It saddens me when I see children and adults today that have no idea where there food comes from. If you ask a lot of them where their food comes from they look at you like your crazy. They will most likely tell you that it comes from the store. I know this because I have asked a lot of my friends and their children that still live the city and suburban life style. A lot of them didn’t know that I live the homesteading life style they thought I just lived in the country. After they told us that all meat and vegetables only come from the store we just could not take it any more. So that’s when I told them that we were homesteaders and on our homestead we have chickens, ducks, sheep, and pigs that we raise and grow our own vegetables. The children got big smiles on their faces and said you have chickens, ducks, sheep, and pigs for pets?! Then they wanted to know why would you grow food when you can just get it from the store. That’s when we had to have the talk. We explained to them as well as their parents why we grow our own food and they thought that it was very interesting until we got to the part about the animals. We told them that our animals are not pets we raise them to eat. You should have seen their faces! You would have thought that I shot their dog!
That’s when it started and I don’t mean by the kids ether. Yea they were upset that we would kill cute animals. But it was the adults that actually asked us why would you kill the animals that is so sick! Why can’t you just get your meat from a store like normal people? They even went on to tell us that they felt sorry for our children because they had to see things like that. They also said that they could only imagine what damage we were doing to our children sociologically! They even had the nerve to say you know that is how serial killers are made by seeing stuff like that!
We just had to laugh at them. We told them that if they wanted to keep their kids in a protective bubble then that’s fine. But if anything would ever happen and their was no more food in the stores they would be running to sick people like us. I just blows my mind how people can think so differently about things just because they live in different areas.
But we refuse to not teach our children were their food really comes from. We want to show them that every time they pull up to the table to eat that a life had to be taken for them to continue to live. We want them to respect that life that was given for them. When it is time to dispatch chickens we will have the children help. Their job is to pluck the feathers off of them. So you tell me are we wrong for wanting our children to respect life, to know how they get their food and that there is work involved to getting that food, and to give them the skills and knowledge to know how to raise and grow their own food?