1.03 Vegan Mama of Two

Tayla, Vegan Mama of Two, is a Sydney based animal activist. From a very young age she realised the natural bond that she would form with animals. She had a son, and then when she was pregnant with her daughter she went vegan after learning of the realities of what animals face in the meat and dairy industries. Tayla’s fiancé then got sick with cancer and sadly passed away. Not longer after this, she became an activist for animals. She realised just how much life means to us all and how precious life is to every soul regardless of species, and she now dedicates her life to helping animals alongside her young children.

You can find Tayla on Instagram and TikTok.

0:00:11 Tayla

When I was three, I was watching the video the other night, my Mum and Nan got me a Jack Russell for Christmas. And yeah, she was very, very dear to me. She used to protect me as a child. You could even see in the videos how she was very gentle with me and was always by my side, looking out for me and protecting me. And, yeah, we had her for 14 years, I think, 15 years. And yeah, I was a teenager when she passed away and that hit me very hard.

I grieved for a long time for her. Still cry when I see a photo or a video, as most people do with their dogs that have passed. And I remember when she passed away, I started raising money for Animal Welfare League. So I raised, I think it was close to a thousand [dollars]. It was just I don't like along the way, I was always sharing things on Instagram, even as a teenager about dogs, and like the Yulin Festival, for example, RSPCA things. Even though we know now, RSPCA, it's horrific what they approve of, but I was just always wanting to help dogs and cats, and I had that passion. And I never really, like you get dinners made for you as a child. When I became a teenager, it started just becoming weird to me and you start to know and piece it together.

And then, yeah, I started following different people on Instagram when I was a teenager. I remember there was one girl in particular, I can't remember her name, but she was vegan and she used to post sort of the things that I share now. And I remember just like, I'd watch them and it would hit me that I'm such a hypocrite. Like, I'm raising money for dogs, I'm sharing things for dogs and cats, I'm rescuing kittens off the streets and bring them home to my mum, saying, ‘Please, can you help it? Can we take it in?’ And I ended up doing that with five different cats and bring them home, and my mum kept them all for me. But, yeah, I was just like, ‘Why do I care so much about dogs and cats, but I eat other animals? Just doesn't make sense.’ So it was just that realization, just one of those plants seeded along the way that really I was a hypocrite and I felt like it.

And then I got pregnant pretty young, I think I was 21 and I had my son at 22 and I was still doing the same thing, helping dogs, giving money to RSPCA every month to be a member, things like this, and had my son fed him animal products until about, yeah he was about one. I got pregnant with my daughter and I think I was very early pregnant and I was cooking, it was one of those meal kits and I pulled out the cow beef from the fridge and I was cutting it up and there was just blood, like, all over the cutting board. And when you're pregnant, it makes you feel sick, very sick. But along the way, meat had always sort of made, like, I was a bit always sort of turned off it anyway, and it felt a bit weird to me. But in that moment, I was just really, I just took a moment just to really look at it and I was like, ‘This is a body.’ Like, this is flesh that I'm cutting up. There's blood coming out of it. It's flesh, just like if someone cut up my body.

So at night, I finished making the dinner, served it to my late fiancé and my son, and I remember just pushing the cow aside and I just ate the vegetables, and I remember my late fiancé like, saying, ‘Why aren’t you eating it?’ And I was just like, ‘I don't know, there was so much blood coming out. I don't know. It's flesh, it's a body.’

And then I just became very curious after that night. I think the next day I started researching things and how they’re killed, like, what happens. I wanted to know more. And, yeah, I came across Dominion documentary, as most of us do, and I convinced my late fiancé to watch it with me. And, yeah, we sat down and watched it, and the first part is the pigs, and yeah, I remember dry reaching in the toilet, I was in tears, I was hysterical, and I struggled. I couldn't even get past the pigs. That was like I was just, like, I’m vegetarian, that's it.

And then I think it was a couple of nights later, we tried to rewatch it again and I forced myself through it all, all the different parts. So the cows, the chickens, how sheep are killed in Australia, and I was pretty horrified, yeah, to know the truth, you know, they're killed, but I don't think you really realize to what extent they suffer.

