Introduction

Every day I wake up and make my little girl breakfast. In the mist of cooking scramble eggs, digging out a package of yogurt in the back of the refrigerator and chasing my kid down to get her dressed, what is unique about us isn't necessarily obvious.

My husband and I both actively play a role in our child's education, her play time, her friends and every activity she is involved in this point, at the tender age of three. We aren't unlike most families. I work, my husband is struggling to gain employment in this economy. We share in household chores, feed our cats, endless errands from dropping off time sheets to food shopping, maybe catch a few hours at the playground. We are like many families of today and not too different from families of the past. However, we aren't considered traditional, we are a pagan family. 

In junior high school I discovered wicca, an earth based religion. Unlike my spouse, my family didn't push the Christian religion onto me, so I was free to openly explore my new found faith. At this time, very few new age, pagan, wiccan families were visible. Some families would hide behind a more mainstream religion, claim to be nonreligious or some families would hide their spiritual practices from their own children. I as a teenager wasn't afraid to be out and open. I wore my pentagram proudly and read Scott Cunningham introduction to Wicca, anywhere I damn well pleased.

Twenty years later and what many thought was a teen fad, was still an active role in my spiritual life. My husband and I didn't have a Christian or secular wedding. We had a rather in your face pagan ceremony and wedding. When our daughter was born, names like Mary and Christine weren't even considered. We chose a pagan first and middle name. We wouldn't allow family to pressure us to raise our child with their religious traditions, but that lead to a new problem? What traditions as pagans are we going to give our child?  

How do we balance between our own paths, while giving our child guidance without hindering her personal freedoms?

Which traditions from our personal past and experience do we pass on? Then of course how do find the energy to find something age appropriate to involve our child in these new and old traditions. 


I'm a pagan parent. I'm not a phase. I'm not going away. I'm apart of society and so is my child. My child may not be the first to be raised pagan, but I intend to raise her openly while practicing my spirituality and allowing my child to find her own path.