A few days ago, my granddaughter Molly made a confession as I walked her home from school. Giving me a sheepish look, she confided, ‘Grandma, I tried a chicken nugget yesterday!’
She’s 13, so you may think this is unremarkable, but to me the news was seismic. Because Molly has been vegan since the age of six, a decision made by my eldest daughter, Nicky, that I thoroughly disagree with.
I asked Molly what she thought of her first taste of meat for seven years — the only one she has any memory of — and she said it was ‘quite nice’.
I had to hide my euphoric grin. I can’t say this openly, but I long for my grandchildren to quit their vegan diet, which is tearing our family apart and, I’m sure, damaging their health.
I've even resorted to deliberately trying to coax my grandchildren into eating meat, writes the anonymous contributor
I’ve even resorted to deliberately trying to coax them into eating meat.
Can you blame me? Catering for their diet has become hellish, especially since I do school pick-up and cook their tea twice a week.
Nicky’s other child, Theo, has been vegan since he was born seven years ago, and is now an outspoken mini activist. If I take him to the supermarket, he’ll loudly refuse to go down ‘the dead animal aisle’ when I need to buy meat.
I’ve attempted to tell him it’s normal to eat meat. Once, the supermarket was offering free mini chicken-bite tasters, and I tried to get him to have a little bit, but he was having none of it.
The children’s veganism doesn’t stop at food: it extends to hair products, moisturisers, shoes, clothes, bags — you name it. The one exception to my daughter’s strict rules is that she will agree to them taking medicines that contain animal products or have been tested on animals.
Sleepovers have long been problematic as I have to check everything Molly and Theo eat and drink, and also whip out the vegan soap and shampoo which I keep in a cupboard for them.
I scrutinise every single label on food and toiletries, which is time-consuming and exhausting. But spending time with them is so important to me, I don’t dare refuse to go through with this palaver.
If I ask Theo, ‘do you want to try a sausage, I won’t tell Mummy?’ he looks at me in horror and gives a very firm ‘no’.
It would be easy to sneak some animal produce into his diet to see if he noticed, but I couldn’t bring myself to break his trust. My goodness, it’s tempting sometimes though.
I can’t even speak freely around him. If I ask the grown-ups who wants ‘normal’ milk and who wants oat milk, when I’m making a round of coffees, Theo gets huffy and will tell me off: ‘Why are you saying it’s “normal” when it’s from a baby cow?’
And it’s not just the children making a storm in a coffee cup.
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When my husband Mike, a devout carnivore, started grilling sausages and chicken at a family barbecue last weekend, the vegans in our troop — Nicky, 37, our other daughter Maisie, 27, Molly and Theo — complained loudly about the smell of ‘dead animals cooking’ and huffed indoors to the kitchen, slamming the door behind them.
As always, I was caught in the middle, surveying the wreckage of our precious time together.
So, how did our once-calm family become a fractious, unpredictable battleground? It all began in 2011 when Nicky was pregnant with Molly. She watched a TV documentary about animal welfare and went from roast beef lover to staunch vegan overnight.
We hoped it was just a phase, but when she arrived at our house with new pots and pans for me that animals ‘must not be cooked in’, and demanded I use them to make meals for her, I realised she was serious.
Being a medic (I now lecture in obstetrics) I’d been worried about her decision to go vegan from day one, mostly for health reasons.
When Molly was born, Nicky reassured us that she’d raise her on animal products and allow her to make her own choices about veganism when she was older.
That said, I recall her telling the health visitor that even if her breast milk ran low, nothing would persuade her to use formula, as it usually has cow’s milk in it.
During pregnancy she’d had low iron levels, which is a health risk often associated with veganism. I worried Molly might also go on to become anaemic, but when I mentioned it to Nicky I was met with, ‘She’s my baby!’
By the time Nicky gave birth to Theo, she was a solo mum and decided she didn’t want the hassle and expense of preparing different meals.
She asked Molly, then six, ‘do you want to be vegan like me?’ to which Molly, not understanding anything about veganism, said, ‘Oh, yes please, Mummy!’
That doesn’t feel fair on Molly to me, but whenever I’ve raised my concerns with Nicky, she just dismisses them.
Meanwhile, our younger daughter Maisie decided a few years ago to become vegan.
We’ve always been such a close family, and we never used to argue the way we do now. I hate to row but I just feel so strongly that Nicky is making the wrong choice for her and her kids’ health and Mike despairs of us having to pander to them.
Vegan food is also very expensive. With Maisie still living at home with us, her vegan additions to the food shop push the bill up by £20 a week, more if she’s run out of toiletries.
Maisie also has a cat, which she now insists is vegan, but I felt so guilty watching the poor thing salivating when I was eating a tuna sandwich recently that I secretly let it eat the crusts.
My son Daniel, who’s 33, and his wife dismiss his sisters’ veganism as ‘nonsense’ and feed their toddler slices of tender steak.
Still, Molly’s recent admission has given me cause for hope. She knew I’d support her choice, and she went on to confess that she’s been quietly introducing animal products to her diet, including pizza with cheese. Thankfully, Nicky appreciates that Molly’s at an age where she’s spending more time with her friends at weekends, and that this makes it harder for her to be vegan when they’re tucking into ice-cream and fried chicken.
She says her main concern is still the health implications, with vegans commonly deficient in nutrients such as calcium, iron, and vitamins A and B12
My main concern for all of them is still the health implications, with vegans commonly deficient in nutrients such as calcium, iron, and vitamins A and B12, as they can be tricky to derive from a diet which doesn’t contain animal products.
Over the years, Nicky’s had blood tests revealing vitamin B deficiency and she’s suffered repeatedly with troublesome mouth ulcers. She now takes a vegan supplement and has consciously upped her intake of leafy green vegetables such as broccoli and spinach to boost her vitamin levels.
Meanwhile, Theo has always had an abnormally high number of colds, which Mike tells Nicky is because he’s vegan, a comment that causes huge rows between them.
I’ve been concerned too that when Molly starts her periods and her iron levels fluctuate more she may become deficient.
For me, the greatest frustration is being stuck in the middle. Even going out for coffee with my daughters is a minefield because not everywhere offers vegan alternatives such as oat milk.
We’ve been to cafes, restaurants and tea rooms where we’ve sat down, read the menu, then had to get up and leave when the vegans start complaining.
Of course, I support all my children and grandchildren in the choices they make and I love them tremendously. But I long for the days before veganism muscled in like a disruptive relative, when family life was straightforward and everyone would fight good naturedly over the last slice of roast beef on a Sunday.
Names have been changed.
As told to Sadie Nicholas
