Seeds of Change - Growing Compassionate Kids
By Kerrie Saunders, Ph.D.

This article is provided courtesy of Vegetarian Baby & Child Magazine.

More than ever before, the children and adults in our lives are becoming curious about how vegetarian ideals might fit in to their lives. It may be your child's teacher quietly admitting to you that she has been eating less and less meat. It may be the new friends you had invited over to share a vegetarian meal and admitted that was one of the best meals they'd ever tasted. It may be the teenage volunteer at the Humane Society confiding in you that he's begun to look at the flesh on his plate differently since connecting with animals at his shelter.

As the children, teens, and adults in our lives come up with questions, we need to give answers that are honest and rooted in compassion. I see compassion as a love for truth, not a lust for self-righteousness. When faced with difficult questions, it is perfectly okay to say, 'I don't know,' or 'I will find out.' It will be the way we live our lives, our sincerity, compassion, and desire for truth that will stick in the minds of our children.

Because individuals enter into vegetarian ideals through many different doors, it is impossible for any one of us to have all of the answers. Many people first choose the diet for disease prevention or management, weight control, or enhanced athletic performance. Some answer the call to help preserve the environment, or try to prevent human starvation by adopting a plant-based diet. A growing number of activists have begun to make economic decisions based upon ethical considerations, like whether a company utilizes animal products or unfair labor practices. Still others become vegetarians to comply with religious guidelines, or to honor spiritual stewardship commitments. Many have come to the movement to take a stand for the welfare of animals. Finally, many readers of this magazine were fortunate enough to simply be born into a vegetarian family!

Regardless of which door one enters, once through, the reasons for living compassionately become interconnected; they are inextricably linked. Each of us, in our own time and in our own space, becomes aware that the compassion inherent in the vegetarian diet is optimal for the environment, the animals, our neighbors, our spirituality, our families, and our bodies.

But I often think that we can do a better job in role modeling compassion to our children, especially when dealing with people whose reasons for becoming vegetarians differ in any measure from our own. Rynn Berry, historian for the North American Vegetarian Society, once conceptualized the thought process as one feeling 'more vegetarian than thou.' Perhaps it's the inability to see the beauty of another vegetarian carrying a different part of the same message. Pictures that come to mind include the vegan whispering about the lacto-vegetarian, the religious vegetarian feeling arrogant toward the non-religious vegetarian, or the animal rights activist shunning the health activist. Admittedly, some individuals bring a personal emotional component to the edginess, like strong feelings of frustration, aloneness, desperation, or maybe even anger at recalling one's own abuse in the past. In these cases, I see value in seeking counseling so that personal issues do not remain stumbling blocks in the 'more veg' person's ability to communicate. Most of the time, however, I believe that these behaviors toward others arise from the simple desire for everyone to be 'on the same page at the same time.'

But the bottom line is that our children, in their purity and innocence, see this silent or verbal violence. These types of behaviors can also escalate to in-fighting, keeping the energy of our movement at a dispersed trickle, rather than allowing us to realize our potential to sweep up nations in a raging river. Could we - messengers of compassion - in an ironic twist, have been our own worst enemy for years?

Compassionate and respectful treatment of others is, by definition, relevant to any angle of vegetarianism. Whether we are teaching our children a new angle of compassion, reaching out to another vegetarian, or planting a seed with a 'meat-eater,' we need to remember reality. We are each on a different path, with different seeds of wisdom to share at different times, with different people, and in different places. We need to remain mindful that the true power is in the entire message of vegetarianism, not in any one cause or in any one of us standing alone on a soapbox. To realize this is to know that we are each a part of an amazing truth, and that we each have a different part of the story to tell. After all, truth and compassion are two of the best gifts we can give to our children.

Author Bio:

Dr. Kerrie Saunders is a master's level psychologist, a certified addictions counselor, a certified prevention consultant, wife, and mother. While the site is currently down, you can access her multi-media presentation and consultation firm, VeganSpeak, and find her book, The Vegan Diet as Chronic Disease Prevention, and at http://www.veganspeak.com.