Relationships

August 3, 2004

Hi Cathleen,

I'd say it largely depends whether children are in your game plan. I

think it makes it much harder to bring up children with your ethics if

your partner doesn't share them. (This is more important for men than

for women, I suspect, because children tend to take after their mothers'

ethics.)

ladystokes2000 wrote:

>

> oh, and another thing... anybody married or with someone who is not a

> vegetarian or vegan? would you recommend that? i have thought over

> it and am thinking to not be seriously involved with someone (to the

> point of marriage) who is not at least a vegetarian. the owner of

> one of the health food stores told me her husband and kids are not

> vegan although she has been for a long time. she advised me to try

> and be with someone like me and not a nonvege.(when i questioned her

> about it) and that if she had to do it over again she would be strict

> about that.

>

> thanx!

>

> cathleen

August 4, 2004

The thing is though, I think it's pretty hard to bring up children with

your ethics regardless of whether or not your partner shares them, and

I'm not even sure it's fair to the children to have that expectation. I

tend to think it's more important (and more realistic?) to try to raise

kids to question and anallyze and all of that on their own. To give

them, I guess, the tools to make their own ethical decisions, while

setting an example by living consistently in acordance with your own to

the best of your ability. And, to keep in mind, always, that you can no

more control your child's choices than you can your partner's, or

friends', or whoever's. Of course, this is all HIGHLY hypothetical for

me, as any suuch event is far, far in the future (if ever... I just

don't know).

Gaije

On Tue, 3 Aug 2004 5:40pm, Ian McDonald wrote:

> Hi Cathleen,

I'd say it largely depends whether children are in your game plan. I

think it makes it much harder to bring up children with your ethics if

your partner doesn't share them. (This is more important for men than

for women, I suspect, because children tend to take after their

mothers'