GRAND Magazine - January 2009 - (Page 24)

lp!s He My grandson’ being raised a vegan! By Jim ThOmpsOn Okay, let me talk you down. L 24 GRAND JANUARY 2009 asT summer, a friend told me a story that went something like this: At a party, two women, after a heated debate regarding the relative strengths and weaknesses of a Barack Obama versus a Hillary Clinton White House, decided to lower the tension a bit and turned the conversation toward family. Grandchildren, in particular. After the standard updates (“turns 3 in May”) and compliments (“look at those eyes, just like his father”), one of the women acknowledged a concern she’d been keeping to herself. “You know,” she said, “my husband and I are practically vegetarian.… I haven’t had a piece of red meat in years. But my son and his wife…they’re raising their son vegan.” “Isn’t that illegal?” the other woman replied. “I mean, isn’t that negligence?” My friend sent me that story because she knew it would hit close to home. That scenario —the concern expressed in it anyway—is a familiar one to me. I like to say sometimes that my wife and I have made a decision to raise our 1-year-old son, Sam, “weird.” Cruel as we are, we’ve decided to raise him without the interference of television. On organic food. Surrounded by acoustic guitar music, hippie potlucks and a large extended family. And, in a landmark compromise between a strict vegan (me) and a somewhat milder vegetarian (my wife), we’ve decided to raise him as an Almost Vegan (the details and definition of which are hard to nail down; suffice it to say that he will be eating a lot of grains and fruits and veggies, and some dairy from happy, healthy, grass-fed cows). That last bit there, the vegetarian piece, is hard for some to swallow. We get funny looks, of course, when we tell people that we cancelled cable and that Sam doesn’t watch Baby Einstein. We get concerned looks when we tell them we

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of GRAND Magazine - January 2009

GRAND�Magazine - January 2009
Grand View
Contents
Isn't it Grand?
Grand Central
Tips on Teens
Grand Gestures
Toddler Town
Help! My Grandson's Being Raised Vegan!
Cover Story: Casualties
Leader of the Pack
Reunions
Together Time
Resources
Grand Finale

GRAND Magazine - January 2009