I'm not a parent -- don't flame me, hehe!

Seriously, I thought it might be interesting for those of you who are parents to hear from the VBers were were raised veg themselves.

Er, I don't fit into that category, either, but my mother tried a lot of 'health-food' stuff (carob, tofu) on me, and I hated it. My step-sister was raised in a 100% veg household -- I spent a lot of time there -- and we both rebelled. She'd eat a cheeseburger any chance she got, we moaned about the icky carob cake and wholegrain muffins, and we'd collect and turn in discarded soda pop bottles in order to buy nasty sugary candy. :rolleyes:

On the other hand, I've seen several veg-raised VBers express positive thoughts about their veg childhoods.

So ... having started the topic, I'll step back and read! :lol:

My brother and I were both raised veg. Neither of us rebelled. :)

I wasn't raised veg, but my mom was into macrobiotics when I was younger. We weren't allowed sugar in the house, but I would find anything sweet and eat it (like a whole tub of cake icing :( )

A friend of mine is one of 8 (5 girls, 3 boys) and their mom is veg. All the girls are vegetarian (the oldest is 25, the youngest is about 5) and all the boys are omni.

I was raised on Campbell's soup and t.v dinners for the first 10 years of my life. Then I was moved to a farm where we ate lots of fresh vegetables and meat. No more junk food, but definitely not vegetarian. We had meat twice a day, three times on Sunday.

I am raising 5 vegetarian children with no sign of rebellion. (Sometimes they rebell and eat white bread)

(Sometimes they rebell and eat white bread) :surprised

I definitely was not raised veg but I've met many people who were raised veg and stopped being veg as they got older (especially 15-16 year range.) This is why I want to open a vegan summer camp - so kids can meet other kids who are also veg*n and can hopefully find their own reasons for being veg*n other than "because my parents are."

i was raised veg.. i never new any other veg*ans other than my parents until i was 16. it was fine though. i ate fish for a while when in was 13-14 to fit in and everything.. then turned vegan shortly after. it was fine, except for the fact that my mom didn't let me eat candy and sweets. now i'm the biggest sugar addict in the world! :lol: i really hated it when i was a kid, i was bullied like there was no tomorrow over it. but today i'm proud to say it, and i'm happy that my parents did it.

Ohh, that's such agreat idea, Mikie :) (although I think you mentioned it before?).

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I was raised vegetarian. I'm unsure what I should say about it, however.

Did I rebel? No. The only time I ate meat was when the family doctor suggested I should do so. It was totally unappealing to me, so I quickly reverted to vegetarianism. Oh, I did have a dislike of HFS's for a while. This mainly had to do with all kinds of diets I did for my allergies.

My sister, however, did rebel. I guess people are different (I was never rebellious in any aspect, my sister was quite rebellious).

I've never had much trouble growing up veg*n (peer-wise, or where other people's parents were concerned). I have, however, been bashed by omnis who tell me that it is not my own choice to be veg*n. Admitedly, with omnis who think that way, I use that to escape strainful conversations.

Vegetarianism became something natural to my thinking process early on. I should be thankful for that. It entails - basically - that I can live this lifestyle without having to rebel, without having to have icky stuff in the fridge, etc.. One of the downsides to this is that I would have a very hard time living with omnivores (either out of convenience or out of romantic interest).

Maybe I'll ramble some more as this thread progresses :).

OKay, I have a question... how was veg*nism approached with you guys? Was there the "you WILL not eat anything other than what I let you" or was there more "this is why we don't eat meat" approach. Those who rebelled, why did you rebel, and those who didn't, why not? I'm curious as of course I'll be raising a veg child (but I'm not a strict health nut) and would like to know what techniques help keep a child veg..

Er, I don't fit into that category, either, but my mother tried a lot of 'health-food' stuff (carob, tofu) on me, and I hated it. My step-sister was raised in a 100% veg household -- I spent a lot of time there -- and we both rebelled. She'd eat a cheeseburger any chance she got, we moaned about the icky carob cake and wholegrain muffins, and we'd collect and turn in discarded soda pop bottles in order to buy nasty sugary candy. :rolleyes:


(A little off topic, if you'll allow...)

