chicken nuggets
Jade Small
Jade Small
June 15, 2021 ·  4 min read

My ex fed vegan daughter McNuggets behind my back – now she keeps demanding meat

Raising kids when the parents are in separate households can be tricky. It’s even trickier when you have a vegan daughter who may or may not be sneaking meat snacks at her dad’s house. This is exactly what happened in one trying situation, as mom and Reddit user VeggieCoParent explained in a recent thread. She posted about a chicken nugget incident between her and her daughter that made her question whether or not she was in the wrong.

For nearly 8 and a half years, the couple raised their daughter as a meat-free vegan. According to the mom, her at-the-time husband didn’t even approve of having animal products in their home. So they agreed to raise their vegan daughter together and did so successfully for a while. Then, about a year and a half after the two were divorced, VeganCoParent ran into a distressing situation. It ended up causing quite the argument between the family members too. When she picked her daughter up from the dad’s home, it was nearing evening time, and hunger started to set in. That’s when everything started to fall apart.

As we’re driving home she says she’s hungry. I offered her my purse apple (I should have packed better car snacks for the ride) but she spies the golden arches out the window. She has a full. blown. meltdown demanding chicken nuggets.”

VeganCoParent- Reddit

Confusion Sets In

As the mom is sitting in her car, listening to her vegan daughter scream about wanting chicken nuggets, a question occurs to her. Why would her daughter react this way to a food she hasn’t even had yet? Well, maybe she has had it. Surely the dad would’ve said something if he was giving their vegan daughter meat, right? This guy was adamantly against having any animal products in their home at one point, so it’s understandable why VeganCoParent was confused about her daughter’s reaction.

While crying through a bowl of soup, her daughter blurts out how “Dad would’ve let her have chicken nuggets.” Instantly, the mom realized that her vegan daughter had been eating meat at her dad’s house.

couple, arguing. jacket, coat, talking

Photo by Budgeron Bach from Pexels

According to the mom, she felt angry and thought she deserved to know what was going on in her daughter’s life. It wasn’t a big deal to the dad though. He didn’t feel that VeganCoParent needed to know every single thing that happened.

“I called him after she went to bed and he told me I was being uptight and he didn’t tell me because he knew I’d overreact. I’m controlling and I don’t need to be privy to every single thing he does when our daughter is with him.”

VeganCoParent – Reddit

As expected, the Reddit commenters were at odds against each other with opinions of who was correct in the matter. Some were extremely upset that the parents would insist their child be on a vegan diet in the first place. Others thought the vegan daughter was old enough to choose if she wanted to eat meat or stay vegan. Overall, most commenters felt that the mom should’ve been informed about her daughter eating meat.

Comments About the Vegan Daughter Hiding Meat from her Mom

“You don’t let an 8-year old tell you what they want to eat. You don’t give them fast food just because they beg for it. And if you and your co-parent have agreed to a diet together, you absolutely should let the other person know when you change something, ESPECIALLY if you’re going to start feeding the kid fast food.”

RealisticSandwich – Reddit

Co-parenting is not an easy job. No one wants to worry about whether or not today will be a battle. Or, what the battle will be over. However, there will always be battles to choose. This one certainly had both sides up in arms.

Clearly she wants to eat meat and she’s old enough to make her own decisions (to some extent) in regards to what she wants to eat. When she’s older and can comprehend more fully the nuances of the issue, she may choose to go back to veganism, or vegetarianism, etc. or maybe she won’t.”

Starbuckbuckbuck – Reddit

What do you think about this situation? how would you have handled this if it happened to you?

Sources

  1. AITA for being upset that my exhusband fed our vegan daughter Chicken McNuggets.” Reddit. 2020.

Attention: While many of these stories are interesting, and we would love to take their word for it, the content in this article was taken from an unverifiable source (i.e., a Reddit forum). As such, we cannot guarantee that these events truly happened in the way that they are described in the original source.