To start out with, I'm not technically a parent. I have no children of my own, and until recently most of my parenting perspective came from observations and conversations with several of my friends. However, my girlfriend has moved in with me, and two children came along as part of the deal. It's not parenting, not really, but it's certainly a closer view into the practice. Parents who think I'm clueless don't need to speak up; I already know it.

Having two children in the house by itself is an eye-opening experience. But when you get into the fact that I'm a practicing Pagan who's doing his best to be involved in the Local Pagan scene, and I want to include my girlfriend in that very large part of my life. I'd never had to worry about whether or not kids were allowed at Rituals. I'd heard the issue voiced by friends who had children, but it never really registered with full impact.

As it turns out, the public Imbolg-Imbolc-Candlemas-Ritual we recently attended DID allow children, so it didn't hit me as soon as it could have. It actually started to register when we were conversing with other parents, some with and without children. I'd always registered a kind of insensitive "Well, they can get babysitters" attitude, but it didn't occur to me that we were excluding more than just the children... we were excluding the parents, as well. Even if you have a babysitter, it's not always as simple as you might think.

The first notion that we need to brush off is that it's a good idea to exclude the children from that part of our lives. Some people who were raised Christian seem to think they were horribly slighted by the fact that their parents taught them what they saw as proper values, and as a result want to deprive their children of a spiritual upbringing. We need to drop this attitude that "the Christian Church does it, so we shouldn't" about a LOT of things. There's another issue that comes up, though, and that's the exposure issue. People are afraid to be "exposed" as Pagan parents, and risk problems with their children. This is a more logical and understandable viewpoint, and it's a lot harder to fight the system when you've got to look out for a child's well being. I maintain that the more we come out and just be ourselves, the easier it will be to do so, but that's a decision I have no right to make for you. However, by having events where children aren't welcome (and I've been told there are actually covens that do this as well), we're doing just that-- making the decision for the parents.

This is incredibly short-sighted. Our public numbers are no longer comprised of college students and hippies from the sixties whose children (if any) are grown and gone. I'm not even sure that that's ever been a fair description of us. Excluding children (and therefore, their parents) is a practice that's going to severely slow down our development as a community.

First of all, how can we have gatherings where we exclude what may be a huge percentage of our numbers? Lately, I've become aware of a huge number of resources simply for Pagan Parents. I'lltell you right now, I don't know but a handful of Pagan Parents, and many of those I do know I know online, not from any personal contact. But it doesn't mean they're not there-- it just means that I haven't seen them... especially when you consider the fact that most of the events I've been tohaven't had a whole lot of children in attendance.

Second of all, it affects the children themselves. Not just by excluding them from the religious practices, but by denying them a sense of normality. Kids always think their parents are weird, but it's surely worse for the kids who think they've got the only parents in the world who follow the Pagan Paths. We're cutting them off from a peer group. There are two approaches that can be taken to remedy this problem, and they can be taken separately or together. (There are probably other approaches as well, but these leap to mind for me.)

Approach number one is active inclusion-- allow the kids to participate in the rituals, as was done at the ritual my girlfriend and I recently attended. Surprisingly, the kids weren't that disruptive-- most of the problem was that they wanted to be held, and even a small child gets heavy pretty quickly. The second approach is to have something for the children, either a day-care type situation (for which I'm sure you could get the parents to rotate stewardship), or a children's circle. The phrase "children are the future" has been overused so much that it's lost some of its value, especially since we don't necessarily raise our children to our own faith. But families are more than our future, they're our present, as well. If we're not careful, they'll just be our past.

© 2001 by Cather "Catalyst" Steincamp