And yes, I was vegetarian for a little bit and then researched the dairy industry and I was even more shocked learning about that, because the dairy industry is the meat industry, right? If those babies are born boys, they're killed for veal. If they're little girls, they go on to be exploited and used, their reproductive systems. And I didn't want to support that. I was pregnant and had a little baby and learning that, and that the babies get taken away from mum and they don't get to drink that milk that's designed for them to grow from little babies into big cows. Yeah, I didn't want to support that anymore.

So went vegan. Yeah, pretty immediately. It was difficult because my then fiancé, he has now passed, but he was a bit opposed to it and it was hard because my son, yeah, when you got a child, it's a bit difficult, obviously. It's not as easy as just you two. You've got a little other soul in your life to think about. And I felt very strongly about him wanting to be vegan, but he didn't agree, so that was really challenging.

And I tried to be, I don't know, we tried to make it work, but, yeah, he would feed him animals and it would really be quite difficult for me. When my daughter was born, yeah, I breastfed her for the first four or five months, I think, and I put her on a soy formula and she's been vegan since birth. And my son, yeah, his dad passed away when he was, I think he had just turned two. I don't know, everything's a bit of a blur from back then because it was obviously a very rough time when you're in shock, but I think he was around two. So, yeah, he's been vegan since about two, my daughter, since birth.

When my kid's dad got cancer, I was just shocked because I had done the research and I knew processed meats are a type one carcinogen, right? So he's got cancer, he's got blood cancer, and every time he's admitted to hospital, they're bringing him sandwiches with cheese and ham. I'm still shocked about I don't know why, but I still am. But it just made me even more passionate, and then angry, obviously, when he died, I was just so angry that they're feeding these cancer patients cancer causing foods.

And they had on one of the screens at one of the appointments, it wasn't the hospital, it was like a different clinic, but they had on the screen about that cancer causing meat, and then the hospital will feed these patients that. And I remember always going up to the desk and when he didn't know and I'd say, ‘Can you take the ham off his sandwiches for his lunch tomorrow? Put the cheese in the salad.’ I'd try to get them to take it off. And I'd have back and forth with the dietitian and nutritionist there in the hospital that would come and see him, and I'd be trying to tell her otherwise.

And they do not want to hear you. They're being taught otherwise, as doctors have as well. They don't know. And it is shocking, like, I am still shocked all these years later.

0:09:04 Adam Walsh

Do you take your children to protests with you?

0:09:08 Tayla

Yeah, I do. So obviously, when my mum has my children, we try to get there then, because we don't live very close to the city, it's about an hour away and that's where all the protests usually are, so it's a bit of a drive for them. So I try to get out there when my mum has them, but when we do have them and there is important things on, like, we had essentially like a funeral for all the animals that are killed every year.

And if my mum can't have them, I will take them. And people have said to me on the street when I am doing activism or we're standing up there holding signs, and my daughter is very passionate and she'll hold signs with me, and people will make comments on the street like, I'm forcing on my kids. It's child abuse. And I couldn't disagree more, really.

I guess we get to this point as adults. Yeah. And we're so disconnected, and then we have to unlearn all of that. The majority of us have pets at home. They love on their pets. They love their pets. They wouldn't eat them. What's the difference?

My friend recently rescued a baby lamb that lost its mama to the agriculture industry. And the kids, we went over all the time and spent time with that baby lamb, and it was exactly the same as a dog. Like that baby lamb thought it was a dog. They want to be warm and safe, and they want to cuddle up to you, and they want to run around, and they want to play, and they want to be warm. They are no different.

I think if kids knew the truth, the full truth, I think, obviously not all, but a majority of children would not want to eat animals. But they're not being told the truth. I wish that I was told the truth and kids aren't told. They're born, they're not given a choice when they are old enough to understand. I feel that, I don't know, from three, they really start to ask questions and sort of get it.

