If families are trees...

...mine is a pecan tree.

fam·i·ly

fam(ə)lē

noun 
     1.   a group consisting of parents and children living together in a household. 

     2.   all the descendants of a common ancestor. 

I have another definition I would like to add. 

     3. the people in your life that can hurt you the worst.

Now I realize that seems very pessimistic and possibly depressing but I know you all know exactly what I'm talking about. Whether it's a fight with someone that knows all your weak spots or just accidentally being left out of family get-together they have the capacity to hurt us worse than anybody because they are supposed to be the ones that have our back no matter what, right?

Maybe it's just my family.

Gods I hope not.

I believe I have mentioned before that I live in a very Christian area of the world, and this side of my family is filled with Good Southern Christian Folk. The other side of my family is in Colorado, and while they are not GSCF they are Proper Christian People, and then my parents, Very Proper Christian People. That's all well and good. Find your fuzzies and all that. Both sides have known for quite some time that I am Pagan. They know, they may ask me a question once every three years, but generally we don't talk about that fabulous skyclad elephant in the room. 

Bam. Pregnant. Well, you know not bam, that's not how babies happen. Well, I guess it kinda is. I digress. Pregnant, and then Witchling comes into the world in all her tiny squaling glory. I suppose it may have been naive of me to think that we could just continue to ignore the elephant while I loaded my kiddo up on its back. I figured, "You know, these people all raised their kids without people getting all up in their business as far as faith is concerned, I'm sure I'll be left alone too."

Yes, yes. Once you stop laughing please continue reading. 

See, I knew that we would have to talk about it at some point, but right now Witching is teething and drooling and chewing on the cat. We don't exactly have in depth philosophical conversations at the moment, mostly it's "Yum Yum peaches" and "No don't put that in your mouth." I thought I would have time to talk to my family about it later, but most of all, I thought we would talk about it. 

I thought that, seeing as how they were family, that they had enough respect for me, not my beliefs but ME, that they would bring up their concerns or whatever, I would tell them I understood where they were coming from but this is how DH and I decided to raise Witchling and then we would ask them to respect that and there would be hugs and cherry pie. End of story. 

I'll let you finish laughing again. 

What I never in eight million years would believe would happen would be that they, VPCP, would decide that they would just baptize my daughter the first time I left her alone with them. When I found out I was hurt, I was angry, and I felt more betrayed than I think I ever have, and I've had some big betrayals. 

So I made a post on Facebook, as one is wont to do. 

There comes a point in your life when you have to stop apologizing for being who you are when the person you are is pretty awesome. I try to be a good person every single day. I try to have compassion and empathy for others and I try to remind myself that a lot of hate is born from ignorance induced fear. I stand up for the rights of other individuals to follow whatever path to the divine they feel calls them, knowing that over and over again I will be condemned for my own. I don't hold a group of Muslims accountable for the actions of those who use Allah's name to hurt others anymore than I hold a group of Christians accountable for using their own God's name as an excuse to hate, hurt, and act in a way I'm sure makes Jesus, the "love your neighbor" guy, cringe.

 Faith is supposed to make you want to be the absolute version of yourself for yourself and for others. My absolute best self is 100% Pagan. I have now been Pagan for more years than I was Christian. Most of you on my friends list have only ever known me as a Pagan. I am not a bad person. I don't worship Satan. Heck I don't even litter. I believe whatever you put out into the world comes back to you so I do everything I can to only put out super awesome happy hippie vibes of love and flowers and whatnot. 

Here's the deal though. Every single one of you with children has had the opportunity to raise your child how you see fit. [DH] and I deserve that same respect. I'm not saying we're going to raise her Pagan, or Hindu, or Buddhist, or Christian, or Muslim, or Jedi. I'm saying whatever we decide is our right as her parents and it should be respected and if not encourage at least not undermined. I can tell you one thing I know for absolute sure about how we'll raise our daughter and that is with tolerance and love for all people, regardless of faith.

I followed with a disclaimer about commenting, because there have been some absolutely HORRID comments left on my posts by family members and I am done tolerating abuse. I informed anyone who had any issues to save me the trouble and delete me from their friends list.

Dear reader, imagine the heart warming shock I got as people posted their messages of support. People I hadn't talk to in years, people I would have never thought would support me, and not one single vile comment. I was flabbergasted.

Of course the people who didn't like the post were quite loud in their silent protest, but it was silent.

I know that my family and I will have to have the talk about Witchling's immortal soul. I will calmly tell them how my daughter will be raised, when they can begin taking her to church and under what circumstances, and I will make it abundantly clear that they are not to do anything without my permission first. I will explain that I am not saying that she cannot take part in their faith, or that she will be forced into mine, but simply that I am her parent and I will not be disrespected.

