I went vegetarian in a bet about not eating meat for 2 weeks when I was 19. I researched why people would actually go vegetarian and ran across the term vegan. I had never heard of vegan before in my small town, and didn't even personally know any vegetarians. I then made the choice to work toward being vegan.

I didn't know how to cook, as my parents didn't cook much. Mostly fast food, frozen, and grilling burgers, alongside my mom baking all the sweets were what we ate. So, I gave myself two years to research foods, and learn how to cook to reduce the possibility of failure and lapse and to phase out eating and owning non-vegan items slowly. It worked pretty well. Now I'll be 38 this year.

I had my child as a single mom when I was 27, and other than vitamin d drops that they adamantly advocated for since he was born in winter, he hasn't consumed animal products. Occasionally a restaurant will mess up, but he had never eaten non-vegan things.

I also dated a man since 2015 after my son was born and he was an omnivore. I cooked only vegan food when I cooked for us. He started eating it more and more . When he had his vitals taken, he decided that he was going to go full plant-based. He's very supportive and sometimes a bigger advocate than I am. We got married a few years ago. My step children are not vegan. Their mothers are in their life and are meat advocates, and neither my husband nor I push it on them, since it would be counter productive.

At age 8, I told my son it was his choice now on what he eats, since I can't monitor things for him throughout all of school and sleep overs, field trips, etc. He had chosen to stay this way so far, and adamantly checks labels and questions folks. He's not shy or quiet about being a vegan. He's known as the only vegan kid at school, and he's okay with that.