And at three, meat eaters don't give their child a choice. ‘Hey, this bacon on your plate is the same as Peppa Pig. It's a little baby pig that was six months old and died. Do you want to eat that or do you want to eat the vegetables or the bacon made out of vegetables?’ Kids don't get told. They get lied to. Not all, but a lot get lied to.

Whereas I want to tell them the truth, and I have really, I've been very honest. I don't show them footage, I don't feel like they're old enough for that yet. The protests that we go to as well, I make sure they don't see the TVs, and We The Free that we do, under 15 shouldn’t, can't, see it anyway, but she's happy to stand in front of that with me and hold a sign. And my son's always running around and talking to all of his vegan friends, my vegan friends, and he's happy.

But, yeah, I don't show them footage. I just explain it from the heart, really. Like, we love animals. You love all your pets at home. You care about them, you look out for them. You help me with them. They're the same as cows and chickens and sheep, and they don't want them to get hurt. And they very much understand. They very much get it.

So, yeah, she's very passionate. She goes to daycare and tells all of her friends very proudly that she's vegan and they get cow's milk at daycare and she gets either soy milk or oat milk. And there's been a few times she's come home and will say, ‘Why do they drink the cow's milk that's for baby cows?

And then I've got to re-explain it, that we live in a world where people aren't vegan and where the minority we are trying to make people realize and we're trying to make people see that they should be vegan for animals. And I'm not going to lie, it is difficult. It can be tricky. Even today I picked her up from daycare and we had a full weekend of parties and that's very tricky. Kids birthday parties. Oh, that is tricky.

But as time's going on, it’s getting easier to manage. But we had a lot of parties on the weekend and those parents did cater to us. The parents were vegetarian and they very much understood know, even though there is a big difference between vegetarian and vegan, that they understood that it's the right thing to cater. And they did. And then all the kids ran up to me when I picked up Lila from daycare and they were asking me, ‘Why are you all vegan? We thought it was just Lila, but you're all vegan.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I'm vegan, and their step-dad is vegan, and her brother is vegan.’ And they were saying, ‘Why? But why?’ I said, ‘Because we love animals so, so much. We love them so much and they don't want to get hurt and they don't want to die.’ And one little girl asked, ‘What do you drink if you don't drink the cow's milk?’ And I said, ‘Well, you know how there's, like, oats and you may eat oats for breakfast sometimes? I'm not sure, but we drink milk made from that. But there's many other milks that are made from plants and yeah, we have those.’

And the little girl said, ‘But cows just make milk. The farmers do this.’ And I said, ‘No, it doesn't work like that.’ I said, ‘They need to be mummies just like me and your mummy, and they need to have a baby. And when they have that baby, then they produce milk. And instead of the baby having the milk, we take the milk from them.’

t's a tough one because they're not my kids. Got to be careful. But they were asking me questions and I'm going to be honest with any child, any person that asks me. Got to be honest. It's so important that we don't stay quiet. We can’t. If it were us, we would want people to speak up for us. Yeah, it makes me emotional a lot of the time. I feel like apart from being a mother, it's my purpose here. I must help them. You can't see footage that we've seen and educate ourselves like we have on this and not do more than just be vegan. We have to do as much as we can. It's absolutely horrific.

And even, like you know, you'll get to this point when your children go to school, it's so hard. It becomes even harder. So not just with birthday parties that begin at daycare, but at school. I know two vegans that are teachers, kindergarten teachers, and my son is in kindergarten. And the agriculture industry has a lot to do with schooling, education. And they teach them a lot about it, but not the truth, not the whole truth, right.

Like, my son came home with this drawing of a Holstein cow and they have to shade in the different body parts of the cow. And I don't know, when he brought it home and he told me what they explained to him at school is the Holstein cow, they're dairy cows, they make milk for us to drink. And I said to him, ‘Honey, you know the full truth. You know more than those kids were explained to that day.’ Like, they have to be mums and et cetera, et cetera.

