The Pagan Parenting Partnership
Moondragon
The Pagan Parenting Partnership (PPP) is about living in our society and in our individual communities. It is about our history as humans, as Pagans, and as families.
It is about energy-working magick (spelled with a -ck added to differentiate from "magic" as performed on stage by magicians and illusionists) and rituals. It is about honoring the Goddess and the God in all of their aspects.
The PPP is about psychology, education, politics, and the changes that bring about enlightenment to the world. This brings tolerance, acceptance and understanding to those who were not enlightened before. Ignorance breeds fear. Fear promotes hatred and violence. It is time to stop the fear, hatred and violence. As Pagans, we must be tolerant of other lifestyles and belief systems outside of our own. It is up to us to come out of our "broomclosets" and educate our communities.
We must set high moral standards for ourselves and our families, setting an example and the foundation for our children, grandchildren and our future generations of humanity. It is highly important at this time to work towards preserving and restoring our planet, our Mother Earth to a healthy state of being by opening our consciousness to this work. This work means survival of not only our own species, but also all the animals, plants and living earth of our world. It is a time we come together in sisterhood and brotherhood to take on this overwhelming task.
We must teach our children about our Pagan ways. Many Pagan parents are making decisions about whether or not to raise their children in their own spiritual pathways. This includes whether or not they should even guide their children's spiritual growth in any way, shape or manner. Some Pagan parents may feel that the child should make his or her own spiritual choices. This I agree with totally (although it would be nice if all my children and grandchildren were on the same pathway as I am... but, in reality they are not). But, at the same time, I also feel that we need to educate our children about our belief system, about our rituals, about our spiritual choices and why we made them. By doing this, they can make an informed choice later in their lives.
Most of us Pagans had some form of religious upbringing in our childhood. (I was baptized Mormon at the age of 12, dressed as a witch! It was October 28th and I came directly from a Girl Scout Halloween party to the baptism... talk about visions of future events! I have had several of these happen to me on my way to discovering my pagan pathway. Others I know, especially around Salem were raised Catholic.) This religious upbringing helped us to make decisions at a later time when it came to following a Pagan Spiritual Pathway. It helped us by laying a groundwork and letting us know "what we do not want" and "what we do want" in a spiritual way. We should not allow our children to roam aimlessly through their lives. We need to lay a spiritual groundwork for them when they are young. They can make the choice later to either stay with their childhood Pagan path or to try other pathways. It is the groundwork that is important. It helps to give them a direction to begin with. A starting point. I have met so many people that have been raised with no or very little spiritual background and they are so lost and confused, spiritually, that they have no direction or spiritual purpose. Sometimes this aimlessness influences other aspects of their lives in career choices, relationships, and goals. Many bounce from one religion to another without connecting with anything or having any kind of spiritual control over their lives. All they know is they are searching but they are not finding what they need in their spiritual hunger. Too many of these "lost" individuals end up in some horrifying cult (I am talking primarily about the "one male god" radical cults we hear about frequently, Christian or otherwise), losing their personal property and mind-will control, becoming brainwashed robots unable to think for themselves, often abused physically and sexually, and maybe ending up drinking funky koolaid. We should not let this happen to our children.
We need to lay a spiritual foundation in our children. This part of them needs to be nourished and nurtured as much as their physical bodies and their minds. It is part of our responsibility as parents and grandparents. We need to set a good example for our children spiritually as well as in all other aspects of our lives. They learn from our example. We need to include them in our holiday (sabbats) celebrations, such as celebrating Yule instead of Christmas. We can explain the origins of our holidays (such as Yule) and how they came to be known as the current holiday (e.g., Christmas). We also need to include them in our "working" rituals (esbats or other type of ritual work for things we need), when appropriate. For instance, if you do a ritual to find a new home to live in, include your children in the ritual. After all, this affects them too. Children can enjoy participating in these things.
MY PERSONAL EXAMPLE:
I was in the kitchen making homemade incense for an upcoming ritual I was planning when my 3 year old grandson came running into the kitchen right from taking a bath. Still damp, having thrown the bath towel in the middle of the floor, he climbs onto my lap to see what "grammie" was doing. I explained to him I was making some incense and why. He wanted help. I told him that was fine and I guided and helped him to take a pinch of this and a pinch of that and mix it together. After the mixing, I explained to him that we need to give the incense some energy so it could work for us. He very happily assisted me with the "charging" of the incense. There he sat, slightly damp, totally skyclad, his eyes closed and holding his hands over the incense with mine and the pure energy of his spirit helped me to charge that incense. That was the best incense I think I ever made. He also assisted us in doing some of our spellwork. A child's energy is so pure and untainted it adds a wonderful positive influence on family ritual work. When he was 8 years old, we had a ritual "confirmation" for him as a "witchling" or a "witch-in-training", also known as a WIT. We gave him is first athame and a pentacle at this ritual. We helped him to bless his new tools and discussed what and how they are used. He participates with us when we have our family gatherings and holidays. I do not know if he will remain Pagan, this is up to him. I hope he does. But at least he has been properly introduced to it and has some understanding of it. This is including the responsibilities that go along with being a "working Pagan."Children want to know about these things. They want to know the wherefores and whys of everything around them. They want to know how things work. Why we do things a certain way. They have a wonderful, natural imagination and curiosity that should be put to good use and encouraged. Their minds are like sponges, soaking up everything around them. They want to other things like... Where do I come from? Why am I here? Where will I go when I die? What is out there? Educating our children, spirituality, will help them to understand their place in the world and in the universe. So it comes down to this, if they are going to soak up information, spiritual or otherwise, I would rather it be from me (as grammie) or from me (as mom) than some one else that should not be trusted, or is abusive, misleading, hateful, and spouting dogma and doctrine that I totally disagree with on a personal and spiritual level.
