ethics 101

I don't think I blogged about this, here. Or maybe I did. Or maybe I just told the same story over and over and over again to anyone who would listen because I have a penchant for doing that sort of thing.

I remember the first time I realized that meat was an animal. Well, not the time I was at my grandparents and I found silver scales in my Van DeKamps and almost puked. Or the time when I thought the Easter Ham was raw bloody chicken (we weren't much of pig eaters), but the time in sixth grade when my science teacher brought in a piece of some sort of cut of beef and told us that it was mostly striated muscle, just like our striated muscles, and we eat muscles to build muscles and that fat built fat, and when we ate fat we got fat because of all the fat joining up with our fat.

A few weeks ago, Jake and I ran out of fun things to do in our neighborhood (read: I got tired of the same old crap) so I took him up to 9th and Washington to see the highly impressive fish markets. He thought it was awesomely grossly odiferously fantastic until we got to the live crabs.

"oooh, mommy! crabbies! crabby crabby crabbies hi crabbies! i wanna eat you crabbies!

oh, mommmmy, noooo. i not eat those crabbies. are those crabbies what i eat? poppy makes me crabbies cakes but i don't wanna eat those crabbies. i love those crabbies.

hey fish! ooh, do i eat fishy fish? like those fish?

mommy, is chicken chickens? do i eat chickens? no, i not eatin' chickens, i eat chicken nuggets chicken.

mommy, i no like eatin' those crabbies 'n fish 'n chicken".

His poor little sad, smart face almost melted and his lip stuck out at least eight feet from his head.

"Well, Jake, that's the way the world works. Animals eat other animals and we are the biggest animals around these parts so we can pretty much eat anything we want without worrying about getting eaten. Eating makes us grow. You don't have to eat those things, some people don't and some people do. Everyone has a choice".

Even him, I'm the meanest mommy on most occasions but I never make the child eat anything, so long as he at least tries everything on the table each night. He can chose whether he likes it or not, chances are he isn't going to starve to death or become malnourished by any stretch of the imagination. Making choices is a huge deal at my house.

"i don't eat them"

"No? Okay. What do you want for dinner?"

"Cheeseburgers"

He had the fishmongers dying.

Two year olds have it rough these days. It must have been so much easier thirty years ago when no one thought to teach us anything until we were like five or something.