And he's like, yeah, I know mum. Like, he knows that. And I was so tempted to speak to his teacher and just say, ‘Hey, is it okay if you just made me mention that there is other ways to get calcium and what not?’ There's not just one way.

And it's really hard because I feel, like, upset and angry. Why does my son have to be the one that's different for doing the right thing? It's hard.

I didn't end up saying anything to her, but then the next thing came up and now it's a farm visit. And he comes home like, mom, we're going on a tractor at the farm and we're going on a bus there. And he's excited about not going to a farm because he knows what happens to those animals. He likes going to sanctuaries with me where they're rescued, but he doesn't want to miss out on the bus trip and he doesn't want to miss out in the tractor, and he's a six year old, like, kids don't want to miss out on those fun things and excursions, and it puts you in a really tough position as a parent.

Like, you got to pay for this excursion. Can I go and fund the exploitation of these animals? Can I fund them using animals for profit? I've been to this particular farm before I was vegan, I know exactly what they do there. I've seen what they have on the walls. They've got picture of a pig too, with all its different cuts and stuff. And then they'll have the pigs in the paddock next door that the kids can pat and stuff.

It's wrong, it's messed up, which most people don't see. And it puts me in a tough spot. Like, I can't let my son miss out. But at the same time, I cannot go against everything that we stand for. I can't give them money to profit off these animals, these innocent babies. I can't do it.

So I spoke to my best friend, I spoke to his stepdad. I was like, I don't know what to do. And I came up with, okay, I'm going to leave it up to him because at the end of the day, it is his decision. It's just like, if he gets to a teenager and he says, ‘Mom, I want to eat animals’, which I don't think is going to happen, but if it does, what can I do? Like, you love your children regardless. I just hope that, yeah. And I just pray. I've shown them enough, I've taught them enough, I've exposed them enough to good people, activism, sanctuaries. But I made the decision, I'm going to leave this up to him, but I'm going to give him, like, a really good other option. So I picked his favorite thing, Time Zone, and I was like, ‘Hey, so you know that farm excursion? Do you want to go there? Because if you do, Mummy will pay for it. You can go, but you know what happens. But I will do it.

Or we get to have the day off and we go get vegan ice cream at the shop and then we go to Time Zone and we'll pick out his surprises. And he was like, ‘Time Zone!’ And I was like, ‘Thank God. Thank God. Thank you, son!’

And, yeah, now he's excited about Time Zone. But had he chosen the other? It's tough, isn't it? Having kids in a non vegan world? It's not easy.

I was very shocked too when my son started school and they sent me through that canteen menu and they call themselves Healthy Start Canteen or something along those lines. And I looked at the menu and there was not one thing! I lie… wedges. But apart from that, there's not even one vegan option. Not even a vegan sandwich. I just was like, ‘Wow, you call yourself a healthy canteen, you don't even have one option’. So I emailed them and explained to them everything we're discussing and can you please accommodate vegan children at school that would like to sometimes have a canteen lunch and not miss out? Ignored me, I emailed probably four times, finally got a reply back, ‘Yes, we have added vegan.’ And then I had a look and it was vegetarian, they added and I was like, don't worry about it. Don't worry.

0:22:18 Adam Walsh

How effective have you found protest to be in changing people's minds and actions?

0:22:27 Tayla

It's a hard one. Sometimes you feel defeated. I'll be honest, I do at times. But then, yeah, it'll be funny. Like, you'll go to an activism event and you'll have, like, one or two conversations or with someone that just does not have the capacity to get it, and you'll feel really defeated. And then the next person will come along and they'll watch that video and you'll see their eyes filled with tears and you'll have the most amazing conversation with them and you truly feel like they get it. And they will go vegan after this.

And I've had many of those conversations and then it's like all of those conversations you had before just it disappears and you're like, that one person just got it. They just understood that there was probably a little seed planted there for them and it may be one of many along the way, or it may just be the one, and maybe you, in that moment, just made them realize. And it's pretty special.

