My two sons are in their twenties now, and I still cherish the memories of breastfeeding them. During those years I trained in lactation counseling and learned about the many exceptional benefits that human breastmilk gives to human infants. I also learned about the many ways that cow milk formula harms human infants.
At that time I was still consuming cow milk dairy products myself, and it did not even occur to me that if cow milk formula was bad for human infants, then maybe the other cow milk products were also bad for humans. I just did not make the connection. Later on, after going vegan for the animals, I learned that dairy products cause many diseases in humans.
In 2009 I shifted to the vegan diet after meditating on the suffering of the cows. As a mother myself, I could identify with the emotional pain felt by the mother cows when their calves are taken away from them. Most cow mothers give birth (after nine months of pregnancy) to a single calf at a time, just like human mothers. And, just like human mothers, the cow mothers’ bodies produce the perfect milk for the infants of their species.
Nature designed the milk of mammals to be species-specific, but somehow humans got going on this strange practice of stealing the milk of other species. So in the dairy industry, it is standard practice to remove the calves from their mothers soon after birth. Well, cows are sentient beings, which means they feel physical and emotional pain. After their babies are taken away, the mother cows bellow and grieve for a long time, all the while enduring the pain of being milked.
Katie White, of Olive Wood Vegan, captures the emotional agony of mother cows in a song. She writes, “This song is dedicated to all mother dairy cows. It is written through her eyes, as she travels through pregnancy, birth, and having her baby stolen from her as per industry standard. She spends the rest of her days hoping her baby will come back to her somehow.” When I watched the video, I cried so hard. This line touched me to the core: “Every day now, I stare into yonder, hoping… she’ll come back to me.” Please watch the video here: “Hoping” a song for mother dairy cows.
Animal sanctuaries are places where a few lucky animals get to live instead of being abused and/or slaughtered. Farm Sanctuary tells this very touching story about a mother cow: “Jackie cow survived tremendous loss before coming to live at Farm Sanctuary, including the death of her baby, who passed shortly after their rescue. But when this grieving mother met Dixon, an orphaned calf, she welcomed him into her heart.” Please watch the beautiful video here: “Jackie & Dixon: A Grieving Mother Cow Gets a Second Chance to Love”.
I just finished reading Vegan Voices: Essays by Inspiring Changemakers, edited by Dr. Joanne Kong, in which Dr. Sailesh Rao contributed an essay entitled, “Imagineering a Vegan World by 2026!” I visited his website, Climate Healers, and signed up for updates. Well, I am really excited about what they shared in an email this week: they will be at the UN Climate Conference in Glasgow, Scotland (“COP-26" from October 31 to November 12th), shining a bright spotlight on the “Cow in the Room”!!! Climate Healers will share daily podcasts from a website that will go live on Sunday, October 31st: cow in the room dot org.
I surely do love my sons… And similarly, mother cows surely do love their calves!
May this post inspire many people to ditch dairy and go vegan!
Sweet calf nestled into momma cow and nursing: Yvonne Huijbens on Pixabay.