Reminds me of what my (Danish) grandmother (80 years old) has told me about her upbringing; her father was really ahead of his times in many ways, hed always made sure that his children brought healthy lunches to school, so she'd get sanwiches made of rye bread with tomato and cucumber slices. Of course, she'd often switch her lunch for the other kids' sandwiches; white bread with margarine and sugar :p

This is a really interesting topic to me b/c some day in the future (years, and years from now) I want to raise my kids veg. We (me, 2 bro) were not raised veg, but we ate meat analogues and tofu on a regular basis. We also had (and still keep) a diet similar to what Jews and Muslims keep- no pork, shellfish, etc. But we ate meat about twice a day.

We also ate mostly chicken and fish because when I was 10 my cholesterol had reached ridiculous levels (over 200 I know for sure), and I was banned from red meat and egg and cheese sandwiches :(

We never had a problem with our dietary restrictions, even when our cousins would wave peices of ham in our face. We actually saw them as dirty, unclean, and had no wish to even try them as rebellion. Maybe it was b/c we saw it as a religious thing.

OKay, I have a question... how was veg*nism approached with you guys? Was there the "you WILL not eat anything other than what I let you" or was there more "this is why we don't eat meat" approach. Those who rebelled, why did you rebel, and those who didn't, why not? I'm curious as of course I'll be raising a veg child (but I'm not a strict health nut) and would like to know what techniques help keep a child veg..

my parents never imposed it on me and always said i could eat anything i wanted. that meant that many "concerned citizens" tried to make me "try" meat, especially school officials, which i hated, and my parents never tried to stop them. but i guess that taught me well at a very early age to stand up for what i want.

my parents never exactly explain what was done to animals.. where i grew up there was plenty of graphic material in everyday life for me to understand what happened.. it wasn't like in north america where meat is so over-processed that it doesn't look like a dead animal anymore, it was too obvious that it was a dead animal. and they never got any further than the "animals are my friends and i don't eat my friends" type philosophy.. i only learned more when i went vegan. but then again.. i don't think i ever really thought to ask.. probably because it just felt so intuitive to me that i didn't feel the need to ask... "why don't i eat my friends?" heh.

I wasn't raised veg... I grew up in an extremely omni household in which we didn't always eat very healthily, but my mom always impressed upon me that I could essentially do what I wanted and learn from my mistakes, but that I was never to "hurt people, animals, or [my]self." Eventually I became ashamed of not eating healthily, so we began to strive to eat more balanced, regular meals... Then, this summer, I realized that I had been a closet veg*n for most of my life and became a vegan. (I sort of slipped back to lacto-ovo/strict veg for a month or two, but I'm back on the straight and narrow now. :D)

OKay, I have a question... how was veg*nism approached with you guys? Was there the "you WILL not eat anything other than what I let you" or was there more "this is why we don't eat meat" approach. Those who rebelled, why did you rebel, and those who didn't, why not? I'm curious as of course I'll be raising a veg child (but I'm not a strict health nut) and would like to know what techniques help keep a child veg..

My brother and I were told that we didn't eat meat because it was mean to animals and that life was life, no matter who the holder was. This theory extended to all things in our household--for example, all disturbing/irritating bugs were to be taken outside unhurt. Unlike most households, fly swatters were considered taboo--my brother and I were paid a nickel or quarter a piece to take them outside by catching them with little aquarium nets. My brother got good enough to catch them in his hand. :) We had a lot of interaction with nature--my dad was always pointing out animals or bringing critters to us that he had caught (interesting moths, turtles, tree frogs, tarantulas, snakes, etc.) and then would let go. We even had a "bug board" in our kiddy pool for bugs to climb onto for escape when they fell in (of course, it also kept the pool from filling up with dead bugs). For us, I think we were taught how important all life is by our interactions with all sorts of living things. In that context, we never really questioned why we were vegetarians and never really felt the need to be like everybody else. It just made sense to live in peace with all of the other living beings around us, including not eating or purposefully harming them.

