Riffing on Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, Part 2: Does a Hotdog Have Meat in It?
previously: The next day Tess announced that she was a vegetarian.
Which brings me to our trip to the San Francisco Exploratorium and the day I almost lied to her. Tess and I had wandered through half of the science exhibits and demonstrations. She was fascinated, which made me happy as I had dreamed of turning my beloved niece on to science – one of my passions. It was about two in the afternoon, and we had not eaten lunch. We wandered into the small food bar there, and I discovered that the only foods available were little iceberg lettuce salads and hotdogs.
Knowing that a scoop of lettuce covered with a packet of dressing would not be enough to fill either of us, I ventured to ask Tess, “Would you like a hotdog for lunch?”
“Does a hotdog have meat in it?”
Nailed.
“Well . . . .”
I could have lied. I knew that. I debated it. One potential power of grown-up v. child is that we know stuff they don’t know. My conscience hovered momentarily. If I lied, we could eat an actual meal. Be full. Get through the rest of the museum without passing out from hunger.
A long moment’s pause.
I couldn’t do it.
“Yes, Tessie, a hotdog has meat in it.”
How can a little five year old give an adult such a withering, you-almost-tried-to-pull-something-on-me knowing look as that? How did she know? Jonathan Safran Foer may theorize that we force children to go against their instinctive aversion to animal eating when we start them down the meat-eating path, but I would posit even further that children are not really children. They are fully adult minds in miniature bodies, from a vegetarian planet, minds that simply have not learned all the language and systems of this planet’s culture yet. And they don’t miss anything!
Sometimes we adults wear blinders to the perceptions of children. We don’t let ourselves see what they indeed see. We pretend they are oblivious children. I could have ignored the look and insisted we must eat hotdogs so as not to go hungry. I could have ignored the look and convinced myself that she had not caught me on to my near lie. That she had been unaware of my momentary debate of conscience.
“Sorry,” I said. I didn’t have to say for what. I knew, and the little adult from another planet in a child’s body next to me knew that we both knew. She just nodded in that childish way she had of acknowledging to me that she had won yet another round.
“Let’s eat lettuce and pretend we are rabbits,” I offered.
She liked that idea.
to be continued
April 20, 2010
Tags: book review, Eating Animals, Exploratorium, Jonathan Safran Foer, San Francisco, vegetarian Posted in: Book Riffs
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