A mother has been left furious after her ex-husband fed their vegan daughter chicken nuggets, leaving the daughter declaring that she "hates" her mom for not giving them to her.
Raising kids can be tough, especially with so much advice on what they should and shouldn't be eating - and sometimes even nosey teachers get involved.
Nowadays more and more people are opting for a vegan lifestyle, be it for animal welfare, caring for the environment, or for personal health reasons - plant-based diets are on the rise.
When co-parenting as a vegan, it's presumably expected that the child will also follow the same lifestyle, but one Reddit user has shared how her ex-husband fed their vegan daughter chicken nuggets.
Posting on everyone's favorite Am I The A**hole page, the user who goes by the handle of VeggieCoParent questioned whether she had the right to be angry.
The mother began: "My ex and I were vegan. I became vegan when we moved in together because he was vegan and he didn't like there being animal products in the house. I learned more about the way food was made and I agreed. I was vegan while I was pregnant and we've raised our daughter vegan for the past eight-ish years."
Explaining that she separated from her partner, she went to pick her daughter up from his house one evening and this is where the trouble began.
"As we're driving home she says she's hungry. I offered her my purse apple [...] but she spies the golden arches out the window. She has a full. blown. meltdown demanding chicken nuggets."
The mother explained that she always intended to let her daughter decide her diet when she was older, but she was angry that her ex-husband had decided that her daughter could eat meat without having a conversation first.
Readers were quick to offer their thoughts, with one person stating: "NTA (Not the a**hole). Everyone seems very focused on the vegan thing but I don't think that's what this is actually about. It seems like he encouraged you to participate in a certain lifestyle [..] and then changed his mind."
A second said: "Even though i personally would not raise a child vegan it's clear to me that this is something that should be discussed between parents. Even if the scenario was something like, the other kids got chicken nuggets so she begged for them and I let her, a heads up about this just seems like basic co-parenting manners."
A third said: "I think you could choose to continue feeding her vegan food when she is with you because you are not ethically comfortable preparing or purchasing it, but be prepared she may not understand that and be somewhat resentful. But I don’t think you should control whether or not she eats meat when she is not in your presence."
An updated post from the mother explained that her daughter experimented with meat and dairy products and while still living a predominantly plant-based lifestyle, she also enjoys other foods every now and then.
