Mom freaks when hubby tries to sue kid's school for feeding meat to their son.
When this mom is at odds with her husband about their son's diet, she asks Reddit:
'AITA for wanting my vegetarian son to have meat against my husbands wishes?'
For context I (34F) am a vegan, I have been for just over a decade now, and my partner (35M) is a vegetarian. We are raising our son (7) as a vegetarian and will do with our 1 year old daughter too.
That being said we always agreed that while we would teach our son why we follow the lifestyles we do and hope to instill similar values in him that he is his own person, if he chooses to go vegan like me or start eating meat we will respect that.
As a child I always wanted to be a vegetarian and was constantly denied and belittled by my parents, I never want to put my children through that trauma as I developed a toxic relationship with food as a result.
We experiment with lots of different foods and love to involve the kids in our cooking, we have our own chickens in the backyard for our eggs (I will eat these as I know they are ethical) and we grow as much of our own produce as we can so they can learn where their food comes from.
Up until last year our son took a packed lunch to school however this year he requested to move to school dinners. While I’m not exactly thrilled with the idea he is old enough now to make his own decisions, I had to tell myself they won’t be serving him poison and he eats very well at home, so we agreed.
Last night he approached us very sheepishly and told us that he would like to switch to having the meat options. We were both shocked as we have never seen him show any interest in meat before nor did we think he’d ever really had more than a bite from a relatives fork to try, but he revealed a friend of his had been sharing his dinners with him and he began to enjoy meat.
My husband is furious, he wants to sue the school for negligence and wants to go after the little boys parents for raising a “meat pusher”. While I am also deeply hurt and upset I can accept that there’s no real way to monitor the kids 24/7 and that at this age there’s no real understanding of what he’s asking for.
I’m wanting to let him go on the meat option for the last term and then we can talk to him about it properly in the summer holidays, husband wants to deny him the meat option completely but has said that he can start trying meat properly at a relatives house when we go over for a weekly family meal.
His main issue is that this happened unsupervised and is a result of peer pressure as opposed to genuine curiosity, he doesn’t want to encourage it and is comparing it to the kids that have started vaping at early ages because of their friends in school. I don’t want to be dismissive of my husbands concerns, but I also don’t want to do to my son what was done to me with my diet preference.
Let's find out.
statementelectronic writes:
I’m going with a soft YTA… solely based on some of your comments here. You say you want him to make informed decisions about the food he’s consuming while labeling food as “good” “bad” or “ethical”. You are ranking his food which is going to give him a complex about food that may result in an eating disorder.
He is seven for goodness sake. He’s not going to know the ins and outs of animal byproducts his brain isn’t there yet. It’s apparent he was worried about telling you and your husband he wants to try meat.. not because he knows you don’t like meat but because he was scared of the reaction.
Take into consideration that disregarding his request is going to make him feel like he can’t come to you guys to talk and that “making sure he’s well informed” is going to come off as you trying to change his mind. Again, he is seven so he will likely want to please his parents and conform to whatever you say. But he will get the impression he can’t communicate his wants/needs to his parents.
Know he will still try meat, it’ll just be behind your back and he will tell neither you nor your husband… and he will get away with it. Do you really want your son to start hiding things from you at such a young age? Your husband tho.. Huge AH.
atealein writes:
NTA, your son tried dinners from his friend's dish because they looked interesting and obviously tasted good to him. There was no peer pressure there, but there seems to be peer pressure at home. You are good to fight for your son's wishes, even if they conflict with your beliefs. Food choices should not be a religion.
getouty writes:
Have to say it. You're not vegan. You eat eggs. Doesn't matter that they're 'ethical.'