family – Page 3 – The VeganAsana

Miles Apart

By theveganasana | May 31, 2012 - 11:42 am | May 31, 2012 Yoga Teacher Training

“You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.” ~ Frederick Buechner.

Do you know how far it is from Collingswood, NJ to Los Angeles, CA? I do. It’s 2,720 miles. I know that because my second son, Devin, left last Friday to go live in L.A.

Devin recently graduated from Rowan University and is now pursuing his future in the TV and film industry. He is not the first of my children to move out of the house. His older brother, Jacob, moved out a few years ago. The difference is that Jacob moved to Camden, and then to Philadelphia. Even though he was gone, he was just minutes from home.

Devin headed off to LA, far enough that visits will be pretty rare and he won’t be able to come home for most holidays or a weekend visit. I can’t really imagine what it will be like to not see him around his birthday, or have him home for Thanksgiving, or maybe even miss him at Christmas. But, I know that’s the reality of having a child grow up and make his own life.

It’s not just the visits and not being able to see and talk to him that are different. There will be plenty of phone calls (though, as my niece, Molly, who loves her cousin dearly, said, “You can’t hug a phone call.”), and I’ve already told him that he’ll have to put up with me contacting him via FaceTime so that I can actually see him. It’s also that I’m finding it more difficult because, somehow, it feels like if he was closer, I could help him more in times of need. I’m worried that something will happen and I won’t be there to help him. Mostly, I understand, this is my personal need to control situations and my own fears about not being able to do that. Honestly, there aren’t that many situations where he would need help that I could really provide, whether he was here or there. And yet….

And all of this brings us back to that issue of letting go, which I’ve talked about here before a number of times (here, and here, and here), as well as on elephant journal. It is a part of parenting at all ages, but becomes heightened as children move into being adults.

The entire experience of being a mother (or a father) is about learning to let your children move away from you. I know that, intellectually. And, mostly, I’ve been able to embrace it emotionally. I’ve never been the mother that got upset when the kids started school. I happily handed them over to their kindergarten teachers with a smile and a lunchbox. And that’s not just because there are six of them. I wasn’t upset when the first one started school, and then there were only two. Those transitions didn’t seem like the end of something to me; they just seemed like moving into a new phase of their/my lives.

I wasn’t upset when they graduated elementary school, or middle school, or even high school. I was proud of them for each accomplishment, but I didn’t feel sad to see them growing up. There was no crying. But, this feels different.

I really didn’t want him to go, but at the same time, I did. I know that this is an amazing opportunity for him, and he’ll be ok. He has a good head and, while he’s a young man that will take some risks that perhaps I wouldn’t love, he makes wise choices most of the time. He is also very dedicated once he sets his mind to something, so I’m sure he’ll succeed in whatever he does there. But, there is a mom part of me that is feeling a little empty and sore and tender right now. There is crying.

Life is change. Parenting is change. Sometimes, it’s not easy to make even the good changes.

Cooking for a Multivore Household

By theveganasana | November 12, 2011 - 11:36 am | November 12, 2011 Vegan Recipes, Veganism

14 Comments

Previously posted on Elephant Journal

Many vegans/vegetarians live in households where not everyone shares the same food ideology. And, sometimes, those veg-heads are the primary cooks in the house. In TheVeganAsana house, the spousal couple consists of a vegan and an omnivore with strong carnivore leaning. The little asanas are a mix of vegan, vegetarian, omnivore, and what I like to call “carbivore.” So, we are most certainly a multivore household. Over many many years of being in this situation, I have developed some primary principles that I use in dealing with the day-in-day-out of cooking for 6-8 people with different dietary paths. (n.b. Of course, some will opt to say that they will only cook veg food, and/or only have veg food in the house. In my case, I consider it a compromise of marital and family happiness).

1. There is a huge difference between meh and retch.

If you have spent any time in the presence of a child, you’ve probably witnessed the “I HATE ____” phenomenon of meal time. The hated item one day could be peas, the next day mushrooms, then beans, and maybe even a harmless macaroni noodle. The sentence is almost always uttered with either vehemence or total disinterest. But, my philosophy on this is that there is a significant difference between “I don’t really enjoy this item,” and “I’m going to gag if I eat this.” There are many things that I disprefer, including making dinner every night. But, it won’t kill me and I won’t break a tooth, so I tough it out and do it. The same is true for food I don’t love. If I can tolerate it, I eat it, and I expect others to do the same, because ultimately food is fuel. I never signed on to make everyone swoon with delight at each meal. There are many ways to deal with the difference between these two states of dislike. For a while, in my house, we had a 3 item limit on the “this will gag me” foods. This worked until we had a child with some pretty serious texture sensitivity who would literally hurl at the table if he put foods with a certain set of textures into his mouth. So, the limit had to go, but we still follow the general idea. If I know someone will actually gag (said child still cannot consume tofu even chopped into tiny slivers), then I don’t serve that item to him/her. This policy, obviously, applies to the vegans/vegetarians in the house, who actually would retch if served meat. So, they aren’t.

2. You are not a short order cook.

Your house is not Mel’s Diner, and Flo does not work there. This means that making multiple meals to suit everyone’s desires is just not going to happen. Again here, there are multiple options for how this unfolds. In some households, it might mean that anyone who doesn’t like the meal can help her/herself to a PB&J. In my house, due to point #1, everyone eats what is served, or they don’t, but it’s what is available for that meal. In 22 years, we haven’t had anyone starve. If someone doesn’t get quite as much as he/she might like at dinner, there is always a piece of fruit to have later, or a bigger breakfast in the morning.