I did eat a hotdog once (the only meat I've ever had), in kindergarten, at a birthday party because there was nothing else to eat and the mom was sort of pushing it on me. Afterward, I felt very guilty and was sure that my parents would just know. I came into the house and of course no one knew, so I told them about it. My dad just looked a little sad and said that was too bad. Nothing more was ever said about it. It made me sad that I had made them sad, but it also made me sad because I knew why I didn't eat meat in the first place.

I wish I was raised vegetarian! However my omnivore parents were fairly cool with me and my decision. I did have a friend in college who was raised vegetarian, she was one of 4 siblings all of them remained vegetarian into adulthood, not without slip ups of course. Her older brother apparently tried to fit in with his football buddies by joining them at McDonald's on occasion. He announced when he went away to school that he would start eating meat full time. Well, he overdosed on cafeteria meatloaf and McDonalds. He's now vegan.

Nope. My parents would rather die than quit eating meat.

i went veg the first time when I was 18 and that ws SO difficult for my mom. She still thinks I'm a wierdo and "why dont' you just try a bite [of chicken], it won't hurt you."

I was raised in an omni household, but I am going to participate based on my families dietary habits when I was growing up because I think the patterns of eating habits are interesting anyway...

While we ate cows and chickens and fishes and pigs, we didn't ever eat lamb or venison in the house. My father would if we went to restaurants, or if his friends had hunted a deer or something, but my mom always said that you can't eat a little baby lamb it goes "baaaaa" or the cute little deer like Bambi, so we never did. I grew up thinking when people ate lamb chops for dinner "how could they eat a little baby lamb??" If I was at a friends house and they were having something like that for dinner I would decline saying I didn't eat lamb. If I was raised with my mom talking about the cute little chickens and the moo cows and not wanting to eat "Babe" i'm sure I would have avoided those as well. We ate relatively well though. We always had at least one fresh vegetable for dinner, I've been eating tofu (under the name "bean curd") my whole life (and liking it!!). My mom is a real sugar fiend, and we always had access to junk food and ice cream and all that, so it was never a big deal, and my siblings and I never snuck candy or anything. As adults though, my siblings do drink soda and eat chips and crap, and I really prefer an apple after dinner and dislike soda. I'm the only veg in the family, and I would like to raise my eventual children veg as well, with the attitude of respecting other living things and lots of trips to farms and petting zoos to make friends with the kinds of animals that they would be eating. When they're old enough to make their own decisions about food, I wouldn't forbid them from eating meat if thats what they want, but I don't expect I'd prepare it cause ew. (I'll be sure to send my kids to your camp, mikie! :))

I'd send my kids to vegan camp too!

I'm graduating college soon and hope to marry my boyfriend in the next few years, and kids have been on my mind lately. My BF eats fish, so I'm not sure how we will handle that issue, but my children will definitely be raised without any other meats and without dairy, which I think is really bad for kids. Once they're old enough that they can make their own choices, they will be free to eat meat, but meat and dairy will not come into my household, and I will not buy those things with my money.

Anyway, on topic: I was not raised veg, my family used to be pretty close to the standard American diet. But I was very picky, and the only meats I ate were bacon, hamburgers, chicken noodle soup, pepperoni on pizza, and the VERY occasional hot dog (yuk!) My parents didn't really try to make me eat much meat, and I only ate it a couple of times a week or so. I ate lots of cheese, however. Then, when I was 13, a few years after my parents divorced, my mom became a vegetarian. It had been kicking around in the back of my mind for a while, and I felt increasingly guilty about every hamburger or piece of pepperoni pizza I ate. So I became veg and my mom and I supported each other through the transition. Now my mom is working on becoming vegan! It's great!

