While my daughter stared intently at her phone as she was sitting in class one day at public school, she finally looked up for the first time in four years and learned something.
Was it the quadratic formula? No, she never looks up from her phone in math class. What got her to pull away from the immensely compelling “shade” that is constantly being thrown around by her teenage girl peers on Twitter was movie day in class. Yes, the only thing that got her to look away from the little screen on her phone was a bigger screen in the classroom. Apparently the teacher needed some time to play on her own phone during class so she decided to let the kids watch a movie. Did the kids watch Frozen for the four thousandth time? Nope, American education takes itself more seriously these days. They didn’t watch a Disney film featuring a moose with an attitude and an adorable snowman who wants to enjoy summer. Instead the kids watched a documentary film about animal cruelty. This turned out to be a bad thing. I don’t mean it was a bad thing because I am pro animal cruelty. I mean it was a bad thing because this little film changed the inside of the refrigerator at my house forever.
The film showed the reality, and admittedly, the brutality of the food industry. It turned my daughter’s stomach inside out. She decided right then and there, she was a vegan.
A vegan lifestyle is one that does not consume or utilize any animal products, and it is also one that is quite costly at the grocery store. As a very supportive dad, while my daughter announced her new vegan lifestyle at the dinner table, I nodded my head in approval and then took another bite of my steak. My daughter began to sense that nobody in the house was going to instantly change their diet habits with her, so she decided to educate the entire household of the horrors and awful cruelties bestowed on animals by humans, even if we begged her not to tell us about any of it while trying to enjoy dinner.
She started our education by following People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) on Twitter and would give us a daily update on animal cruelty. She would try every day to tell us new disturbing information on how our food or clothing is made. Personally, I like to live in the fantasy world where all food is magically made on the shelves of the grocery store. I don’t like to think about how sausage is made or where hamburgers come from. I just like to pick up the convenient little package of meat in the cold aisle and head home to start barbecuing.
My daughter was adamant that we needed to know more about our food, and if we wouldn’t listen to her stories then she would show awful photos of animals being slaughtered or being tested for perfumes. Then she stepped up to videos of animal cruelty, and if we looked away from her phone as she shoved it in our faces, she would begin to narrate the video for us.
“OK, when the sheep wiggles while they are giving it a haircut they punch it in the face. Here, I will play it back for you. This is where the sheep gets punched in the face. You still want to wear those UGG boots, Mom?”
The other morning, I opened my refrigerator to get a glass of milk only to find my daughter suddenly by my side informing me, “Did you know that baby cows are immediately taken away from their mothers so humans can have more milk to drink?” I told my daughter, “Did you know that I like to enjoy eating and drinking without guilt?”
While I was snacking on some chicken McNuggets from McDonalds, my daughter decided to share with me that, “Chickens are bred and mutilated with steroids to have large breasts for more meat and these poor chickens are so heavy chested they can’t even walk around and fall on their faces because they are so top heavy.” I replied to my daughter, “That must be what makes them so delicious!”
My wife and I have always parented our kids with a serious dose of sarcasm. We have found it is the best policy to be able to survive parenthood without harming any children. Well, physically harming them, I should clarify. Any mental anguish from sarcasm will only reveal itself 10 years down the road during our children’s therapy sessions (which they will have to pay for, not us).
My wife, whom I love, is more sarcastic than I am. As she was putting on makeup, our daughter came into her bathroom just to inform her, “Lip gloss has snake venom in it.”
“Do they kill the snakes to get the venom?”
“I don’t know.”
“I hope so, because I hate snakes. I should go to the store and pick up some more lip gloss.”
Even food we aren’t eating at our house our daughter feels the need to tell us awful things about. “Did you know at sushi restaurants they slice the arms off of octopuses while the octopus is still alive?”
“Why are you telling us this? We don’t even eat sushi.”
I was eating a hamburger with bacon and a fried egg on top of it, just to prove a point to my daughter that I’m an insensitive person. So I said, “Three different animals had to assist with this meal: a cow, a pig, and a chicken. Of course, the chicken was mildly involved, it laid an egg. The cow and the pig, well, they were committed.”
“What’s wrong with you, Dad?”
“Nothing is wrong with me, I’m just hungry.”
Because of this little documentary film and our teenage daughter’s newfound passion, everything in our house now has to be cruelty free: clothing, makeup, bacon. How do you get cruelty free bacon? Simple, you don’t! My daughter threw away her leather purse and all of her makeup that was tested on bunnies.
Everything she eats is made with soy and tastes like socks. I hide beef jerky in the garage in my toolbox and sneak out like a drug addict for a quick meat fix. My wife and I want to support our daughter’s wishes, but we wish we were eating at In-N-Out.
The over-under on meat back in Rob’s refrigerator is by noon tomorrow. You can read more from Rob Krider or contact him at robkrider.com.