I realize we will probably lose them from our lives at this point. I grew up surrounded by toxic people and I won't expose my daughter to that. She will never want for love with or without them so if I have to let them go to protect her, I will.

I think the saddest thing of all about it is that, at the moment, I honestly don't care one way or the other.

Something... pink this way comes?

It was February 8th and DH and I had an unpleasant and daunting day ahead of us, we were to drive up to be with his family while his aunt was taken off life support. There was just one little thing I had to do before I woke him up to get ready for the day.

Yup. Pregnant for the first time. Not quite how I was expecting the day to start. I'd been peeing on sticks for so long I didn't possibly think this one would come up positive when none of the others had. Surprise. I, still in a bit of shock, shoved the positive test in DH's face as a wake up call and after convincing him that it was not a joke we went about our day as planned, with one unscheduled stop so I could pick up a new journal.

It was a strange day to say the least. I knew that DH's aunt would not make some magical miracle recovery. She was such an amazing woman and for the last 10 years had accepted me fully and treated me as if I were one of her own, offering me unconditional love, a shoulder to cry on when the loss of my own mother caught up to me, someone to vent to about anything, and teaching me so much about every aspect of life from cooking to fishing. I also knew she was tired, and had refused round two of a "treatment" that nearly killed her the first time, but I found comfort in my faith.

Paganism teaches us that the universe is about balance. Where there is life there is also death, and thankfully death is never the end.

Fast forward 3 months.

We have found out our little bundle is a girl, and she'll be making her debut in the first weeks of October. We've managed to get through the first trimester without any major freak outs, but each day I find myself afraid of something new.

The major fear that has overrun my thoughts lately, and the main reason for this post?

Pagan Parenting.

DH is agnostic and after a lengthy discussion he agreed that raising our daughter in my faith would be the right decision for our family. The problem I fear comes from the extended family.

Like most Pagans I was raised in a Christian family. We did the church thing every Sunday, and Wednesday, and sometimes Saturdays, faithfully. I went to church camp, did community work, and tried so very hard to be the good Christian girl I knew my family wanted me to be, and found myself battling depression when I felt I couldn't meet their expectations. My mother got sick, I got angry, and things got worse until I found that first book on Wicca.

Suddenly what I always felt and believed at my core had a name. Suddenly I wasn't staring at a lifetime of trying to force myself into a faith that just didn't fit. Suddenly I was free... to hide my faith from everyone I knew. Being anything but die-hard Christian is hard in the Bible Belt. As I got closer to graduating and getting out of my tiny home town I became more comfortable in my path and began, well, really just NOT hiding. I didn't come out of the broom closet crystals blazing, but I wore my pentacle openly and actually drew one on a "self portrait collage" assignment in art class.

Of course my grandma pulled my pentacle off my neck and told me to be careful lest a cross be burned in my front yard, and my principal tried to make me take my collage down, but I wasn't deterred.

So all of DH's family, and most of my family, knows that I'm Pagan. I don't hide anymore, and even post Pagan related things on Facebook, but it's not really something that we ever talk about, aside from the random "So is that a Wicca thing?" question.

Therein lies the problem. We're going to have to talk about it. We're going to have to have several discussions on the fact my daughter will not be raised Christian and what this means for us as a whole family. I have a feeling this is going to suck.

How do I explain to them that while I respect their faith and understand their good intentions when it comes to my child's own spiritual path I don't want her indoctrinated into a religion before she understands what it means.

Yes, I realize that I just said that I want to raise her in my faith, and that's the thing. My faith, not my religion. What does that mean exactly?

• I don't ever want her to hate someone because they are different. It doesn't matter who they love, how they pray, or to whom they pray. What matters is doing everything that you can to be a good person.

• I don't want her to be ashamed of herself, or her body. I want her to have a healthy self image and realize her self worth. There are too many broken girls out there willing to share their body with anybody in the mistaken hope that it means they will be loved, even if just for the night, I don't want one of them to be mine.

• I want to give her the tools to be confident enough to make her own decisions. I want her to have the strength to look me in the eye and tell me Paganism isn't for her if she knows it's not the path she's supposed to walk. I want her to find her spiritual home, not because she was told she was going to hell if she didn't believe but because she knows in her soul it is where she is supposed to be. 

I hope my family understands that I'm trying to raise her to be a strong person. I hope they see past the titles of religion and into the heart of why I'm doing what I'm doing. I hope they don't let their good intentions get in the way of being our support system. They were each given the opportunity to raise their children the way they saw fit, and I only ask for that same courtesy.