What If Your Child Wants to be a Vegetarian?

My 6-year-old won’t eat her meat.

My six year old daughter announced during dinner yesterday that she wants to be a vegetarian.

She refused to eat the steak I made for her.

I didn’t make her eat it. I am not sure how I am going to handle this moving forward. I guess if she really doesn’t want to eat meat, I can work with that moving forward.

For her, it is absolutely about being kind to animals.

I guess I should have seen this coming. She has often sadly lamented during meals, “I wish we didn’t have to eat animals to live.”

However, she has now figured out that we don’t necessarily have to eat animals to live.

This first started over dinner a few years ago when she was around three or four years old.

My heart broke for my daughter when she first learned where her steak actually came from.

She was excited to have steak for dinner that night. It was one of her favorites. She was standing in the kitchen, watching me prepare the meat for the grill. “Where does steak come from?” she casually asked what she thought was an innocent question. The answer would forever change her outlook on life, or at least mealtimes.

I told her the truth. She looked at me in shock. Tears filled her eyes.

“Did it hurt the cow?” she asked in fear.

“No, I don’t think so,” I tried to reassure her.

“Is the cow still alive?” she desperately asked. I shook my head and quietly said no. She asked if the cow was alive three more times before running off to her room in tears.

My wife went to comfort her. When my daughter eventually came out of her room, drying her tears, she had some follow-up questions about why, how, and where the cow was now.

I answered as best I could but as curtly as possible.

Finally, I went to the old standby, distraction. I offered her homemade lemonade.

But, when dinner was ready, the questions came back. She refused to eat the meat. I didn’t make her.

I was equally heartbroken and endeared by my wonderfully sensitive and inquisitive young daughter.

She took a step forward in understanding the incomprehensible ordeal of life and death that night.

Her reaction was genuinely sad tears for a cow she had never met.

I love and appreciate my emotional daughter with all my heart.

I didn’t serve steak for some time after that night but the questions about other meats came up soon after that.

It turned out that she had never made the connection between the chicken we ate and the chicken that was a bird. She thought it was just a case of the same word meaning different things.

She did eventually start eating meat again including steak, but she always did so reluctantly.

We reached an unspoken truce on the subject of eating animals because she knew that eating was part of what you had to do to stay alive. This worked until she found out that some people were vegetarians and could live without eating meat.

So, for now, she wants to be a vegetarian. I will still prepare meat with most meals but will make sure there are plenty of other protein-filled options. The meat will be there if she wants to eat it, but I will certainly not make her eat it.

I am proud of my daughter for wanting to follow her heart. Even if this just turns out to be a passing phase, I will happily support her effort to be true to herself and her feelings.

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