I was supposed to be helping. That’s how it started. One small job. The twins’ school had sent home a form, some kind of dietary preference thing, in Catalan, naturally, because apparently we’re still pretending I’m fluent when I can just about order bread without panic. Anyway, Sara handed it to me with that smile that means: I’m trusting you with this, don’t f*** it up. I said “Yeah yeah,” which is exactly what people say when they’re going to f*** it up.
There were tick boxes. Seemed simple enough. Do your children eat meat? Yes. Except pork? I mean… we don’t really cook pork much, but they’re not against it. Except fish? Again, depends on the fish. Then a section that Google Translate generously rendered as “Your food faiths or diseases.” I panicked. Somewhere in the panic, I appear to have ticked all the boxes related to allergies, religious restrictions, and philosophical objections. I also wrote “not butter” in the notes, which I think was me trying to say “not bothered.”
Fast forward to lunchtime Tuesday and Leo comes home smirking like he’s about to blackmail me. “The twins are vegans now,” he says, tossing his rucksack like a grenade. I thought he was joking. He wasn’t. They had lentil soup and oat milk pudding. Apparently the lunch lady made a big announcement about respecting “the family’s spiritual food beliefs.” Which would be fine if we had any. Or had ever discussed having any. Sara was… I want to say calm. But it was that cold kind of calm where she just says your name like a death sentence. “Did. You. Tick. Every. Box.”
I tried to blame the formatting. “It wasn’t clear,” I said, which is true, because I was clearly not the right person to be doing it. She asked why I didn’t just ask her to check it. I told her I almost did. Which is like saying you almost used the brakes.
The school sent an invite to attend a lunchtime “values and nutrition” roundtable, which I couldn’t dodge because Sara said, and I quote, “You caused this, now sit in it.” So I went. It was held under a jacaranda tree. One parent brought a jar of fermented chickpeas. Another spoke about moon cycles and food memory. I sat next to a woman named Mariposa who said children absorb ancestral trauma through dairy. I nodded so much I got a cramp in my neck.
The twins, by the way, are thrilled. They love it. They say oat milk pudding is “delicious and ethical.” They’ve started judging me for eating cheese. They call me “the animal one.” They told the neighbour’s kid they don’t eat animals because “Daddy ticked the box of truth.”
So now we’re a vegan household three days a week. Not by choice. Not by ethics. Not by ideology. Just because I filled in a form too quickly and now my kids think I’m some kind of plant-based prophet.
I’m smoking more. Secretly. Behind the carport. Next to the recycling bins. The irony is not lost on me.