Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Pagan
Birthing Hereditary Witchcraft: Good Parents = Good Kids?

Birthing Hereditary Witchcraft: Good Parents = Good Kids?

Last updated on: April 7, 2014 at 12:57 pm by Lydia MN Crabtree

Birthing Hereditary Witchcraft: Good Parents = Good Kids? 2014-04-07T12:57:13+00:00 Lydia MN Crabtree

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I have been personally struggling with the idea of parenting — an odd thing for an author to say who has spent years researching and writing about paganism and families.

My friend Katie Thackrey recently posted on Facebook, “Expectations are premeditated resentments.” I love this sentiment. As I began to apply this to my own child, a world of revelations opened up to me. Recently, my son asserted that the way in which education was being presented to him at his current high school was not meeting his needs. To be fair, I would say that there are multiple reasons for this assertion. However, my son brought printed pages of alternative schooling opportunities that he thought would be better.

After talking with professionals, having an evaluation done, and visiting some of the alternative schooling available, I withdrew my sixteen-year-old from school this semester. He will re-enroll at the end of May in an online credit recovery program to make up some poor grades and improve his GPA. We are enrolling him in a Charter School which we have all agreed to try for one semester. If that proves unsatisfactory, then we will transition him into fulltime online home schooling.

As pagan parents, I firmly believe we should diligently plant and harvest individuality in our children. We want to compensate for the failings in our own childhoods and develop children who have compassion, empathy, love of the earth, and a feeling of responsibility to be assets to the greater community, independently minded, and stalwart protectors and part of the Family Coven.

Given my recent challenges in parenting, I would like to destroy some myths about parenting in general.

Good Kids Are Defined by Society

Screw that. My boy is a great, awesome, wonderful teenage boy. When I meet adults who spend significant time with him they have nothing but the highest praise for him. When I check on his posts on his Facebook, I watch him diplomatically and lovingly accepting others’ opinions. He is smart, wicked smart. He can look at math problems and solve them in his head – long problems I have to think through. He is open minded, if a little shy to give his affection. He is loyal. He doesn’t usually like kids his own age because he finds them “stupid” and “petty.”

However, society says my boy is successful if he gets great grades in school, is a success in extra-curricular activities, stays completely drug free forever, doesn’t drink underage ever, doesn’t get a girl pregnant but is sexually virile, isn’t a bully but can still lay someone out with a single punch, doesn’t cry or show emotions, is spiritual but not spiritual in some pansy ass way, is straight, wears specific clothing and is involved in gender acceptable hobbies, doesn’t kill people but defends people when necessary, and doesn’t have any illnesses, including depression, anxiety or ADHD.

None of these things reflects my moral and spiritual values. None of these things do I hold up as some litmus test as to whether or not my child is a good kid. So if society identifies any of these bench marks as lacking in my child, why would I ever care?

Good Kids Are Defined by the Parents

I do, however, have clear beliefs of rightness and wrongness. There are things that I think “good” kids should do and shouldn’t do. When my boy was young and I read him his favorite book, my visions of his teenage years were so far from reality that I have had some serious readjustment to accomplish. The biggest accomplishment is this. I have had to self-define my own absolutes when it comes to my son. None of this has anything to do with my son. It is all me.

The absolutes I have come to are:

1. I will love my son even if he is an ax murderer. I will turn him into the police and I will love him. I will work to minimize the damage he causes and I will love him.

2. Even if my son becomes an atheist, I will not interfere through prayer or magical working. The spiritual path he chooses or does not chose is an absolute right of his, his alone.

3. Only my son can define what success will be for him. I can help him by showing him different types of success, different ways to gain success; however, ultimately, he may find that success is living off the grid in Alaska homesteading. I wouldn’t be happy about the travel to see him; however, what his definition of success does to me is not at issue. What is at issue is his ability to care of himself and find success on his own terms.

4. He and I are not likely to agree for the next ten years. I have to discipline my conversations with him and sometimes the only thing I can give him is, “I love you and hear you. Additionally, you have not had this experience (being married, managing a household budget, working a job) so I don’t think we can really discuss this issue anymore.”

5. My job is to help my son articulate how he identifies success and then facilitate his achievement of that success.

I have had to accept that my expectations of my son are setting up resentment in our relationship. The more I release what I expect of him, the more likely our relationship is to strengthen and my child will develop into my greatest hope for him: a healthy, loved, mentally and emotionally secure person who can easily provide for himself and any family of any type he chooses to create.

Bad Kids Never Come from Good Parents

Although I do have a good kid, if not necessarily as defined by society, there are plenty of good parents who did everything they could and ended up with adults who break the law and injure themselves and others. There are children and parents who are born with life lessons to learn, which creates a situation where even the most stable and secure household still produces a sociopath.

It is a mystery of science and the universe. What we can do is not treat families as a unit when it is clear one part of that unit has deviated from the norm. Parents who have difficult children struggle and worry and grieve deep down every day. They do not need any assistance from a peanut gallery who is so sure that they know better because they are lucky enough to have a child who didn’t shoot up a school or eat the neighbors.

Expectations are Premeditated Resentments

Mostly through these past few weeks, I have learned that my expectations of my child breeds a contempt in my heart that blocks the flow of love my child deserves. As I release any expectations I have for him, he is empowered to become himself. I have found as he reveals who he really is to himself and me, it exceeds any expectation I could have ever had for him.

Birthing Hereditary Witchcraft is published on alternate Mondays. Subscribe via RSS or e-mail!

Birthing Hereditary Witchcraft

Columns

Family & Household Practice

Previous Post

April 4, 2014

Heathen Woman: We Are Our Deeds

Next Post

April 8, 2014 The Dance of Pagan Recovery: The Season of Sex

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category A Lakeside Hearth Adventures in Wortcunning Alone In Her Presence Arts, Crafts & Cooking Birthing Hereditary Witchcraft Book of Blackbirds Book Reviews Born-Again Witch Cauldron, Sword, Spear, & Stone Cermony and Liturgy Columns Community Dandelion Seeds Dear Jasmine Druid Thoughts Editor's Picks Everyday Pagan Family & Household Practice Family Traditions Full Frontal Magic Gateway Goddess Guest Articles Happily Heathen Health and Wellness Hearth of Hellenism Heathen Woman Hills of the Horizon History Holidays Horse Goddesses Interfaith Interviews Irish-American Witchcraft Jewish Witch Lamp & Labyrinth Letters from Midgard Literature, Media, Film, Music Loop of Brighid Love, Sex & Relationships Magic or Magick Making Light Naturalistic Traditions Nature News Outside The Circle Pantheisticon Politics Prayers, Poems, Blessings & Stories Queer Femme Mystic Queer of Swords Recipes Ritual and Practice Science and Research Seekers and Guides Seeking the Grail Socially Responsible Magic Spear of Athena Star Made Witch Syncretic Electric Technology The Blooming Staff The Busy Witch The Cartomancer The Crow's Nest The Dance of Pagan Recovery The Hearth of Hellenism The Lady's Quill The Other Side of the Hedge The Path of She The Rantin' Raven The Witches Next Door The Zen Pagan Theology, Ethics, Philosophy Tree City Witch Urban Earthwitch Wayfaring Woman Witch on Fire Wyrd Words

Select a Month January 2026 March 2025 December 2024 June 2024 April 2024 March 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 August 2023 July 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

True or False: God spoke to Job out of a whirlwind.

Select your answer to see how you score.

FALSE TRUE