During summer, most of my nights are spent at the ball field watching my Little Leaguers hit, score, and run. Aside a lot crammed with SUV’s touting plates such as BZZYMOM, DREWZDAD, and 4BOYZ, phrases such as “Give it a ride” and “That’s ok, honey, you’ll get it next time” spill out of me as I become one with the splintered wooden bleachers. Dinner these nights will be a choice; a choice of hot dogs, brats, or a nice big slice of pepperoni pizza.
We may even get some chips and pop to go with. Little League concession stands are not known for their healthy cuisine. You won’t find antioxidants, B12’s, or omega-3’s anywhere on the menu. But given the choice between home baked bread and soup as the kids rush in off the bus or Fritos in a relaxed setting, I’d take the latter.
It was one such summer when my older two spent a week with their cousin, the same cousin who hid all the flyswatters one blistering summer day because something about animal cruelty. The cousin who wrote “murdered cow sandwich” and “slaughtered pig on lettuce, hold the mayo” as she took our orders for sub sandwiches. THE cousin who posted a list of cruelty-free household products on her refrigerator door refusing, much to her mother’s dismay, to use anything but. The gotta-love-her-but-oh-so-frustrating lacto-ovo cousin who had been trying for years to convert my babies.
Only this time she did.
It had been a week since their visit. Running late for lessons and tummies rumbling, I pulled into the drive-thru. I asked simply, “What’ll it be guys? Double cheeseburgers?” They looked at each other, then they looked at me. I could have been standing in a room of a hundred people in nothing but my best Sunday underpants. I who had nursed all my babies until THEY were ready to wean. I who had carried them in slings and backpacks knowing full well that mother’s touch was more important than plastic toys dangling above their heads. I, Earth Mother of the Year, had not noticed my children were not eating meat.
Being the first born that I am, I immediately copped the if-we’re-gonna-do-this-we’re-gonna-do-it-all-the-way attitude. I jumped fork first with them into this animal friendly, environmentally kind lifestyle. I packed lunches, prepared dinners, and picked up fast food consisting of nothing but fruits, vegetables, beans, and grains. I took the broccoli and ran with it. And not once did I look back.
The brainiac in my personality insisted that I research. I checked out books, checked out the web, and checked out the eating habits of everybody I knew and even some I didn’t know. I found statistics, testimonials, and no small mountain of medical advice. I squeezed every drop of information out of every possible source.
I now daily navigate school lunch menus, Chuck E. Cheese birthday parties, and neighborhood potlucks with great finesse. I maneuver through soccer picnics, summer barbecues, and the annual office Christmas party. And I have come to a point in my vegetarianism where I welcome the words, “Would you like to try our new chicken griller today?”
I can walk my suburban streets now a little prouder knowing I’m reducing my chances of taking those meds that line my neighbors’ kitchen counters. Never again will I feel guilt for asking someone to eat something which may have been running around someone’s backyard the week before. And I jump on my treadmill because I want to stay healthy not because I’m fighting suburban burger belly.
Maybe my journey into vegetarianism was a fluke. Maybe it was just one more effort to win the Super Mom title of the year. But regardless how many times I hear, “What DO you eat?” I can smile knowing this tennis-lesson-crazy-mini-van-driving mom’s heart bleeds green.
--Tammie, an at-home mother of four and vegan-wannabe, has her Masters in the field of Developmental Psychology. She enjoys living in her “mixed” family, part veg/part T-rex, and thanks very much her real life ovo-lacto niece for her I’m-gonna-change-the-world attitude. Her essays have appeared in Positively Woman and BusyParentsOnline.
