Kids and the Craft
If you're a parent and a witch, there will be questions. Time to start thinking about the answers....
Let me start by telling you what I don't want to do here. I don't want to tell you how to raise your kids. Parenting is a personal process, and every family faces their own set of challenges, and I am not a parenting expert. I'm a mom, so I know a little bit about what raising a child entails. But I am not a child psychologist or a family therapist. As I've said elsewhere, despite my identity as a priestess, I am very uncomfortable with the role of pastor. My aim here isn't to give you pat answers. It's to help you think about the right issues and ask the right questions, so that you can come up with the answers that work best for your family.
An initial issue is really less about your kids than about you. What role does being a witch play in your life overall? I'm assuming in all of this that you consider your path as a witch as a core element of your identity as a person. But that can look different for different people. For some people it's a spiritual practice. For some it is a lifestyle. Some people look at it as something of a hobby or a topic of interest. Being a witch will mean different things to different people. Before you start asking what role your kids ought to play in your life as a witch, it helps to have a clear understanding of what your life as a witch means to you.
Bringing kids into your practice isn't easy
When kids are young, you have a lot of control over how much of your witchyness you bring to your child-rearing. And like everything in witch world, there are a wide range of opinions on this topic, and all of them are wrong and all of them are right. Are Sabbats a family celebration in your house? Do you include your kids in rituals? Some of this is a personal matter, and how you choose to celebrate Sabbats (if you celebrate them) and incorporate holidays and other things into the life of your family is a very personal matter. It’s also an opportunity for creativity and fun. Most of us were not raised in a witchy household, and relish the opportunity to make their family life reflective of their practices and values. There's a lot of great family-friendly magic out there, and it can be a really awesome experience, especially if you have a partner and they are on board with it.
As is true of a lot of things when you become a parent, there is the inevitable question of what to do about your existing adult witch-related activities. What happens to all the Craft you were doing before you became a parent? When you're a parent with small kids, trying to exclude your child from a circle if someone isn't available to watch the kids in another room is near impossible. If you don't have a partner who can watch the kids, it's a problem. And if you do have a partner, and that partner is also a practitioner, you can kiss your days of practicing together goodbye unless you have an understanding grandparent or a babysitter you trust on tap. You either need to get really good at "witching with distraction," (as one friend calls it) or get comfortable with significant adaptations to your practice. Likely you will do both.
This can be really rough on the psyche. Most new parents look at their lives and think, "wow, I used to be really fun. I used to go out to bars and see people, and now my life is a cavalcade of middle of the night feedings, diaper changes, and trying to keep this little chaos ninja alive." New witch parents end up lamenting how they used to do spells at the precise hour that the moon was in the right place in the sky. They used to have elaborate altar setups that they kept in place for weeks at a time. They used to have time to research elaborate workings and learn new elements of their Craft. And with a child, the opportunity for those things diminishes significantly. Depending on what's going on in the family, it can disappear entirely.
If you do practice with others, in a coven or some other kind of group setting, you have to also consider how your group handles children. There will be a wide range of opinions on whether and under what conditions a child will be welcome in circle. It's important to have discussions with your group about this. Other group members can often have very strong opinions on the matter. In the face of resistance, parents often get defensive. "It's MY child, how DARE anyone have an opinion on how I parent MY CHILD!" is how the thinking often goes. And usually there are a chorus of parents willing to cheer on that sentiment in the name of not being judged for their decisions. Parents DO get judged a lot and it's one of the hardest parts of parenting.
But a lot of the reasons that group members might not want children in circle have some validity. In a practice where consent and intent is highly prized, bringing kids who don't fully understand what's going on or why they are there can feel wrong. For some kinds of rituals involving the Great Rite or sex magic, participation by children is wholly inappropriate. Small kids and babies can have problems self-regulating, and it can be difficult to raise and direct energy when that unpredictable element is introduced. While some groups do offer accommodations to parents, it's not fair for a parent to expect it as a matter of course.
If you think you might want to incorporate your kids into your group's practice, particularly if they are very young, that will probably require a lot of open, honest communication across the entire group. Folks will need to be mindful of others' needs, and respectful of their opinions, and no one should presume that they have all the answers. And groups need to be mindful of the fact that new parents in their midst are under a lot of stress and need group support more than they need judgement. There is no one right way to do this. Every group will need to figure out what their issues are and how to best solve them their own way. Just know that as much as you as a parent might think this should be super simple, it's not.
