My Mom's a Witch!

There's a story I love to tell people about when my kid was really little. There was a social worker involved in our lives at that time (because of me, separate blog post ENTIRELY but you know I'll write it eventually), and my kids were living with my sister. The social worker, a very unfunny woman with NO sense of humor, asked Spawn I about me.

"Mom's a witch," Spawn I said, totally deadpan.

"What do you mean, she's a witch?" asked Sorry Sally the Social Worker.

"She can make people disappear," said Spawn I.

"Who did she make disappear?" This from Sorry Sally.

Pause. Deadpan still.

"Daddy."

My daughter claims not to remember this exchange, but I sure as hell do. I was in the next room, and I nearly dropped my coffee cup all over the kitchen floor, and I damn near choked on the coffee that was pouring forth from my nose and sticking in my throat. I had to step out the sliding doors into the freezing cold backyard to keep Sorry Sally from hearing the gales of laughter that were issuing forth in a gurgly fashion, combined as they were with the regurgitating coffee. It was the way she said, "Daddy," in that matter-of-fact five-year-old's voice. 

Despite my shitty parenting, my kids have grown up to be wonderful young women.But the fact of their success as young adults has little or nothing to do with my parenting, because, due to my addiction and mental health issues, my sister had to step in and raise them for me. I won't go into personal details about the hows and whys, because I don't want to embarrass anyone, but I didn't see them again for 10 years. And a lot happens in 10 years. But they were never once, not for 10 seconds, off my mind or out of my heart. And they were never very far away, no matter where they were, and that was because of my faith.

My elder daughter was under my roof until she was five; and it was a Pagan roof. The little one was only with me for a year. I'm quite sure that neither of them remember living in a Pagan household, and my sister converted to Lutheranism from Catholicism when she married her second ex-husband, so the girls were raised in what passed for a "Christian" household. I won't chime in here with my opinion of people who rally Christ to their sides while doing all manner of clearly un-Christlike things. That's also for another post. But Spawn I seems to now be leaning toward a more naturalistic approach to spirituality. I don't abide with telling kids what they should or should not believe; I think the best thing is to let them sort through it all (and there's a lot), answer their questions as they come up, and hope that they make the best choice FOR THEM.

Spawn I believes in God, that much I know, but so do I, just not the Judeo-Christian God that looks like an aging wrestler with a gigantic beard. She moves through this world coming from a place of pure love for all living things. She respects other people, nature, and all those who come across her path, whether she actually likes them or not. And that's really all I could hope for as a parent. She and her sister make me proud, even though I have no right to claim pride in how they've turned out.

Pagans are different from other religious types because we don't proselytize. I can guarantee that no witch has ever knocked on your door trying to sell you on "signing up." We don't have buildings with stained glass to advertise our place in the community, and we don't have parochial schools (although I know of a few who insisted on home-schooling their children because they lived in the Bible-Belt, south of the Manson-Nixon line, and they didn't want their kids around that - and I can't say I blame them, but we live in NY). We also believe that everyone is on the path that they should be on at that particular moment. So while I would love for both my girls to eventually embrace their birthright (which is what the Craft really is), it is by no means my top priority. The only things that matter to me are that they love and are loved in return, that they get hurt as little as possible (I'd like them to never get hurt, but life being what it is, that's never going to be possible), to learn from it when they do get hurt, and to find and keep happiness. That's it. No riches, no fame, no glory. Just that they be happy and at peace.

When and if they approach me wanting to know more about the Craft, I will be more than happy to answer their questions and, perhaps, down the road, welcome them into the fold. In the meantime, I told you at the beginning that they were never far away, no matter where they were. That's because, on my altar at home, the contents of which come with me wherever I call "home", are two shells. I picked each one of them up during my pregnancies, and I anointed them and set them on the altar. During the day, they are enclosed in a little red cloth bag that hangs nestled in my cleavage, over my heart. At night, they are on the altar, and when the moon is full it shines in on them through the windows, recharging them. Those shells are my girls, and they will always be with me, no matter where the tide blows any of us.

This is Spawn I in a recent photo. It's shocking that she looks so grown up, since I'm only 30.

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To find out how you can help people suffering from mental illness, and to help get rid of the stigma, please visit The National Alliance on Mental Illness to take the pledge, get involved, and make a donation.

For more information on mental health, please visit The National Institute of Mental Health.

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