Another reason to teach our children about our pagan ways is if we do not include them in our rituals and talk with them about our beliefs and the hows and whys of what we do and how we do them, they may not fully understand or misinterpret the rituals and beliefs. There is more than enough negative, inaccurate propaganda out there in the "One Male God" religions, in our communities, our work places, and the media, movies, games, television programs, and other resources that have distorted and demonized our belief system. Our children are being exposed to this every day at school, in the community, on the television, and so forth. They are constantly being bombarded with these negative messages. We NEED to educate them with the positive and truthful aspects of the Pagan spiritual pathway. Believe me, if we don't teach them, the chances are they will not accurately learn about it from any other outside source. We need to open and keep open our communications with our children so they understand.
Teaching our children can be even more important in a sheltered "in-the-broomcloset" family situations where the parents may be afraid of outsiders becoming aware of their Pagan spiritual pathways. I know what it is like to be the brunt of prejudice and persecution by the spiritually ignorant and morally stunted (or is that the other way around?).
"Been there, done that!" Religious persecution is one of the reasons I moved here to Salem, Massachusetts with my daughter and my grandson (born 3 weeks after moving here). Here, in Salem, I can be fully out of my "broomcloset" and live relatively safely without alot of the fears we had living in other areas of the country. We have a relatively large Pagan community here (although they don't seem to agree on much... the Salem "witch-wars" between individuals and coven groups). No matter where we live, it is sad that we are still harassed and persecuted by those who are so very closed minded, fearful, and hateful. The fear that Pagan parents feel can be well founded. This is very true. There are some areas of the country I would not want to live because of this. However, it is getting better, slowly, as more and more Pagans spread out and become known and "out". But there are a great deal of uneducated, narrow minded, ignorant individuals, some in authority positions (police officers, judges, child services case workers, and other community leaders), that would go to great lengths to cause misery for a Pagan family. Loss of employment, loss of home, loss of children to child protection agencies, legal actions by courts, even injury and loss of life at the hands of a Pagan phobic individual are real issues in some locations. No matter how much we try to prevent becoming "known" in a potentially "hostile" community, our children can innocently "out" the parents by accident. It happens. This can cause difficulties with outsider misinterpretation and unwanted intervention. This can happen whether the child has been educated about the parent's belief system or not. However, if we do not discuss our beliefs and our rituals with our children, the child can also misinterpret rituals and actually make things worse for the "outed" parents. So, my feelings are, if there is a chance that our "cover is blown" at some point. I would rather have the information be accurate and truthful instead of being inaccurate and misleading. "Prevention is worth a pound of cure" and this goes for educating our children and our communities.
We must teach our children about respecting themselves, other people, animals, and everything in their environment. They need to learn about nature, the earth, the universe, and how their environment works and about cause and effect. We need to teach them that abuse, in any form, is inappropriate.
We need to give our children the knowledge, skills, and tools to survive and face the world and life with confidence and determination. We cannot prevent or shelter our children from all the negative influences and dangers that they may encounter. We can only help them by giving them what we can to help them make wise decisions. We need to share our own life experiences with them so they understand why we feel and do the things we do. It helps to "humanize" us as parents and grandparents. After all we were kids once and have been through many of the same things they are going through now, mistakes and successes. We need to tell and express our love to our children often and really mean it. We need to support them and help them to make wise decisions, but at the same time we need to let them make their own decisions, for better or worse. Life is full of choices, every day. Watching our children make mistakes can be difficult. But this is how they learn and grow. Hopefully we have given them the tools and knowledge along the way that they are able to make a responsible decision with a positive outcome.
This education begins in our own homes within our own families. Our children are the future and the promise of things yet to be. As Riahanon Boulay said in her article The Real Freedom of Choice: Why aren't we raising our children as Pagans...
"Childhood is nothing more then a dress rehearsal for the big play called life. Of all the things we can teach our children, faith and the means to express it should be uppermost in our minds. With faith, many of the choices and decisions that people face in life may become easier to make, or at least not so frightening to face. Faith can see one through many a crisis by giving them wisdom to draw upon and knowing that they never walk alone, there is a higher power to lean upon."
We must honor our children as our future leaders of generations yet to be born. Let's prepare them for this great task at hand.
As we will... so mote it be.
