Oh No, Not Yet! ... Child Views Horrors of Factory Farming Practices!

            

Unfortunately, a stealthy 7-year-old - who was supposed to be asleep long ago - snuck downstairs while I was watching a film....and a few minutes after it transitioned to a new part of the documentary, and only when she started to cry and I heard sniffles, did I get up and come around the corner to see her in tears...

I had been watching "Vegucated" and had just finished the graphic area (where they show the torture, abuse and slaughter done in factory farming)....and I got a sick feeling that she had just watched the torture and slaughter of the pigs, baby pigs, hens and chicks. Hell, I was in tears at that point too, because there was absolutely no reason to treat those animals that way (stun gun immobilization & death, hanging until death, electrocution, cutting off body parts while still alive, sending them through a shaver machine while still alive, stuffing 10-20 hens in a cage, the list goes on...) 

So we then spent awhile discussing what had been seen, what it meant and where to go from here. She was in tears, but took it surprisingly well and could really articulate just how she felt and what she understood about everything.

I did not want to subject her to that until she was older and wanted to know, but there's no going back now. I suppose on the flip side of that; she has zero desire to touch chicken, beef or ham at any point in the future, and says she does not want eggs or milk ever again unless we can see "how they get it from the poor animal".... Cheese, on the other hand...well, she's on the fence with that.  ;-)

Poor kid. She was never really a big meat eater to begin with, but I don't know whether to cry or feel good about the fact that I likely destroyed cheese, eggs and milk for her too & that she will now perhaps always be a vegetarian or vegan from now on because she witnessed a harsh reality tonight. 

[Update - June 20, 2013]  No nightmares and in good spirits the next day, though still firmly resolved not to eat meat again...now that she is fully aware of just what she is eating when eating a hamburger, bacon, ham, etc...