New National Holiday

I bet you missed it. I did. Friday, September 25th was Hug a Vegetarian Day! Darn it. A day designed by PETA to give some love and attention to all the hard-eating vegetarians out there. I totally forgot. Or maybe it was a subconscious, accidentally-on-purpose kind of thing because lately, I’ve been wanting to strangle some of the vegetarians in my life.

I’ve created vegetarian monsters. To be fair, only two out of my three children are veggie monsters. My middle child, Sam, is probably one bite of a Big Mac away from becoming an omnivore. (Do they even make Big Macs anymore? Yes, it’s been that long.) Sam is a foodie. He loves to cook, to eat, to taste. He loves to talk about food, restaurants. He wants to open one some day. I think once he tastes meat, he’ll be a goner. (Just please let it be free-range, organic, local chicken!) He’s 11.

It’s the other two I have to worry about: Lucy and Finn. Finn’s the oldest and Lucy’s the youngest. They’ve really taken this whole vegetarian thing to heart. Geez. Who knew? They’ve all eaten vegetarian since birth. But we've never made that big a deal out of it. When the boys were babies we lived near Cambridge, MA where everybody and their sister was either vegetarian, vegan or Unitarian. Our daughter was born in Washington, D.C. and we lived in Bethesda, MD which was, granted, a more conservative town but not without its crunchy element. Now, we live in a small town in Connecticut and our kids are the only vegetarians in their classes. They're also old enough to be going out to eat with and sleeping over friends' houses. Lately, it's kind of turning into a big deal.

It's not like we've never talked about why we're vegetarian. We've just always kept it very basic. Finn, who is twelve, asks for and absorbs a lot more detail than Lucy who is about to be nine.  And, Sam is the strong, silent type. He doesn’t ask a lot of questions. At least not about this kind of ethical, philosophical stuff. So, my husband, Henry, and I have always kept it fairly light and brief. i.e. We don’t believe in eating animals. Period. We don’t need animal protein to be healthy. Period. As Finn and Sam have gotten older, I’ve told them that animals aren’t kept in good conditions and that the feeding and care of those animals uses up more of the earth’s resources than could otherwise be used to directly feed hungry people. In other words, meat is an inefficient way of feeding people. I’ve NEVER gotten graphic with any of them about anything having to do with being a vegetarian. Period.

Yet, somehow Lucy and Finn have transformed into little proselytizers! You know, those annoying people who say gross things about what you’re about to eat or are actually eating? Such as, gee, I bet that somewhere there’s a lamb missing that leg? Or I wonder if that cow's kids miss her? The people who don’t get asked back to dinner parties? The people that give all vegetarians a bad name? The ones even other vegetarians find annoying? I found out from my sister that sweet, young Finn had cornered my poor, little nephew, Oliver, and told him all about slaughterhouses! It turns out that in a crusade to get his cousin to stop eating meat, Finn will use any weapon available to him, including acting out cows being led to the slaughter! At the lunch table, in the school cafeteria, my dear little Lucy will only sit next to the girls who don’t have meat in their lunches. Vegetarianism through peer pressure, anyone?

My husband, Henry, fell off (onto?) the meat wagon about 10 years into our marriage. He started eating meat again when we lived in Bethesda and he was taking clients out to lunch every day in a new job.  He also doesn't feel as strongly ethically about not eating meat as I do but supports it as a healthy choice for our kids. The dear man still eats vegetarian when he’s with the family. Coming home from work at night, he’ll sweep Lucy up in his arms and sometimes she’ll say petulantly, “Nooooo! I don’t want a kiss! Those lips touched meat!” Nice. Or when I place a bowl of soup in front of her, she’ll say, “Are you sure there’s no meat in this, Mama? Are you positively sure?” “Yes, my dear,” I’ll answer her the first five times and then it’s, Listen, kid, this whole no-meat thing was my idea in the first place. If I say there’s no meat, there’s no meat! Now, eat your soup!

They’re driving me nuts. I can only imagine how well this is going over at school. Well, actually I have some idea. Both Lucy and Finn have come home with stories of kids showing them masticated meat in their mouths, waggling hot dogs in their faces, making mooing sounds from between hamburger buns. I think I can imagine the self-righteous behavior on their part that may have precipitated this. Don't get me wrong. I'm glad they have highly developed senses of empathy for animals but I want them to use that same empathy on human beings.  Giving them permission to refuse meat wasn't a permission slip to harass people into vegetarian submission. Something has gotten lost in translation here.


I was 13 when I became a vegetarian.  (My mom was supportive of my wanting to be a vegetarian but also wise enough to make me wait until I was able to cook for myself.) I went through my own stage as a self-righteous vegetarian. Although, I remember it only through those kind and foggy mists of time. Surely, I wasn’t this bad? Hmmmm. I should ask my mom. Uh-oh. What would she say? Actually, I know exactly what she’d say. She’d laugh and give me a hug. Oh, what you put me through, she’d smile.

Hey! Maybe that’s what Hug a Vegetarian Day is all about. Give us a hug and we'll relax. Give us a hug and we’ll spare you the details...unless you really want to know and then we'll tell you..after dinner. For now, just give us a hug and pass the salt.