I was raised omni, by a vegan mother and omni father. One sister was veg...but she is not any more, the other omni. I will out of fairness call my self an omni, becasue...by def i am. But I eat red meat in small portions, and prefer more fish and fowl, not every day, but more like every other day. I call it healthy living (you wont) but I do. I have refered to myself as a vegiterian that cheats, but that is not right, even though I have gone for stretches with out any meat, none have been long enough. My wife is a vegan.
I can see the benifit of a vegan camp for vegan kids. It is always nice for kids with shared interest to be together. That is why we have jewish camps, cannoe campsm cathloic camps, etc... I would rather see a change is our school systems where we would go to a year round school with either 3 one month breaks, or two 6 week.
I dont agree with having a child eat what I want them to, I believe each childs body intuitively knows what it needs. I offer all foods at a meal in small portions, and then get more of what my children prefer for that meal. This of course me and my method, and if my children go veg, I will have no problem supporting them, what ever their choice.

I dont agree with having a child eat what I want them to, I believe each childs body intuitively knows what it needs.

if that was the case, i would have eaten absolutely nothing but ice cream, cake, and candy. as a parent you have the responsibility to feed your child a healthy diet whether s/he likes it or not.

imo, you can "choose" to be an omni as an adult just as well, just like i choose to indulge in junk food now - but i'm happy that i didn't as a child.

Yeah, as a child I only wanted to eat spaghetti with butter and pizza, basically. Now I'm allergic to wheat and dairy, so I don't think my body really "intuitively" knew what was good for it. I do believe you can learn to be intuitive about your body's needs, though.

i was raised omni and forced to eat meat as a child. i never liked it but it was "good for me" so i had to scarf it down. i found it so disgusting. my first attempt at vegetarianism probably happened at age 9 but my mom wouldn't have it (she was sooo misinformed). i really wish my parents weren't so closed-minded; i did have relatives at the time who were vegetarian, so i dont know what their problem was. yah, it still annoys me that my parents did that. but i guess they thought it was for the best. if only the knew that i'd turn out veg*n. haha.

i was not raised vegetarian, but my dad is extremely health conscious because he ate so much crap when he has younger that he now has a lot of allergies... no dairy, wheat, and most animal protein hurts his stomach except for fish (which he eats a lot of).

so, i was never allowed to eat junk food at home and i always felt like such a weirdo living in a house where even the ketchup i ate on my frozen organic cascadian farm french fries was organic :D i loooved mcdonalds and happy meals and all that crap (i was a total carnivore, i ate meat at least once a day), but in the back of my mind i knew it was horrible and wanted to be a vegetarian. so i finally came around when i was 12 and became a vegetarian. woot :)

I wasn't reared a veg, but I, at a very young age, remember something my mother said: "If you knew what really went into the foods you eat, you'd never want to eat again." She was referring to hot dogs, specifically; but she was engaged in a discussion with my father about the uncleanliness of food industries in general.
That stayed in my mind after that; but it most mostly in regard to processed meats. It wasn't until seeing (part of; I couldn't watch it in its entirety), "Faces of Death that I really balked at meat consumption. Still, it took me a while :( I'm just glad I finally realized.

I was raised on a typical american diet which included a lot of red meat esp hamburger. When I was about sixteen I went to live with an aunt for part of the summer. She wasn't vegitarian but she was close to it. She exposed me to tofu, natural peanut butter, and a variety of other health foods. My aunt was a nutritionist and we would have discussions about healty meals, portions etc. When I came home not only had I lost weight but I felt like a different person. I tried to get my mom not to serve so much red meat but when I tried to discuss it with her I felt like I never really got anywhere. I soon learned to drop what was a sore subject. In their eyes my aunt was a health nut and their diet was normal. Even now I'm very careful when I visit my family not to be critical of their food choices. My mom is real good now about having a veggie selection for me if I don't want what they eat. Still, I worry about them. My whole family is on the heavy side and my mom in particular is 5'1 and now weighs 190lb. The best thing I think I can do is love them the way they are and hope that somehow my lifestyle may inspire them yet.

I wasn't raised veg, but I was always really picky and never ate fish, chicken, and many other meats. My mother liked to feed us "healthy foods" and we basically never had any junk foods, or food with much fat/sugar etc, I'm sure making up for lost time now, I eat so much sugar and junk these days!