Vegans get a bad rap…

…and this story illustrates one of the reasons why.

Let’s take a bite outta this one.

WIBTA If I refuse to change my diet for my mom’s birthday

My mom’s asking me to go vegetarian or at least stop eating red meat for 30 days as a birthday gift.

She’s been vegan for years and I’ve never had an issue with it. I try things she makes and a lot of the food is good.

Vegan food is not gross! It’s a rumor! But sounds like OP might wanna eat her words…

She decided to go vegan for moral reasons, and later also for her health since things had come up that required the diet change anyway. So it was great timing for her.

However, in the very beginning (when I was a teenager) she was extremely pushy about me giving up animal products and would try to get me to feel guilt for eating animal products from watching videos of how they are slaughtered.

Yikes. Did this er… exposure therapy work?

This didn’t go well and we butted heads A LOT.

Shockingly, no.

Years later, I’m an adult now and we have stopped the fights over it. We both live our lives the way we want. I’m not the kind of person who eats meat every day for every single meal, but it is part of my preferred diet.

She would make comments here and there that would insinuate her trying to encourage to give up meat. Like if a specific meal didn’t agree with me or simply me just expressing how much I prefer fish over any other meat.

Hm. Sounds like mom has an agenda. But will OP acquiesce?

I feel this might be a touchy subject for me because of her pushy behavior in the past and I immediately want to reject the request, but now I am feeling guilty.

It’s not necessarily a difficult task but it would take a lot of mindfulness on my part, changing how I grocery shop and denying certain things I would otherwise enjoy.

It’s not as hard as you think, but sounds like OP doesn’t wanna take the plunge.

I personally don’t think this is a fair request because she is essentially trying to control what I eat and knowing my mother, this is her buy-in to try to get me to stop meat entirely.

It will probably severely disappoint her in the end that I don’t change my mind about eating meat, which will cause tension.

WIBTA if I refuse this request?

Seems like mom might be setting OP up for failure here.

What do the comments think of this omnivore’s dilemma?

One person says this is just the first stop on a cross-country guilt trip.

Someone else says, tell her not to cattle prod you.

This person says, one dinner, sure. One month, no.

Another person says, love the vegetables hate the game.

Another poster suggests turning the tables.

It’s not easy eating green.

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.