And when I do have my kids as well with me, I find,the ones with kids gravitate towards you more because you have your child with you. And I have had conversations with people that have kids and I've said to them, they've had their kids standing there that will be a teenager or old enough to even understand it. I don't know. I feel they understand from three, to be honest, from my perspective, but they'll listen to our conversation and I'll say to them, thank you for having a child here and thank you for speaking to me and hearing me and allowing your child to hear the truth, because not many people do. So thank you because they deserve to know.

I had one only the last time I went, and she was a lady that was vegetarian and her partner was vegetarian, and it was a pretty special conversation because she just didn't know. She had no idea about the dairy industry. And a lot of us don't. We go vegetarian first and we think that we're doing the right thing. And, yeah, I mean, to some extent, but it's not enough.

And once she saw the footage that we show on the streets, and the first part is about the dairy industry, she said she had never seen anything like that before. She had no idea. I explained to her all the different cheeses that we have now available, the ones that I like the most, all the different plant based milks we have, because she was saying to me, ‘I just have one glass of milk a day. And I didn't think that was bad.’ Not saying, yeah, but that one glass of milk for them does equal death for them, unfortunately. And she was saying in her culture in India, they love cows and they pray for them and they worship them, but I was explaining to her that that glass of milk causes misery and exploitation for them and unimaginable grief. They lose their babies and they suffer and they end up dying.

And, yeah, she's one that I really think will cross paths later in life. And I think I got through. Yeah.

0:26:02 Adam Walsh

How do you manage the mental health of your children at protests or when talking about animals, as well as your own mental health? How do you find that balance? Or, not even balance, just taking both things on top of each other?

0:26:19 Tayla

Look, because I have kids, I don't go as frequently as I'd like, let's be honest. If I didn't have kids, it'd be a different story. I would be doing so much more. We get there when we can, but in a way that's probably a good thing because otherwise you are going to burn out. And I have that time by trying to do too much and get to too many places and also having kids and working, et cetera. So I think the frequency that we go is good at this point because it gives you that mental break. And I can take a step back from Instagram for a day or two, although I won't go longer than that because there is people that follow me that do care. And I don't ever want to go quiet again. Like when my fiance died, at times, like periods I'd go quiet and I don't want to leave them, I want to keep sharing and helping them.

But with the kids it's really hard. Even when we drive past those little petting zoos at fruit shops and things like that and the kids will drive past just farms and there's cows and they'll be like, ‘Look, they're beautiful cows, mommy’. And they'll ask me like, ‘Are they safe?’ And I'll say, No, they're not. They've got tags with their ears and they're not’. And then they'll ask me, ‘Where are they going'?’ And I'll say, ‘They're going to go to the slaughterhouse. They will die.’

Yeah, it's hard.

They would get a little bit more upset about it at the start. Now they understand more and I think they just know we've just got to keep telling people. As my daughter does, she goes to daycare and very proudly tells her teachers and her friends that they need to be vegan. We spend a lot of time at sanctuaries around rescued animals and I think that that is very healing. I think you do need to be around rescued animals when you are doing activism.

And for me, not for the children, because they don't see footage, but for me, I see a lot of footage that I'm sharing and yeah, you also need to see the good side of it, the other side, who we're trying to save and the ones that have been liberated. So sitting in those paddocks with them and they're safe, and they're coming up to you and communicating in their own little way, and the kids get to be around them and love on them is really quite healing for the soul.

And just making sure we just keep communication open with me and the children. We're always talking about it and yeah, I think they're okay. They get it, I think because their dad passed away and they get sadness. Unfortunately, like, that's horrible. But they do. They get pain, they get sadness. They just get it. Yeah, they get it a lot. And they don't want anyone to be sad and to be hurt.

0:29:26 Adam Walsh

How important has the support of the vegan activist community been for you?

0:29:32 Tayla

Oh, huge. Huge.

