Disapproving friends and family

Question

Hi i am Jess. I have resantly fully transitioned to veganism for health and wellbeing reasons aswell as animal cruelty. However my family dissaprove of this. I have tried to educate them about why i have gone vegan but they are not intrested in civil conversition and are very argumentative especially around meal times. Has anybody else experienced dissaproving parents?

MichałWojciechowski · Answer

Hi Jess, i would like to help with that. The only way to do is,  by setting example. citing Bible -> "You Will Know Them by Their Fruits" . Do not try to SAY that its healthy and good for You, you need to PROVE it. I mean - i hope You are eating a balanced diet, not a "fast food vegan".  It should and WILL benefit Your health and mood. 
People can forgive peers overtake of alcohol, saturated fat, nicotine and all other unhealthy food/life choices but when they hear that You eat vegan  - the typical response is "oh, where do You get Your protein "  or "How can You survive eating grass" "It will damage Your health". So stay strong, educate Yourself as much as You can about healthy vegan food and share a good health and kind smile with family. Try not to be judgmental, lead by example not by quarrel.  It's always a tough way to  live by own's believes which  contradict common way. But it's doable :) Sending good vibes from Warsaw, Poland :)

betterMonica · Answer

My parents are absolutely against it. I do not argue with them. I just do my job.

StaciSchu · Answer

Hi, best of luck on your journey! Only my household is vegan. The rest of our entire family are not and took a long time before they became understanding. We told everyone we were going vegetarian and we didn’t expect them to accommodate us during family get togethers. We didn’t argue, we didn’t respond to the snide or passive aggressive comments thrown our way. We smiled, enjoyed our food and enjoyed the family. Eventually they all came around and accept it. Mt parents and in laws even eventually became supportive and make interesting food just for us. Stick with it. Once they see that you’re not changing and your not expecting them to change. They will come around!

JessicaAndreia · Answer

My family disapproved at the beginning due to thinking I'd get sick. Once some time passed and they noticed I was doing fine health wise, they were completely cool with it. Hopefully your family will come around, too.  Just eat your vegan food, and avoid the topic for now or until they are more open-minded.

memeymusician · Answer

No, luckily I haven't. Sometimes you can only hope that people will understand your reasons, especially when it's your family. But you have a whole community supporting your veganism. Also if you give them time, they might accept it later on.

Brigekb · Answer

I am currently in similar situation. My boyfriend completely disapproves and is unwilling to educate himself watching documentaries. I cook all the meals in the home so it is going to be a big transition, but I can no longer eat meat and dairy and take what was never mine to begin with! Good luck with everything and know that you are doing the right thing. I just remind myself that the pain of the transition and people disapproving is nothing compared to how the animals feel when their lives are being taken away from them and this helps me cope with it.

HannaFischer · Answer

Hi Rubyj,

I see you point because I have been in a similar situation like you. Some people do not really like to speak about the vegan topic and might get offended.

What really helped me was this one:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07H3SLHKH

It opened up a lot of conversations with the people who really cared and who are open to talk, even if they are not vegan.

I hope this helps, all the best

Ahimsa_Tim · Answer

Hi RubyJ,

It's important to remember that your parents are probably just getting a little bit defensive because they may see it as a criticism of them personally.

Firstly, they may feel that going vegan means that your are essentially judging them for being meat eaters. Secondly, they may also feel like your going vegan is a criticism of their parenting, because they may see it like you saying that you've been bringing me up wrong.

It's best to try to tell them that you're not being critical of the and that it's just a personal choice. Also, try to show them some vegan information. put on 'What The Health' or show them the information online about how health a vegan diet can be! (:

yogigoldberg · Answer

Although my mom's both sons (myself included) are vegan - she still thinks that these are just our quirks. So I bring my own food to family gatherings as I don't trust my mom's food unless it's just raw vegetables. I try to explain health benefits from time to time, but they are not willing to hear by definition. So our silent agreement is that I don't lecture them about health benefits and they don't judge my lifestyle choice ( at least not out loud).

Everyone finds their own way to handle the situation.

Good luck!

quiritary · Answer

I much attempted convincing these to be vegan. I guess learned from an interconnectivity how to achieve things.. 

Made it very clear how disgusting and wrong it is to ingest the flesh of another being.

Guess I also wanted to keep being in touch, felt betrayed by their unwillingness to change as was necessary for continued relations to be possible; learning about me and looking at the past - clarity grows in the unconscious at times.

First when I did a challenge of 3 months solely living on what would be burnt/thrown out and managing to live pretty much entirely eco - except 2 weeks over christmas at a place in France and 1 meal at a restaurant somewhere - did something real happen and these began eating eco. Other things involved though. 

I fear the convincing and attempts at forcing a change only ended up a blocking factor on that path of these. However I also fear sharing that here; what if that was attempted used to guilt me? Even more necessary for distance to cultures of such - heavy in Christianity and while I far from dislike satanism its annoying to be forced in the direction out of need for not being controlled/manipulated with guilt and fingerpointing.. Yet gotta talk about those issues right? I know of no meat and dairy Anonymous recovery meetings accessible here and the attempts at forcing and manipulating me to "Dharma Recovery" I deeply resent.

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