Over a dinner conversation we were discussing second generation vegetarians. Are any of the members on here second generation veg*n's? If so just curious did you ever stray before coming back? Or if any of our fellow VBer's raise veg*n children what has their reaction been? Peer pressure, ads from the powerful industries, etc?

I am SO confused...

Originally posted by Max Power
I am SO confused...

I'm so glad I'm not the only one. I'm with you buddy.

He means were you raised veg*n.

Oohhhh (lightbulb)

Ohhhhhhh... I get it... Say what now? OH... yeah...

I was raised on gov-sub so whatever we could afford, we ate. I did have a friend turn on the tribe when she was a teen and I really think it a rebel move was because of her parents being nazi-esque on the veg-tip.

Would be interesting to know the answer to this one. I was thinking about this thread earlier - how very few of us probably have veg*n parents and how promising it was that most of our children will be raised veg*n. :)

Originally posted by RichBeBe
Over a dinner conversation we were discussing second generation vegetarians. Are any of the members on here second generation veg*n's? If so just curious did you ever stray before coming back? Or if any of our fellow VBer's raise veg*n children what has their reaction been? Peer pressure, ads from the powerful industries, etc?

i'll let you know in, oh, maybe 15 years or so :)

I did buy Poesía for Christmas "New Vegetarian Baby" because in the not too distant future we are planning on having our own vegetarian baby and we WILL make sure that we are doing it right :)

I am going to reword my post a bit and ask Michael to move this thread to the new Parenting Forum.

I am looking for peoples opinions thoughts and such about raising veg*n children.
Have any members of this board been vegetarians since birth?

Anyone raising veg*n children?

If yes what has their expierences been as far as wanting to go to the omnivore side, or any other pitfalls or successes?

Moved and renamed.

Mucho gracious

I have no kids, but my brother became a vegetarian as a teen, and his wife was one while they were married. So they raised two vegetarian kids, who are now 18 and 16. After the divorce they lived with their mother and her partner and her two kids - none of them were vegetarian. But my neice and nephew stayed vegetarian despite that, and I can't imagine them ever changing. They are totally relaxed about it and just see meat eating as unthinkable and yukky. My neice is hovering on being vegan.

i grew up in a semi-vegetarian household. we did eat meat, but very sparingly. my mom was single most of my childhood, going to university full time and holding down a full time job. it was very tight, financially speaking, so we ate a lot of beans and rice and cheese. meat was only for special occassions, or perhaps a small amount would be added to soups, stews and chilis.

four of my mom's siblings were ovo-lacto vegetarians (well, i think they would sometimes eat fish), so the concept was never weird or unusual to me as i grew up.

i am raising my children vegan. my son had dairy products until he was about 16 months old when we made the switch four years ago. my husband had been ovo-lacto since he was 11 years old. i have had to face the occassional defensive comment from friends and relatives, but not so much in the last couple of years. whenever confronted with this kind of thing, i've always only had to point at my two healthy, vibrant children as living examples of how totally and completely fine raising kids on a vegan diet is.

I was born a vegetarian and raised one. My parents have been vegetarian for a long time. I am now raising a two year old as a vegan and I have been a vegan for about 1 1/2years now.
I have never tasted meat and I hope my dd will never as well. I never had the urge to conform to society. I was always very proud of my vegetarianism and in no way felt aliented. I think this may have been because I had 5 siblings who were also vegetarian. My older sister is the only one who eats meat now.

All 5 of my kids are vegetarian...the oldest, since she was about 9, next 5, next 3 and the last two were born veggies. They don't have a hard time being vegetarian, but I think that they would have a hard time being vegan. (They are now 21, 17, 15, 9 & 6)

My son is veg*n from birth, vegan since 2000 and he is amazing!
Such a happy, kind, and healthy little boy.

He gets tempted by commercials on TV and seeing other kids eating brightly packaged, attractive garbage, but when he asks about it and we look at the ingredients - I will say to him, "It has whey in it, that comes from a cow, and the partially hydrogenated oil is really bad for your body. Let's think of something that is similar to that, but good for us...." and we name some similar vegan treats.