So it's only been, I think, two years I've been doing activism, and that is thanks to meeting my beautiful best friend. I had no one that was vegan, really. I had one friend who was vegan who is now longer not, and she was a big part of that journey for me, but apart from her, I didn't know anybody that was vegan. And obviously at the time, my late fiancé was not vegan and then I met my now partner and he went vegan immediately once he learned. Yeah. So I showed him Cowspiracy and Seaspiracy, and overnight he was like, ‘Done, I can't contribute to this either.’

We knew no one and something popped up with I think it was an Animal Justice Party event. Was it? It two years ago, I can't remember, but it was an event and it was a vegan barbecue. And I remember looking at the events list and just to see if there's anyone I've recognized on Instagram or anything. No. But I saw this photo of Kara and her husband, or her fiancé at the time, and I said to Dan, ‘She looks like such a lovely like, she just looks so beautiful and I have a feeling we're going to be really good friends.’

And I got to that vegan barbecue, we knew no one, and yeah, we immediately hit it off. We went out for a vegan lunch the next week and, yeah, that was it. We've been very good friends now for two years or so. And she took me along to a cube of truth, that was my very first activism, and I don't think I spoke to people that first time. I think I just held the TVs. Yeah, I just held the TVs and I just watched people's faces and you just hear the noises that are on the TV and that's hard.

And yeah, that was it, I've been going to activism ever since, really, and met some amazing people and then you don't feel so alone in this journey, do you? When you meet others who feel as strongly, as passionately as you do and realize the injustice and they want to fight so hard as well. It was incredibly lonely, incredibly isolating before, and then being a part of the Sydney activist community has been life changing, really.

Yeah, absolutely life changing. I mean, I'd call yeah, majority of them good friends. They went from having no friends to many vegan friends. No vegan friends, to many beautiful vegan friends. So very lucky, yeah. And they were incredibly welcoming.

0:32:38 Adam Walsh

If you could suggest a small change that someone could make for animals, what might that be?

0:32:47 Tayla

I'm going to be honest: go vegan!

There's just no, vegetarian is not good enough in my eyes. Veganism is the bare minimum that we owe animals.

I was one of these people and I think we all have been, and we've said, ‘What is going to make a difference if I go vegan? What is little me, one person going to do?’ And I still hear it all time. But by being vegan, I just look at my mum and nan, they're not vegan, but they have made changes. And if you persist on people and you keep telling them the truth, you keep putting it in front of their faces, they are going to make changes. And the more changes that people can make, the better for animals, yeah. In my eyes, the bare minimum is veganism. Anything less isn't good enough.

But the more changes we can get people to make, the better. And what was it? I looked it up and it was like, you probably know, 100 and something animals per year, an individual eats, roughly. So that's insane. Like, if you stopped eating animals individually, you would save 100 plus animals per year. Then think about if you were vegan and just the influence that you have on people around you, close to you. They're going to be curious about you being vegan. They're going to at least Google it, look into it, maybe click on the link to the documentary, maybe search veganism and a documentary will come up, they might see it, might just change their life.

And if you become an activist, you can potentially make hundreds of people vegan by the end of your life. I always find that disappointing when people say that, because we have the ability to do so much as an individual, so very much.

I don't know, it's a struggle for people and I've found the one thing they struggle with the most is recipes. Cooking, what to buy they're lost, what to cook for their families? What are their kids going to like to eat, what are their kids going to even eat? Like things that they've never eaten before, probably like tofu, lentils.

Yeah, I find that that's people's struggle. But like I say to people, it's as easy as going into Woolworths and we are so lucky in 2023 where we have the cow's milk there and we have like ten to fifteen different options of plant based milk. Like grab a couple and try them all out and see what you like. Grab some different vegan cheeses and see what you like. I had to go through many vegan cheeses, as most of us have, and now I know the one that I like, it's lit, I love it!

I have my vegan ham with my vegan cheese on toast and it's so good. But yeah, it's just finding the ones that you like. But it's so simple for us. It's not hard, it's not difficult, it's really easy to go vegan. Yes, it is an adjustment and it will be for a month or two. But then it just becomes your way of life and no one has to suffer and die. So go vegan. Nothing less.

Transcribed with Deciphr.AI