Teenager stirs drama after resisting parents’ new vegan diet

A teenager is sparking a widespread debate after sharing his reaction to his parents’ “controlling” new household rules.

The 17-year-old, posting under the username veganmomthrowaway, shared their dilemma in Reddit’s AITA (Am I The A******) forum. In the post, the teen described the major family drama he’d been experiencing ever since his parents switched to a vegan diet.

“Recently, my sister showed my parents a documentary about the environmental impacts of eating meat and inside the slaughterhouse where animals are killed,” he wrote. “They decided to go vegetarian, however they later learned that dairy is violating cows, according to their words and decided to go vegan!”

Meanwhile, the Redditor continued to eat meat while his parents and younger sister adopted a fully vegan diet. That balance eventually came to an end though, leading to a huge argument over the family’s dinner table.

‘They flipped out’

The teenager explained that his parents originally supported his decision to still eat meat, allowing him to basically have what he wanted for dinner each night. Eventually though, they changed their minds and told their son it was time to “transition” to a vegan diet.

“I said I want to continue eating meat and dairy but they were not having any of it. They told me it’s time to stop contributing to animal ‘abuse’ and I should just give it a go,” the Redditor wrote.

So, the teen used money from his part-time job to buy a few dinner supplies and attempted to start cooking meals for himself. His parents seemed OK with the trade-off at first, as they said they were more concerned about meat being a “waste” of money.

The teen kept cooking his meals for a few days, but things came to a head one night when he was eating a burger and his parents “flipped out.”

‘I will eat what I want’

Despite his parents’ outrage, the teen finished his burger and continued to argue with his family.

“We had dinner and afterwards my parents told me I needed to ’embrace’ the vegan diet. I told them I will eat what I want and they don’t have to pay or cook it,” he wrote.

The 17-year-old continued by saying that since that meal, things have been silent and awkward during family dinners — besides his parents’ occasional encouragement to stop eating meat and dairy.

“Since then, meal times have been quite quiet except when we eat meals which happen to not contain meat or dairy, where one of my parents usually says I should just go vegan full time,” he wrote.

‘I hope he moves out ASAP’

The teenager’s post received more than 1,200 comments in just one day, with many users calling his parents “judgmental,” “insane” or “controlling.”

“Your parents are the worst kind of vegans,” one user wrote. “Only being vegan for a short amount of time and already having a chip on their shoulders about it all the while forgetting they had decades where they couldn’t be bothered about the animals.”

“There are so, so many moral choices in life that it’s beyond silly to make overall moral judgments based on diet,” another added. “I hope [he] moves out ASAP.”

“And this is why people hate vegans,” another claimed.

Ultimately, the majority of users deemed that the teenager was NTA (Not The A******), with many praising them for trying to take matters into their own hands.

“If you’re buying your own meat products and still joining in with family mealtime, (dunno if that’s a big deal to your family but it definitely is in mine), then there shouldn’t be an issue,” one commenter wrote.

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