Be prepared to face some questions about your practice
Another identity-related issue you will have to grapple with as you raise kids will be the issue of how public your identity is. Like it or not, there are still parts of this country where it probably isn't safe to be known publicly as a practicing witch. I am quite fortunate that my son's father is completely okay with me being a witch, and we have a very amiable relationship as co-parents. Because if he was the least bit inclined to make trouble for me as the custodial parent, he could easily tell a judge about me being a witch, and given the realities of living below the Mason-Dixon line, I could lose custody of my son. If you have a job that sends you regularly to countries where being known to be a witch can result in one being jailed and/or killed, being "out" can be a real and not insignificant danger.
If there are reasons why you can't be "out" as a witch, you have to ask some hard questions about whether you want to place your kids in a situation where they have to conceal things from friends, teachers, or extended family. Kids are not often very good at concealment or lying, and depending on the values you want to raise your kids with, there might be some ethically fraught moments you'll have to navigate.
Of course, being "out" is not a binary thing -- it is perfectly possible to be "out" with some groups of people in your life, and not out with respect to others. No matter how you slice that cake, however, you will have to grapple with helping your kids understand who's allowed to know what. And they will have lots of questions about why. I'm not here to tell you what those answers need to be, but it's best that you have them ready at hand, whatever they are.
Another thing that your kids are likely to have questions about is the substance of your practice. This will be true whether they think it is super cool that you're a witch or if they think it's weird and icky. It's quite possible your kids will have different feelings about your being a witch at different times of their development. What your kid thought was fun and interesting when they were ten may be considered gross and weird by the time they hit fifteen.
When my son was four or five, if he was having nightmares, we would call upon the goddess Danu to watch over him (Danu has made it very clear that she sees herself as my son's protector). The incantation we did would make him feel safe, and he could fall asleep. He would come into my room, even when he was as old as eight or nine, and ask "Mommy, will you call the Lady Danu for me?"
Now that he is a teenager, my son is adamant that he is not a witch, and doesn't think my being a witch is cool at all. (I'm his mother and he is a teenage boy. Absolutely nothing I do is cool.) But he nonetheless has questions about what witches do, and me in particular. Do I cast spells? Who is my favorite deity? What do I think about hexing? My kid is naturally curious, and there is so much misinformation out there about witches and witchcraft, that he feels the need to ask me so he can set the record straight in his head about who and what I am.
But you may have a different sort of child altogether, one who thinks your being a witch is super cool, and they want in on the action. In some ways, that can be even more difficult, because now you have to put some serious thought into what you teach your kid about the Craft and when.
I think about this much in the same way that I think about teaching my kid about sex and human reproduction. Kids are not necessarily ready for all the information all at once. The answers you give them about sex and reproduction questions will be different at four than they are at fourteen, and different yet again at twenty-four. And you definitely want to build the sort of relationship with your kids that they seek answers about these issues from you, not their friends, and certainly not the Internet.
The same thing goes for teaching kids about Craft. Most kids aren't ready for things like summoning elementals and blood magic at four years old. But you can start teaching good magical hygiene. (Honey, we don't ask someone to visit with us and then not say goodbye when it's time for them to go.) And while the Internet can provide a wealth of good information, it is also rife with bullshit. It's important that they have someone experienced around to help them learn the difference between good info and crap.
The hardest thing will be to strike the balance between wanting to prescribe what your kids do and when, and understanding that they will experiment. (Yup, just like with sex.) Remember, you do not need anyone's permission to practice witchcraft. That's just as true for your children as it is for you. And their Craft is not necessarily going to look like your Craft. Your kids will have different gifts, different interests and different challenges from you. You'll want to provide guidance, but recognize that ultimately, they will have their own pace and direction. The key is to build the kind of trust relationship with your child that they turn to you when they want and need help.
Parenting is not for the weak of will or heart. It's also important that as you are a witch, and if your are raising witches, that you parent consciously, with intention. There is no one right way to do this, but I guarantee you that if you aren't applying some intention, the chaos that will ensue will not be very satisfying. As with a lot of things in this blog, this isn't about me giving you all the right answers, it's about helping you understand how to ask the right questions, and find your own answers.