Velody over at Treegold and Beegold wrote an amazing post today. Her intention is to start a discussion, and I think it's a marvelous thing.
I may not have too much to discuss, simply because I agree with her. I've stated before that we are raising our daughter Wiccan, which might be slightly more difficult than raising her simply as Pagan or Heathen because so many Wiccans especially are against children being part of the faith. As she says, Heathenry is a community faith and Paganism an umbrella term.
I really feel that something has been forgotten in parenting as of late - we are raising adults, not raising children. Adults need to have foundations and ethics, and one of the ways they get that is being raised within a religious structure of some sort. Raising them within a religion does not necessarily mean forcing it on them. Wicca will be the predominant theme in Brianna's childhood, because that is what we practice in our home. I'm the head of our local Wiccan Church. I'm the High Priestess of on of our local circles. There is no way she is not learning about our mutual faith, even if I didn't want her to learn about it. She is being bombarded with it, so to speak. By the by, she learned how to say Goddess and Beltane the other day. I was so proud, haha!
Regardless. Wicca will not be the only thing she will learn, regardless of it being predominant. She will learn about philosophy from her Grandfather, about Christianity, Druidry, Catholicism, Buddhism and more from the other people we surround ourselves with. It is important for us to raise her as Wiccan, but we want her to have a knowledge base with which to make her own decisions one day.
Far from forcing a religion on her, I think it is our duty as parents to give her a basis for faith. Regardless of which path she chooses for her self eventually, her ability to have faith is what we are giving her.
What do you think? Is raising a child within a religion forcing it on them?
Goddess Bless,
Stacy
If you live your faith, and have children, there is no way you can avoid raising your child within your religion. We, as parents need to live our lives in a way that our children can look to as a good example. The things we teach our children passively, by example, are the things they remember best.
ReplyDeleteForce implies a type of violence. Instilling a set of morals and values that respect differences, require personal responsibility and encourage learning and growing cannot be considered violent in any way. Teaching a child to hate or condemn others to Hell, on the other hand is a form of violence both against the child receiving such lessons and against humankind in general.
ReplyDeleteStacy it is so awesome that you wrote a whole post to discuss this also. I didn't even realize that this was discouraged by many Wiccans. Most people in the public community here just use the eclectic lable and those that do follow Wicca are normally of an older age so this isn't relevant. That being said here the attitude seems to be, how can we involve kids more.
ReplyDeleteI love your statement that we are raising adults not children. It reminds us to look farther into the future.