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Parents who raise their children vegan are often
criticized for “forcing their beliefs” onto their kids.
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Or worse, accused of brainwashing their children
and robbing them of their freedom to choose.
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Well today, the brainwashers answer back.
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Hi it's Emily from Bite Size Vegan and welcome
to another vegan nugget. Raising children
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vegan is a surprisingly controversial practice.
From concerns about malnutrition to projections
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of social isolation, sometimes the hardest
part of being a vegan parent is fielding questions
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and criticisms from family, friends, doctors,
and total strangers.
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If you’re familiar with my channel, you’ll
know that I have a video series just for kids,
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including several interviews with real vegan
kids. Well today I’m excited to launch my
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vegan parents series featuring some fantastic
vegan families.
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So let’s meet the parents, shall we?
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There’s Jesse from the Bronx in New York
City, NY, father of Zachary, who’s 2 and
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4-year-old Jesse Jace, whom you can meet in
my vegan KIDS interview series.
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Martin and Katie from London, England, parents
of Sam, who’s 17, Jamie who’s 15, and
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4-year-old JoJo, another
KIDS interview series star.
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Shantelle from Cambridge, MA, mother of 8-year-old
Izzy, who lays down some serious wisdom in
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my KIDS interview series.
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Raffaela, from Lisbon, Portugal, mother of
5-year-old Vasco. Since my pronunciation leaves
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much to be desired, desculpa, let’s let
him show you how it’s done:
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Vasco: Hello, I am Vasco
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Much better
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Melissa from Ann Arbor, MI, mother of two
young adults ages 21 & 18 and 4-year-old Reuben.
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Ellen from Maui, Hawaii, mother of 1-year-old
Sandy and 4-year-old Elvis, another show-stopper
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in my KIDS interview series.
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Crystal and Eric from Virginia, parents of
14-year-old Jordan, 8-year-old Alejandro,
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both of whom feature in the KIDS interview
series, as well as two young adults who are
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19 & 21.
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And finally Theresa, mother of 10-year-old
Amina and Kara, mother of 11-year-old Jude
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and 9-year-old Gala, with the whole lot them
hailing from Brisbane Australia and appearing
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in my kid’s interview series.
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In addition one of Kara’s three grown children,
India, chimed in as a vegan-parent-to-be
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Since some of the Skype connections were a
little rough you can always turn on the captions
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and read along.
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In this interview series, these parents will
be answering a number of questions and responding
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to common concerns about raising vegan kids.
And I thought what better place to start than
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asking for their responses to the accusation
of making kids vegan by force.
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Jesse: Well, I feel that it’s quite the
contrary. When you raise your child eating
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meat, you’re forcing your beliefs on them
because you’re not telling them what they’re
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eating. You’re giving them food-like items,
like hamburgers and hot dogs, and chicken-shaped
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fingers in the shapes of hearts and stars.
You know, we have animals around him and he
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has no desire to eat the cat, no desire to
eat the dog. In its purest form, he wants
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to eat fruits and vegetables. So, at an older
age, if he really decides of his own free
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will that he wants to eat animals, he’s
more than welcome. But, you know, right now
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we’re just allowing, we’re giving him
choices and he’s more than happy to stick
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with the vegan options. I feel it’s not
forcing him at all. I’ve taken him to social
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events, and he never, ever once thinks about
eating meat or eating animals. If anything,
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he asks me, “Wow, those people are eating
meat,” and he thinks it’s insane. So,
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I think it’s quite the contrary. When we’re
out and about, he never says, “Daddy, mommy
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please I want to eat chicken,” like that
doesn’t happen. He’s happy, he’s healthy,
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so I don’t see it as you’re forcing your
child in any way.
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Martin: I think people have to remember that
you’re not forcing anything, what you’re
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doing is actually closer to their nature.
You’d have to be disturbing their nature
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more to redirect them towards meat, dairy,
and eggs. I think people get confused that
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just because it’s the majority it doesn’t
make it normal. What we’re doing is allowing
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them to be in-touch with their nature and
keeping them there. We don’t have to lie.
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Now we make sure we are absolutely truthful
about everything. And they’ve made their
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own informed decision, we haven’t forced
anything upon them. We told them, this food
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comes from these animals or we educated them
and they all responded with wanting to go
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vegan. And that was contradicting, especially
for my teens. Thirteen, fifteen years of information
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telling them otherwise. So, I think people
have to realize they’re forcing more negative
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stuff on their children by saying eat this
stuff which causes this harm to your body
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and causes harm to animals and the planet.
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Shantelle: I think the same could be said
about a traditional American diet. I think
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that if you are giving your child hot dogs
and hamburgers and chicken, isn’t that forcing
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your beliefs onto your child, as well? So,
you know, I always tell Izzy, if you decide
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when you get older you want to eat meat – which,
he’s always like, no way – never! That’s
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your choice, but I want you to have the information.
I want you to know how this impacts your body,
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this impacts the world, this impacts the lives
of the animals that we share this world with.
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Because the world is not ours. The world belongs
to all of us. So, you have to respect everything
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that is on earth with you. So, if you can
decide that you want to eat meat down the
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line, and you feel comfortable with that,
you know, I’ve done all that I can do. But,
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you know, my goal is to give you the information
and lead you down the path that I think is
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best for you, as your parent. So much of it
is about just educating your children and,
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I feel like with veganism, the only thing
we’re trying to do is make the world a better
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place. Anybody that tries to fault you for
that, I feel like they may need to take a
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look at themselves a little bit and try to
ask themselves why they feel like it’s so
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offensive to try to live cruelty-free and
be healthy. So, I think that’s a bigger
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discussion than anything else.