The thought of eating an animal product really disgusts him.
He totally GETS veganism more than any adult I know....it helps him avoid stuff when he hasn't spent years getting a taste for it.

I used to LOVE cheese and I still get a longing for it now and then, but nothing I can't shake by closing my eyes and picturing a few little veal calves being torn away from their bawling mommies.

I wish I had been raised veg*n. My mom is the biggest white bread and sausage eating, fast-food loving person I know.

I was raised on a diet of fast food about 5-6 nights a week because my mom hated being in the kitchen and pretty much couldn't boil water.

I've been vegan for 6 years and my vegan hubby and I are raising our daughter (aged 3) vegan. She is very healthy, has never had diarrhea or stomach ailments, gets a few colds here and there, but nothing major. We're just now teaching her why we don't eat meat and dairy products. It's been very easy to keep her vegan so far. She doesn't grab for other people's foods too often, and always seems to understand why we say no.

I am planning to raise my children as vegetarians, if not vegans. I expect to be a full-blown vegan by the time I have my own household and am in a position to raise children, but I know at the very least I will still be lacto-ovo. Finding a Christian veg*n man in Meatopolis might be difficult, but hey, my God is big enough. I just might end up moving, who knows.

i am definitely going to raise my children vegetarian. that will be fine for my bio child, but one worry i have about adopting, is that i will adopt an older child who is used to mcdonalds and stuff like that...that will be hard.

in my 3rd/4th grade classroom one year, one of my students was a vegetarian (in a big hunting, wild west, meat eating part of the world). it was always interesting to watch the lunchroom dynamics over this. he was very forthcoming with info and was rather shocked that other kids didn't know what tofu, tempeh, foccaccio, radicchio etc were. the kids were pretty curious and quite tolerant.

Children seem to always instantly understand the idea that "we don't eat animals or things made from animals." My 30-year old son was raised vegan by me and his mother from age 0 to 8, then his left me, stopped being veg*an, and tried to make him eat meat. He compromised by eating dairy products and eggs but not dead animals.

I don't know what he does today. I don't ask.

But when he was about 6 or so, I remember once going into a supermarket with him, and he ran straight to the frozen food section and begged me for frozen brussel sprouts. Unfortunately, I was completely down to my last penny, and after I bought the rice or whatever it was I bought, I had no money left to buy him the brussel sprouts he wanted.

I've always thought that this shows that, the way life works, is that if you your children hanker for candy bars, you will have the money to buy them, and you will, but if they hanker for nutrititious food, you will not have enough money to feed them.

I have been vegan for over 7 years and am rasing my daughter (now 41/2) completely vegan. As an only child, I think that makes it a little harder then if she had other vegan siblings but she is never really tempted. We have always talked to her about the whys of our chouce to be vegan and she has always understood them (she started talking at 6months). She almost always turns down anything from anyone whom she doesn't know is vegan. She has trouble occationally when she spends time with cousins that aren't vegan (all of them), but has only chosen to eat nonvegan food once (some type of cracker). She has had times where she wanted something that wasn't vegan but after we explained to her why it wasn't vegan she turned it down.
From the beginning we have let her know that no matter what her choices arewe will love her and not be dissapointed in her and I think that has minimized the risk of rebelion. She always has the choice of whether or not to eat stuff but we always tells her if is vegan and then let her make the decision.
She went through some wierd phases where she pretended to be a hunter or to eat animals, but that kind of just went away. She has always had a big fear of hunters though and when she sees them she gets very worried and sometimes very scared. While non of our family believe us those fears came to her completely unaided on our part. I have no question that she will remain vegan, and the thought of her not being vegan doesn't rally bother me either cause of course I'll always love her, more then anything, including animals.
SF!

My family in India are like 15th generation vegs. . probably a lot longer than that.

I have a question. I have only recently become vegan and I live with an omni spouse and child. I would love to convert my daughter over to veganism, but I haven't a clue as to what to feed her since she already has a taste for non-vegan foods. Does anyone have any suggestions? FYI: she is almost 7. - Thanks

we have raised our 3 1/2 year old vegan.