After hemming and hawing and not really wanting to go into the stomach-churning details at that exact moment, I offered a half-hearted attempt at an explanation, a quasi-lie. Something along the lines of some chickens are made for pets and some for food and farmers have ways of bringing us chicken nuggets that are complicated and involve a lot of machines and maybe we should look that up sometime, now eat your beans. Of course, I didn't want to tell him it's an abusive, bloody mess I'd rather not picture right now lest I lose every bit of eggplant parmesan I'd put in my mouth thus far.

In fact, it is this concern for living creatures that often prompts the youngest of us to choose a meat-free diet. Children have an innate desire not to harm and commonly see animals as equals. My seven-year-old will finish up her bananas and cereal and forego the sausage links because, as she so delicately puts it, she doesn't want to eat her friends.

After watching Disney's Finding Nemo, I began to understand somewhat the logic of this. Nemo's father and his new helper, Dori, meet up with some recovering fish-eating sharks. The group becomes quite close as they share stories, games and laughter. One shark begins to falter somewhat in his newfound will and prepares for a tasty Dori feast. She is none too quick to step in and remind him that "fish are friends, not food."

When they were little, I spent much time teaching my children about mother animals and their babies. We picnicked with the ducks, visited the zoo, and even toured dairy farms and fish hatcheries. In the spring, we loved to see the new hatchlings at the local bird sanctuary, to watch as the mothers so tenaciously guarded their young. Now it is my children who teach me.

They join animal rights organizations, support products that do not employ animal testing, and educate their friends on the benefits of a vegetarian lifestyle. They cheer me on as I experiment with a vegan diet. Even when I fail, they applaud me for trying. And none too often, they remember the dairy farms with the cows all packed in together waiting their turn for the milking machines.

My oldest is a junior in high school. As a teenager, he is beginning to grasp such tough concepts as environmental waste, corporate corruption, and world hunger. He has seen poultry trucks driving down the highway loaded with cages of young chickens, a mass of beaks and feathers. And he knows now the process, the real process, from this to the package of boneless, skinless chicken breasts in the meat department.

By preparing vegetarian dishes for my children, I know that I reinforce and support their convictions that cows, pigs, and all other living creatures are fellow beings on this earth. I choose to show interest and concern rather than dismiss their beliefs because I, too, am learning. I am learning that even the smallest of us can have big ideas; even the weakest, great strength; and that sometimes, it is the child who is teacher.

--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.