I don't have any children. Heck I don't have any experience with children until recently. I could maybe more connect with an alien from another world then a human child. Well until my brother and his wife had Katie.
Katie is almost three. I spend a ton of time with her.
Now I get I am the "cool uncle." I don't have to ever tell her no. That it is time to go to bed. That she needs to do this or that. I often arrive with gifts.
But at first I didn't want to spend anytime with her. I recall when I first saw her, I lied and said I had a cold, so I didn't have to hold her. I was worried I'd "break" her or something.
But I forced myself to spend time with her. And oh I am so happy I did. I didn't know how to interact with her, so I kind of just treated her like a mini-adult. I don't baby talk to her. If she says something I don't understand, I don't act like I understand, and make her repeat herself until I understand.
What I will explain below the fold might blow your mind. My brother and his wife think I had some influence in this. I didn't. At three she has decided she is a vegan.
Everybody Katie knows eats meat (including me). She has made herself a vegan. If you offer her milk she asks if it is "moo milk" cause she only drinks soy milk.
Her parents are a little worried. Me not so much that she lives on fruit, veggies, and rice. My gosh she likes rice. When my brother said he was worried she eats so much rice I explained a few billion people in this world live on rice. I think she'll be fine.
As somebody that doesn't have any children it just stuns me how much is going on in her head. As best I can tell her favorite animals are like chickens, pigs, and cows. Somehow she made the connection that those characters she likes in her books, well if she eats them you have to kill them.
She is clearly not happy about that.
Again, her parents think their hippie liberal brother (that would be me) had something to do with this. I didn't. I explained I would never force my views down her throat. I'd let her figure shit out for herself.
And this gets me to the point that kids have a lot of stuff going on in their heads. I mean honestly I kind of thought kids were "dumb." But as best I can tell this young lady made the connection between the animals she likes and what arrives on her plate. She doesn't want to eat the real life version of her stuffed animal.
This is kind of a disjointed post, but with all this said it brings up so many questions for me. Maybe how we educate our children is wrong. Maybe kids should have more of a voice in our society.
I will just end with this. A three year old has become a vegan. None of her family members are vegans. Therefore I can only assume there is some high-level thought going on in her head. That is kid of cool!!!!!!!
And just cause kids are cute, here is me and Katie this X-Mas.