3. Something for everyone.

While #2 means not making a bunch of separate meals, it is utterly possible to manage to have something that each person (typically) can eat at each seating. Tonight, for example, we had spaghetti squash with cilantro, jalapeno, tomatoes. I know full well that 2 of the kids are just not going to eat that, because they find cooked tomato gross and also don’t do well with squash (see previously referenced gagging). So, I served a spinach romaine salad and baked chicken breast on the side. Everyone at the table had at least 1 thing that they could reasonably be expected to eat.

4. Protein on the side.

While I’m not sure we really need as much protein in the diet as is often suggested, I do understand that people (myself included) sometimes feel like a meal isn’t quite “done” without a protein item. So, I often put the protein on the side and let people add at will. In tonight’s meal, baked chicken was the side dish that was optional. If I make spaghetti with marinara sauce, I might brown some faux sausage and also some meatballs and let people add it to their pasta as they like. Edamame, nuts, and garbanzos make good protein side items for salads or rice dishes, or even pasta. Most dishes that traditionally have ground beef in them can be made without it, and have it added by the individual, and so on.

5. Develop animal product prep. strategies that you can live with.

This is crucial in a household where the cook is a vegan or vegetarian and others aren’t. If there is a belief that some meals will involve animal products, decisions have to be made about how that can happen in a way that the cook can tolerate. This might mean that someone else cooks all the meat items. It might mean that the herbivore does make meat items, but places some restrictions on what those items will be. In my house, this has gradually evolved into a basic principle that I will not cook anything that involves complex meat preparation. I’ll put a chicken breast on a plate and sprinkle some seasoning on it, or I’ll bake some sausage links. I’ll even throw a roast into a crockpot now and then. But, I’m not going to do a Cornish game hen or fry chicken.

6. Mealtime is not the time for recrimination.

In a household where there are multiple perspectives on diet, it’s perfectly reasonable that there will be strong feelings about food choices. I would prefer that no one in my house ate meat. But, this is not a discussion we are going to have at mealtime. We also are not going to discuss factory farming, livestock hormones, or potential dietary deficits in a vegan diet during dinner. Meals together are a time for bonding and enjoying the food, and – while we will engage a lively political debate now and then – arguing over who is right about food choices is not going to enhance either of those things.

Lest this all sound really complex, here are a few specific suggestions for multivore friendly meals that I find quite appealing around TheVeganAsana household:
– Nachos – create your own with beans, cheese/faux cheese, veggies, salsa, sour cream (dairy or soy), meat or faux meat crumbles, guacamole, corn, jalapenos, olives, etc.
– Spaghetti with marinara sauce, meatballs on the side, and a big salad
– Pancakes (vegan), sausages (faux and meat), and fruit
– Chili (vegan) with cornbread or other fresh bread
– Make your own wraps with hummus, baba ganoush, bean dip, and a variety of vegetables
– Black beans and rice with cheeses and sour cream (dairy and soy), olives, hot sauce, etc.
– Potato soup and fresh bread

Cooking for a household is stressful, no matter how you slice it, and adding different dietary beliefs makes that even more complex, but with a little forethought, you can avoid turning your time in the kitchen into a total horror, and prevent your house from becoming Mel’s Diner 2.0. And maybe you’ll never even have to tell anyone to kiss your grits.

Order up!

Family – An Exercise in Acceptance, and Love

By theveganasana | July 8, 2011 - 9:04 pm | July 8, 2011 Yoga

5 Comments

This is not my family 🙂 I didn't want to put up a picture of all the kids without parental permission. But, this looks like a nice family from 1911.

I am heading home tonight from a week spent in Indiana with my family. In this case, family means 5 of my children (ages 11 – 20) and 15 or so siblings, parents, nieces and nephews. It was a wonderful week and an interesting one to be sure. When my Indiana family and I get together, I can’t help but be struck by the variety of people in the group. We had family members under 3 to (ahem) over 65 talking and playing games. There were vegans, vegetarians, omnivores, carnivores, and pickyvores. The group included Catholics, Episcopals, Presbyterians, agnostics, and at least one Buddhist. There were some with very liberal political views, some very conservative, and some in between. There was at least one serious pacifist and one gun-toting proponent of the right to bear arms. There were runners, walkers, yogis, bicyclers, iron pumpers, and sit-on-the-porchers.

You would think that this amount of difference might result in a lot of bickering or anger, but it didn’t. Sure, there was the usual sibling fussing, spousal differences of opinion, periodic sighs or eye-rolling, and little disagreements here or there, but they were minimal and they passed quickly due to the overall attitude of acceptance in the group. Even in the areas where the range of beliefs is broadest, people listened (mostly) patiently and showed much respect for each other’s viewpoints. This was very clear to me so often across the week and it made me smile, inside and out, to see how far acceptance and loving kindness can go toward creating a beautiful environment.

As I (probably the most liberal person in the group), sat with my father (probably the most conservative) talking politics over coffee for several hours across the mornings, I could see this in action. As a group of 17 people sat around a kitchen table creating gang names for everyone and working up a script for a future sit-com (it’s a long story) and laughing until we hurt, I could see it. As I watched an almost 21-year-old young man play almost endless games with his 6 year old female cousin, there it was. When I heard many omnivore members of the family being solicitous and concerned about the care and feeding of the three vegans in attendance, I saw it.

I can’t say we always get along as well as we did this week. We have the usual family issues. But, I think it is the general willingness to accept each other for who we are that makes it all work in the end. I know my family isn’t unusual in this. Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could take this loving acceptance that we show for those closest to us and spread it more broadly? What would that world be like?

Namaste,