I’ve always believed in positive parenting, but this latest incident is really making me doubt myself.
Our sweet, funny, VERY sensitive just-turned 4-year-old daughter loves animals—and is right on the verge of figuring out where the meat we eat comes from. To be clear, we have never deliberately hidden this from her, but she has never expressly asked about it, and there’s no good way to randomly segue into “By the way, your dinner used to be alive.” She avoids eating chicken and turkey, and we’ve realized this might be because they’re called “chicken” and “turkey.
Eventually her favorite once-alive foods crept back into her diet, at her request: bacon, salami, sushi. I remember we talked about the conflict between the pleasures of eating such food and the disturbing truth about it, which led to conversations about other difficult choices and the complications of being human.
I know I don’t have to tell you not to dismiss her feelings when she discovers the truth about her meals. I do urge you to be truthful with her about howfeel about eating meat. I think being honest with our kids, always, is foundational to being good parents. The bottom line, though, is that you can’t really minimize her distress, and, as much as we want to protect our children from pain and sorrow and conflict, we shouldn’t protect them frompain and sorrow and conflict. If we do, they’ll never learn the coping skills all people must develop to deal with these feelings. The best thing you can do is sympathize with her and be supportive.
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