Monkey See, Monkey Goes Vegan
When I was a small child, I distinctively remember wanting to be exactly like my aunt Marla Ballard (Mom’s sister), or as I call her, “Tia.”
Tia and I were two peas in a pod. She was 20 and single when I was born and would often babysit me. She taught me silly little (slightly inappropriate for a 2-year-old, sometimes) songs and we had our own, cute sayings. If Tia said it, I repeated it. If Tia told me to do it, I did it. If Tia laughed at it, I did it again.
Tia and Me, circa 1999
Tia was my idol and every move she made; you can bet I was watching. I was and still am heavily influenced by Tia. Now, our laughs come from sarcastic banter and the whole “she’s my idol,” thing is more focused on her love of being a mother and wife, as well as her walk in faith. However, I can’t help but question just how my character would be shaped had she herself chosen a different path in life.
For instance, if Tia had told me repeatedly, “Blonde hair means you’re dumb,” would I have dyed my hair a darker color? Honestly, probably.
Or, what if she’d made a negative comment about journalism? Would I have pursued a career in ag journalism? Most likely, no.
Tia’s opinion carries major weight with me. No joke…when I was about 4- or 5-years-old (she swears up and down she never said this, but I vividly remember it) Tia made a comment about cashews. She said eating too many cashews would give me chubby cheeks. Although she was totally joking, I believed her. Y’all, I limited my cashew consumption until a couple of months ago. I am 22-years-old and for the majority of my life, I have sadly deprived myself of one of my favorite snacks based off a joke my aunt once made.
I can only imagine how different my life would be had Tia preached anti-ag nonsense to me.
In my sociology class, I remember learning about the way parents raise their children. As my mom often says, “You’re a product of your raising.” We often times hear these amazing stories of successful CEO’s who came from nothing however, breaking the mold your parents made you to fit (in the long term) is a pretty hard task to accomplish.
This saying is very similar to another saying, “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” meaning if a child witnesses their parent do something, they will be more likely to do just that. This can lead to great things, however, it leaves lots of room for the negative imitation. Example: How many kids do you know who have said a cuss word without knowing it’s a cuss word because they heard one of their parents or grandparents say it?
I visited with my dear friend, Tristen Jessee, about this specific topic. Tristen is a youth leader at Cuthand United Methodist Church and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology. She is currently working on Master’s degree in hopes of becoming a mental health counselor specializing in marriage and family dynamics, as well as therapy.
Jessee, who has spent the past few years of her life studying childhood development, offered an interesting point of view.
She provided a passage from one of her textbooks, Wardlaw’s Perspectives in Nutrition. The text reads as follows: “Food preferences begin to be established during fetal life and continue to develop in the years spanning infancy and adolescence. In the early childhood years, the family usually has the greatest influence on the development of food preferences and habits. As children grow older, peers and teachers begin to provide new ideas about food, eating, and nutrition. Television programming and advertising also present strong lessons about food and eating.”
That last sentence hit me hard for one, big fat reason: www.petakids.com.
PETA Kids is an interesting website which I heard about from a fellow agricultural blogger and certified Real Food Dietician Diana Rodgers. Rodgers posted some graphics on her Instagram feed from PETA Kids and questioned followers on their feelings towards their marketing campaign.
After seeing this, I had to check out PETA Kids and low and behold, I was drawn into the colorful and cartoon like website…all dedicated to creating young activists.
Headlines such as “The best accidentally vegan cereals!” and “Pledge to go vegan for 2020!” were highlighted. There were also a few articles for parents, one which especially stuck out to me is titled “Red flags in your kid’s curriculum,” which is centered around the disapproval of simple science projects such as butterfly growth kits, animal dissection, and chick hatching.
Another interesting aspect of this website came from the “Animal facts,” page which, although riddled with some facts, is basically just a well worded, manipulative, tug-on-your-heartstrings kind of gimic. What these pages DON’T tell kids is the amount of mouths fed worldwide because of animal agriculture.
PETA Kids is clearly tailored for young kids. I would go out on a limb to say my 12-year-old cousin wouldn’t find the PETA Kids website as exciting as an 8-year-old would. So now I have to ask: How many 8-year old’s out there have their own Tia who’s feeding them vegan string cheese and lies about the agricultural industry?
Jessee sent me some interesting notes on behaviorism which go hand in hand with this topic. Basically, people react the way they’re conditioned.
Jessee’s example:
Loud noise = big jump. Say there is a dog who made the loud noise, the child jumped and will now react similarly with that dog or even other dogs.
Imagine little towheaded me, sitting at my great-grandmother’s supper table and noticing Tia eating a Beyond Burger. She tells me what it is and says, “real beef is nasty…yuck!” Because she is such an influential person in my life, I would more than likely have the same reaction toward beef.
Below are some images of my brother, Evan, and myself, mimicking my dad.
Here we see my brother, Evan, dressed in a hat, vest and chaps — just like Dad. We also see Evan holding a stick to mimic the hot-shot Dad has in his hand. Evan did this on his own because he wanted to be a cowboy…just like Dad.
Here is a photo of my dad and myself while shipping cattle. If you look at my hands, you can see that I’m pointing my fingers to my palm…this is the way I used to count. I still catch myself doing this sometimes, it’s second nature to me. You know where I picked that up from? My dad.
“As a child begins to experience the world every event is filtered in their mind as positive, negative, or neutral based on the type of reinforcement,” Jessee said, citing Bandera. “This is why kids tend to respond in the most simple, black or white way in beginning stages of development. In the beginning they are not exposed to as many events, people, or opinions so they rely on ‘modeling’/observational learning.’”
Jessee went on to say that children tend to mimic rewarded behavior of others. For example, if Tia said a funny word around the supper table which made my family laugh, I would repeat it in hopes to also make them laugh.
If a child sees their mother getting attention by causing a scene in Starbucks because their soy milk is more expensive than regular milk, that child would react similarly in a similar situation.
So, I now pose the question: What are you teaching your children?
Are you giving them the choice to be vegan? A choice to be a carnivore? Are you shaming them for this choice? Are you providing them the tools needed to debunk agricultural myths? Are you answering their questions truthfully, on a level which they can understand or avoiding these questions all together?
Are we, as agriculturists, allowing PETA to not only change the minds of adults but children as well with their “We may not be right but we’re screaming the loudest!” marketing tactic?
Food for thought: If you are worried about the anti-ag takeover, don’t just worry about the adult activists on your Facebook feed — worry about the young minds which these activists shape.
