I’m going to be blunt: pagan parents, start rearing your children as pagans. Stop hiding, stop treating our religions as dirty secrets so as not to upset the in-laws. It’s one thing to hide your paganism from your parents when it’s just you; it’s inexcusable to make your kid an accomplice.
Stop hiding behind the excuse that you want to “expose your child to many paths” or “to let them choose their own paths”. You can expose them to many paths, and still raise them as pagans. Don’t be fooled; no one grows up in a spiritual vacuum. If you do not provide a pagan worldview, another worldview will be provided for them by the culture-at-large, and you may not like it. They may move on when they’re older, but at least they have pagan roots. Give them a spiritual context to start from, so that they CAN evaluate other paths, instead of leaving them to drift along aimlessly.
We are just beginning, as pagan people, to rebuild what we have lost. Together, we can create the songs, the customs, the art, the poetry, the dances, the philosophy we need to make our many traditions into a thriving religious culture.
So, go on, just tell them.
-Chris
Witch Mama 
Tell us how you really feel! 🙂 🙂
Seriously though, I agree. But I also know (living it right now!) how scary it is to be out about it. I am, as I write this, visiting my mom and her husband, who are very very xtian. My entire stepfam is very xtian, we just tonight celebrated the graduation of one's masters degree for his preaching career. (I called dibs on the stepbrother's mansion we were in but none of them were raptured, just as well I would have had the devil of a time getting rid of 101 stuffed hunting trophies grrr) Anyway, mom promised not to evangelize me, but she didn't promise not to share her faith with my 4 yr old… so I've had to have several conversations with him for damage control. But it's not been so bad now that I've been “out” for several years. I adore my mom but I'm kind of glad she is not the grandma that does most of the babysitting right now. And I'm glad that my son wants to do what *I* do right now… when it's different from what my mom does.
And I am going to kick up the pagan teaching too! Mom will just have to cope hearing the witch word more often!
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Good for you, Michelle!
Melanie and I sometimes do workshops on pagan parenting, and the top two questions we get are: 1) How do I tell my parents? and 2) What about Santa Claus? Many times we never get past those two questions!
We are so glad that pagans look down on proselytizing. Imagine if the tables were turned; someone would call the police!
Your parents are lucky to have such a tolerant daughter. We also will start answering the question “How will I tell my parents?” with a mantra made from Michelle's final statement: “Mom Will Just have to Cope…”
-Chris
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I told mom the wrong way (let her find out at my wedding) because I was being a coward. But we all survived that. Now though, it's about my kid, and I don't want him thinking we do things “wrong”… So I agree, start teaching early!
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Haha I was just telling my fiance the other day that we weren't raising our children in such a generic way. They are being raised Pagan. If they choose otherwise later, that's up to them.
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Agreed. Very much agreed!
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