Iris, three and a half, was eating a piece of chicken when she stopped, her fork in the air.
“Mum… is chicken the same as the animal?”
Nora, her mum, hesitated a second too long.
“Yes.”
Iris looked at her plate. Then at Nora.
“But the one that goes cluck-cluck?”
This time, there was no pretending not to understand the question.
When a child asks where the meat they eat comes from, we can suddenly start looking for the perfect answer. Tell the truth, of course. But how much? How far should we go? Should we talk about the animal dying? And, above all, how can we answer without putting everything we adults think about the subject onto the plate?
Explain where meat comes from without telling the whole story
Nora could have dodged the question with a vague “it’s food”. She could also have launched into a long explanation about farming, animals and how meat gets to the supermarket.
But Iris had asked just one thing: was this chicken really a chicken?
So Nora stayed with the question.
“Yes. Chicken meat comes from a real chicken, an animal.”
Iris thought for a moment.
“And it died?”
“Yes.”
Nora almost expected to have to fix something straight away. Explain why they ate meat. Point out that they didn’t eat it every day. Reassure Iris or defend their family’s choices.
But Iris hadn’t asked any of that.
Answer the child’s question, not the adult’s
Perhaps that is what makes the conversation simpler: answer the question that has actually been asked, then wait for the next one.
At three and a half, Iris might need a very short answer today and come back to the subject tomorrow with another question. She might feel sad, curious, completely neutral, or change the subject thirty seconds later.
Understanding something doesn’t decide in advance how a child ought to feel about it.
If Iris wanted to carry on, Nora could simply say:
“Yes, meat comes from an animal. You can ask me anything you like about it.”
“That’s a real question. We can talk about it together after dinner.”
Iris looked at her piece of chicken once more.
“Okay.”
Then she put it in her mouth and carried on eating quite normally, before asking if she could have some more potatoes.
Nora had imagined a much heavier conversation than the one Iris was actually having. She hadn’t needed to soften the truth or tell her what to think about it.
She had answered. Iris had understood. And dinner had carried on.
The truth hadn’t spoiled her meal. It had simply answered her question.
