Apologies if something like this has been done before.
I have been a committed vegan for over a year now. Tonight my girlfriend and I had somewhat of a row over our kids and how best to bring them up (we don't have any yet, but hope to someday!)
I've said since going vegan I don't want to bring my kids up as vegetarians or omnivores, but as vegans. This has been a source of contention between my and my gf, she eats chicken and fish, although no other meat and has talked about becoming vegetarian before. Today she argued that it would be impossible to raise our kids as vegans because they would miss out on things other kids got and as a result would 'hate' us. By missing out she meant the difficulty of our kids going to friends' house for tea, or getting treats given out by teachers in class, or when their friends are eating sweets, crisps, cake etc.
She argued in this respect we should raise them as vegetarian (although that all the feed we provided for them could be vegan) whilst making exceptions in scenarios such as the ones above. Not only would I be deeply uncomfortable with this, but I feel it may bring up issues where kids came home and asked why they couldn't eat what they ate at so-and-so's house for example, causing much more conflict than there would have been if they didn't eat that in the first place.
For the vegan parents out there, how easy have you found raising kids vegan in a non-vegan, even anti-vegan world? Have you had problems such as the ones I've suggested or do your kids generally accept the principle that animals are not there for humans to exploit as food?
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