It will be a long time before I have kids but...

[jozyrozypozy]

My boyfriend recently became an omnivore again and I'm worried this will make it impossible to raise our kids as vegetarians. I can't force him to believe in it but the idea makes me sick at heart. What can I do?

[zoebird]

i'm sure you'll figure it out before it comes to it.

[Beachbnny]

Talk to him about it. That's really all you can do. My Husband is a meat-eater but we agreed long before marriage that our future (way future) children will all be raised vegetarian.

[suchgreatheight]

Your (hypothetical) kids are their own people and they'll make their own choices about things like their diet and religion and politics and fashion etc no matter what people think they can get them to do...you can't (or, i'd hope wouldn't try) shelter them for the rest of society and imposing something on them would seem to just make them resent it and react against it. When people behave in ethically and politically responsible ways they do it because they think its the right thing to do, it makes them feel better about themselves than the alternative, etc, not because their parents told them they had to.

So, personally I think its most reasonable to refuse to cook or buy meat for your kids, say it makes you sad and *you* wont do it, and explain why its your choice for *yourself*. Instead of putting it in terms of something imposed on them you could put it in terms of the way it makes you feel for yourself. As a byproduct you wouldn't be facilitating them eating meat, which is really all you can do anyways, but it means conceptualizing it in a way that I think they'd be much more likely to internalize.

Surely telling someone "i wont do it because its wrong and this is why" is a lot more persuasive then saying "you can't do it because I forbid it and I'm stronger than you" at any age. Its also more respectful and loving I think.

Take them to petting farms so they can see how obviously beautiful and sensitive and genuinely feeling and sincere farm animals are. Then when they have the opportunity to eat meat when they're not supervised by you (which will be most of the time after they start going to school), they'll be much more apt to not want to, find it disgusting and disturbing.

[One]

My husband is an omnivore, but if we ever had kids... I would be the main caretaker, so they would eat vegetarian. I would raise them to have high moral standards when it comes to human and animal rights. I will always have lots of pets, and want to get cows/pigs/chickens etc... so they would know those animals as their pets, not their dinner.

I don't think my husband would get them to eat meat... I'm doing a degree in nutrition, so I'm sure he'd trust me to keep our kids healthy.

If they became old enough and started buying meat with their own money, well then I couldn't stop them. They most likely wouldn't though, especially having those animals as pets.

You probably don't need to talk to your boyfriend about it now, since you're not planning on having kids yet. But maybe if the time seems right, let him know that you would want to raise kids as vegetarians. Back yourself up with nutritional facts that they don't need meat... he should understand, he knows you