Monday, May 16, 2005

your children are not your children

Walking to school this morning, I was telling O I could smell one of my favourite smells - how the world smells after rain when it's been dry for days. O replied that his favourite smell is meatburgers.

Big Sigh. We've been having this conversation on and off for weeks now, about how he wants to be Meat. He says he's tried meat and likes it. I've explained why I don't eat meat, told him over and over that meat comes from dead animals and they kill lambs and fishes and such to make it. He still wants to eat meat. "Daddy is Meat" he says and it's true. We are vegetarian at home but R is a meat eater sometimes, and has meat and fish when we eat out. If we were both veggies it would be easier to stand firm against O's carnivorous desires. As it is, if he keeps on about it, we might say he can eat meat at other people's houses and possibly when we eat out. But our house is staying veggie, and ideally I would like him to stay on veggie school dinners. Ethics aside, I suspect that veggie school dinners are less suspect than meat ones.

Network news: now I am the household network admin, I am understanding where the BOFH is coming from. This morning R complained that he couldn't access the main pc from the laptop. I start running through what the problems could be before it occurs to me to ask "is the main pc switched on?" D'oh.

Your children are not your children
They are the sons and daughters of life’s longing for itself
They come through you but they are not from you
And though they are with you
They belong not to you
You can give them your love but not your thoughts
They have their own thoughts
You can house their bodies but not their souls
For their souls dwell in a place of tomorrow
Which you cannot visit not even in your dreams
You can strive to be like them
But you cannot make them just like you
Strive to be like them
But you cannot make them just like you

'On Children' : performed by Sweet Honey in the Rock
Lyrics: Kahlil Gibran, Music: Ysaye M. Barnwell
listen to an mp3 at ritualwell.org

4 comments:

Trinity said...

maybe give him a bit of fish. Fish doesn't seem so wrong somehow.
Bet he'd hate macdonalds anyways

clarrie said...

whenever he agitates to go to macds (which is surprisingly infrequently), we remind him that the one and only timne he went to burger king, he really didn't like his veggie burger king burger, and he's not likely to like mcds eitehr.

Donna said...

Hello - I've been dipping into your blog for a while. I'm f*t, but unlike you I've given up the fight!!!!

I was veggie from the ages of 20 to 35. When I had my first lad at 30, we (my ex-who was and still is veggie and I) started him off veggie. A few years into his life, when he started going to parties etc I decided to let him eat what he likes. His Dad still is veggie, I turned carnivorous again (it was turkey at Xmas that turned me), but both my kids eat veggie at their Dad's, eat a mix at mine and both have their own opinions!! In fact the little one stopped eating fish for a bit when he watched Finding Nemo ("Fish are friends, not food.")

Anyway, I'm rambling now and 'tis your blog, not mine.

clarrie said...

I'm not going to turn meat-eater (my best mate would come down and beat me up, she's pretty upset about her not-godson threatening to go carnivore). I tried the 'fish are friends not food' line last night - reply "but I'm not a shark so I can eat fish". Bah. If this is what teaching kids to think for themselves does, remind me not to do it again!