I wonder what is a good age when toddlers begin to understand the kind of food they eat/are offered to them by their outside world. I would assume that they realize this when they observe food others eat which perhaps may begin in school. I thought it would be a while before my soon-to-be 3-year old would identify chicken or meat as food items. Hence I was pleasantly surprised when K remembered that he did not eat ‘chicken' nuggets that were offered to him at a recent birthday party. (Aside from the fact that he rarely eats anything outside of his 'subzi-roti', I would like to believe he stressed on the 'chicken' part more than the 'not eat' part).
Both A and I were raised vegetarians and hence there is no doubt that we would raise K the same way too. At the same time, the subtlety of handling this issue as K grows up is quite critical vs what we were exposed to as kids. For e.g., it was 'easy' to be raised as a vegetarian in India where majority of our immediate circle was of the same belief. But in America I am often asked how we would handle vegetarianism with K as he grows up. What if he was the only one with 'special meal' plan in his school or that others considered him the 'weird kid' if he wouldn't eat those nuggets? While I know this is the time to explain the concept to him, I want to be careful in the way we communicate it to him.
Since he is an animal-lover, it would be easy to tell him that eating non-vegetarian means killing/hurting animals. At the same time, that just sounds too judgmental especially considering he might have his close friends who are meat-eaters.
For A and me, there was a strong religious connotation to our upbringing but to pass down that conviction is also something that might be out of character for us. Nevertheless, my role as a parent would be to guide K in the direction that we 'believe' would be right for him and us; that I may have to inculcate values in the upbringing in a way that he would still be able to make his own choices, be it spiritual or otherwise; that each family eats differently hence it is important to embrace different cultures but not to an extent that you compromise on your own.
How have you explained such concepts to your child? What has your experience been in having conversations about meat/no-meat to them especially in ways they have responded?
