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   Hey guys, just a quick suggestion: provide a link to the article you are talking about! Thanks!
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     Here’s the link
     http://www.worldofvegan.com/i-let-my-vegan-son-eat-birthday-cake/
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   Hi guys! Great podcast. I’m thankful someone sent me the link because now I have other podcasts to listen to (in addition to my other current faves like Colleen Patrick-Goudreau’s Food For Thought podcast, Undisclosed: The State Vs. Adnan Syed – the unofficial sequel to Serial, Freakonomics Radio, and The Infinite Monkey Cage).

   I’m the author of the article “I Let My Son Eat Non-Vegan Birthday Cake.” I think your take on my article and the one I referenced is very similar to my perspective. I just want to address a couple things. For starters, I attempted to make it clear that I was NOT saying “all birthday cake is vegan.’ I was NOT trying to stretch the definition of veganism. Instead, I was getting at the core of what constitutes a vegan identity. For a 5-year-old that might include seemingly contradictory behaviors such as defending bugs from mean children AND eating nonvegan birthday cake because the core values are a respect for animals and desire for a vegan world.

   And because you guys may enjoy this fodder for a future episode, here is a bit of context about our situation: I am a mother my adoption. My son is adopted from foster-care. He spent a year having visitation with a nonvegan family who fed him nonvegan foods. We also had a few people actively oppose our adoption on the basis of our veganism. As a result of a variety of experiences as my son’s mother I found some “compromises.” When I look back, I can see some of these vegan parenting issues are clearly related to custody issues and some are just based on my son’s personality, my personality, our family values, etc.

   I also want to mention that I went vegetarian as a child (at age 6). Or so I thought/say. We actually went pescatarian. We didn’t go vegetarian until I was 8. And then I went vegan when I was 13. And that lasted 1 year. I didn’t go back to veganism until I was 30. My personal experience of this journey to veganism (including relapses) has very much influenced my thoughts about parenting as a vegan. I remember, for example, picking pepperoni off of cheese pizza at school when that’s all that was available. I remember being told by more than one adult that if I wanted to eat, I had to eat what they made, which was chicken or beef (and as a result I spent a few afternoons and evenings hungry). I remember how hard it was to be vegetarian as a child – a child TOTALLY committed to kindness towards animals. It’s not easy. So I know my son’s journey may not be easy either. And he’s not just a vegan kid. He’s a Black vegan kid who was adopted by white parents. That’s a lot for him to carry. I want to give him options for managing all that in a way that he feels is sustainable. Ultimately, I want my son to truly choose veganism himself, with as much knowledge and resources as possible.

   I didn’t include all that in my article because, well, it’s just too much, it’s too complicated. it also takes away from the main point and comes off more as an excuse or justification than as a parenting choice. But I thought you might be interested in a bit of “the rest of the story” particularly because of your tangent on being child-free, etc.

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