Food for Thought

Tonight Celie put 2 + 2 together, realizing that baked chicken is actually....chicken.  Like the kind she and her friend Caroline feed in Caroline's backyard...chickens who have sweet little names like June, Dolly, and Emmylou.  

"Mommy, why do you feed us animals?," her wide eyes registering total shock.

Umm.....I thought for while, falling back onto Mike's advice to simply keep it scientific:  "Because we're carnivores."

"I thought we were omnivores," she replied (touche!) and within the hour we found her timidly pushing the little white bits around her plate with more than a little bit of hesitation.

"Awww, c'mon Celie," Mike encouraged, "you love chicken. Eat your dinner, baby."  But no doubt, we were both thinking of our many conversations about robins' nests, not stepping on worms, being kind to all creatures, and do unto others as you'd have them do unto you. 

Silent for a while, she finally spoke with a kind of gentle conviction that both Mike and I recognized as real, from the heart.  Quietly, "Daddy, I just don't like eating birds."

We could have forced it, or demanded she stop acting so silly.  Many parents would because after all, it's protein and that bird was cooked. But Celie has always been an extremely thoughtful girl, almost wise, and her innocence is still very much intact.  So instead, feeling she'd made a point, we simply looked at each other with what I'd say was pride, shrugged, and opened a can of beans.