The Non-Veg Eating Kid

Given that foreign trips and foreign vacations are no longer the exception, life is a lot easier if one eats non-veg. So much so that many middle-class folks want their kids to grow up eating non-veg. The declared reason is that’s harder to change later in life, so better to teach kids now. But who knows, maybe the real reason is that a kid who eats non-veg makes meals a whole lot easier when abroad...

Of course, it’s not always easy for vegetarian-by-birth parents to get their kids to start eating non-veg. No, not because the kids are averse to it. Rather, it’s because one of the parents is against the idea. And vegetarians can get all sanctimonious with lines like, “I don’t want to kill animals”.

My then 7 yo daughter went through such a phase where some of her friends criticized her for eating non-veg. So much so that she even started drifting back to vegetarianism. And so had begun: peers trumping parents. I know, I know, parents always lose that brutal war for influence (eventually), but these were still early days, so we didn’t cave in meekly. We told her to get sneaky: continue to eat non-veg, but don’t tell your friends about it. Have your cake and eat it too. The advice worked, but maybe we don’t deserve the credit: tuna sandwiches and shrimp and prawns were probably too tasty for her to give up anyway.

Then recently, one of her vegetarian friends started eating non-veg (I guess her dad finally got his way). Kids being kids, my daughter turned to her and said:

“So, what happened? Now you have no problem killing animals, eh?”

To which her friend promptly responded:

“I only eat chicken. Chicken is a bird, not an animal.”

Back came my daughter’s sneering retort:

“So birds aren’t living things?’

Wouldn’t dream of killing animals. Birds are not animals. Aren’t plants living things too? Same old arguments. Just as inconclusive as before. Some things (and arguments) never change.