopper's Drug Mart when I asked where they stocked the cosmetics not tested on animals. High school was hard and I was depressed and feeling overwhelmed. I wasn't going to give up, but I wasn't sure how I was going to make any kind of a difference either. There was just me. That is until grade 11 when I had the most amazing, open-minded world issues teacher. Ms. Druce supported my views, even if they weren't her own and helped me to express them clearly and with effect. She mentored my awesome animal rights club where I was able to find and form friendships with like-minded individuals. The independent research project (IRP) that I did on animal rights and factory farming (complete with slide show and audio clips) was given an A+ and I was asked to present it to other classes. She gave me the courage to book a speaker and host a seminar on factory farming for the higher grades and table on various animal rights issues in the front hall. She gave me the support and the self-confidence that I needed to make the next logical step - veganism.

It's 2013 and I'm still vegan. It is my favourite thing about myself. A few years after highschool I found out that some students who were present during the seminar and IRP presentations became veg themselves. It was an incredible feeling to know that I, little punk rock me, was influencing change and raising awareness. Although most of my time now is spent planning and packing lunches and helping with homework, veganism is still my favourite thing about myself and I look forward to a day when my little ones will need me a little less and my focus can once again be making the world a better place for all us - fur or no fur.

a new direction

A little further along the road and there's still just me: one vegan mom with two vegan boys - re-entering public school. Public school has not been kind to us in the past. Arver (nickname) attended junior kindergarten and cried every school day the entire school year. We are very close. Adah (not his real name either) did five years in two different schools. Adah is short and sweet and vegan - not traits that make you popular in public school (with students or administration, sadly).

Homeschooling was a lot of hard work, but brilliant. We made a lot of really good friends and participated in some amazing programs. Yet, despite all my efforts, the amount of socialization just wasn't enough for dear sweet Adah, especially living next to a public school and him seeing large groups of kids playing every day at break. He craved more. I couldn't find room in our schedule for more than our two weekly playdates and I couldn't find any homeschoolers willing to move next door. So we're trying public school again. Third time's the charm, right?

in the beginning

Some days it feels like there is just me: one vegan mom with two vegan boys - homeschooling. Could we be any more socially isolated? At least this is how it feels in the beginning. Maybe as time goes on there will be more vegan moms raising their vegan babes and together we'll create a more compassionate, benevolent world. Until then, there will be my lonely voice talking mostly to myself about this isolating path we are on, marked with bits of greatness.