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Raffaela: Accusing parents of forcing their
beliefs upon children doesn’t make much sense
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to me, because all parents – vegan or not
– will use their beliefs as guidance to
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raise their children. That is kind of a normal
process. But, in case of veganism, we are
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not using our beliefs. We’re using our knowledge.
These are two very different things and this
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knowledge is so valuable for them, that it
would be very stupid for us not to use it.
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Melissa: Raising their child with meat is
forcing your beliefs upon someone else.
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I was forced to eat meat as a child. That was
a belief that was put on me, so.
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Ellen: To me, it just doesn’t make sense
that you would think that it would be brainwashing.
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Because all that we’re really doing is informing
them of the truth. There’s nothing brainwashing
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about it. The opposite is more brainwashing
than the other. You know, to lie to them and
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to tell them that something is pork, not pig,
You know, to say that it’s beef, not a cow.
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That’s more diluting the truth than just
simply saying, this is a cow. And we never
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try to talk to Elvis like, you need to feel
this way, you need to think this way, this
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is how we think. I always respond to his questions
with like, well, this is how I think.
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You can decide for yourself. If you’re raising
your children in something they naturally
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think on their own, be kind to animals. Something
that they naturally don’t want to hurt animals,
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they don’t want to see animals suffer. And
also to respond to their questions, and to
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just speak about the topic, in a way of like,
“this is how I think, you can do your own
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research, you tell me how you want to do the
research, what do you want to learn about.”
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In no way is that brainwashing by any means.
We don't make Elvis eat in a certain way
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When he asks, people say,
“oh do you want to try this?”
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Like his friend was eating keifur the other day – do you
want some? And he said, is it vegan? And she
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said no, there’s milk in it, and he was
like oh, no thanks. He didn’t say like,
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oh, well I’m not allowed, or my mom doesn’t
let me. He was like, no I don’t want to eat that.
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As parents, it’s our duty to raise our children on the foods that bring the most health.
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We’re doing our children a disservice
if we’re getting them addicted to junk food,
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and food that is not healthy for their bodies.
I think it’s important to raise our children
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to not feel like they have to be like everybody
else. This is what everybody’s doing, so
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you should be doing it even if it’s unhealthy
for our bodies, even if it is harming animals
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that don’t want to die. We should be encouraging our children to be who they are, as individuals.
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Eric: I thought that’s what parents, I mean
I’m not supposed to force something… you know,
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We raise them to what we think is what’s
best. And people won’t understand it unless
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you’re a parent, then you know that, everything
I do is what I think is best for them.
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Our beliefs of treating others how we want to
be treated. I don’t see how there’s anything
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bad as far as raising them to not have the
mentality of hurting animals and eating them.
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Crystal: Other parents think that, if you
eat meat – there’s a disconnect – you’re
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not hurting animals. They’re food, so…
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Eric: We’re extreme because we’re vegan.
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Crystal: Yeah, we’re different, we’re
hippies, and what else? We’re aliens.
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My mother-in-law says we’re not ordinary people.
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Theresa: Yes, I had one friend tell me that
I’m forcing veganism on Amina , and she’s
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only doing it because she’s scared of me
and doesn’t want to lose my love, and approval,
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or whatever. And then I said, you know, I
never got an option when I was a child.
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I never got an option to go vegetarian or vegan,
meat was forced on me, dairy was forced on me.
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Are you giving your children a choice?
That’s what I asked her. And then later
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on, I told Amina that she said that and Amina
laughed pretty hard because there’s no way
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I can force anything on her, she has a very
strong mind, she’s very strong-willed.
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India: Someone has said to me before, you’re
just going to raise it vegan, it doesn’t
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get a choice. I just said to them, if you
raise your children eating meat, then did
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you ask them if they wanted to eat meat? Did
you ask them if they wanted to be a Christian,
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or did you ask them if they wanted to wear
clothes? Parents just bring their children up...
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Kara: …by your own standards. You bring
your children up by your own standards
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India: By whatever you think is right, that’s
what you should do.
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Kara: And, you know, what I like to say is
when I’m against cruelty, I’m not going
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to allow my children to be cruel to animals.
No way! I want them to be better people than that.
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I bring them up vegan so that they’re
helping the animals, and the planet, it’s
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for their health. Why wouldn’t I teach my
children that?
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Theresa: You teach your children tolerance,
to accept all ethnicities, and all cultures,
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and to accept all lifestyle choices, and be
kind to everyone. But as soon as you suggest
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being kind to animals, everyone loses their
s---, you know. It’s really crazy.
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If you educate your children, and are honest about
where your food comes from, I doubt that any
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child will willfully choose to continue eating
animals.
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I hope you enjoyed hearing from all of the vegan
parents! Be sure to check out the video description
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below for links to their social media accounts so
you can follow each family’s journey.
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I'd love to hear your thoughts on raising kids
vegan in the comments below! And stay tuned
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for more to come in the vegan parents series.
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If you liked this bit of a brainwash, do give
the video a thumbs up and share it around
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to help other families. If you’re new here,
I’d love to have you as a subscriber.
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I put out fresh content covering all aspects
of veganism every Monday, Wednesday and some
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Fridays. To help support Bite Size Vegan’s
educational efforts, please see the support
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links below or click on the Nugget Army icon
or the link in the sidebar. Now go live vegan,
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force some compassion on someone, and I’ll
see you soon.