A flaw in the plan

Yesterday we were in Wal-Mart (we ventured up to the Ooltewah WM, and I have to say the experience was much more pleasant than my last trip to the Gunbarrel WM). Maggie said she wanted to see if they had lobsters, and then she asked if Bill and Karen ate lobster. I'm not sure why she made this connection -- maybe she just chose them randomly, or maybe I've mentioned to her that Karen is from Boston and as a native New Englander had probably eaten her share of lobsters.

I should note that she's been asking a lot lately about why we don't eat meat, why her friends eat "real" chicken and hamburger, etc. I've struggled with an explanation that remains true to our family's values but doesn't give a we're-right-they're-wrong stance pitting us against meat-eaters. I ended up saying something along the lines of chicken (or hamburger, or bacon, or whatever) comes from animals, and we choose not to eat animals. And that other families make different choices, and that's OK for them, but our family feels pretty strongly about this issue. And that when she's much, much older and making more choices for herself, she is welcome to try real meat if she decides she wants to.

So we're shopping yesterday, discussing lobsters, and she asks, "Are lobsters animals?" Yes. "So that's why we don't eat them?" I thought about venturing into an explanation about economics -- actually, we do eat seafood but lobsters are pretty expensive, so we just don't eat them for financial reasons. Instead, I err on the side of simplicity and say, "Nope, we don't eat them." Then she asks, "Are fish animals too?" Yes. Now, I'm not a chess-player, but her next statement hits me like I imagine the word checkmate hits expert chessmen when it comes without warning: "But we eat fish." Ummm. Yeah, we do.

I didn't know what to say. My own rationale is that we try not to eat anything that was specifically raised for slaughter. Seafood is mainly a luxury saved for when we're at the beach -- where the restaurants sit right on the water, and you know your dinner was swimming happily in the ocean until the fishing boat docked out back caught it that morning. To me, that's very different from the cruelty of the U.S. meat industry -- the cows that are fed nothing but corn to fatten them up, even though it's not good for their digestive systems (hence the antibiotics which are frequently given them) or the small, overcrowded cages where chickens spend their lives. And for your sake as well as mine, I won't describe slaughterhouse procedures. I realize there's free-range meat and all that, but for me it was simply easier to draw the line at freshly caught seafood vs. everything else.

But to Maggie, an animal is an animal, and the fact that we eat some but not most was confusing. And ultimately, maybe she's right. If we say we value animals, then shouldn't we value all animals -- even the ones who live happy lives? Bobby already feels icky eating fish ... maybe it's time I evaluate that choice too. I'm not sure I'm ready to give up one of my favorite foods of all time -- fresh seafood. But thanks to the black-and-white world of my daughter and its sometimes eye-opening wisdom, I'm now thinking about it.