The East Bay Express has a long article up dealing with the children of modern Pagans, and the struggles faced raising them.

“At first glance, you’d never know that little Elizabeth Nettleton is Pagan. The vivacious four-year-old cuddles in her mother’s lap, floppy blond bangs dangling in her eyes as she clutches her green stuffed alligator and a red teddy-bear blanket. Then the girl reaches underneath her pink sweater and pulls out a long silver chain bearing a dime-size pentacle.”

Journalist Kathleen Richards explores many different aspects and challenges facing Pagan parents, including mixed-faith marriages (she highlights a Wiccan/Catholic marriage), alternative youth programs like The Spiral Scouts for non-Christian children, and the issues of acceptance with other children.

“Vibra Willow remembers having to warn her two kids – the eldest is now 27 – against disclosing their identity as part of the East Bay’s Reclaiming community. Reclaiming is a form of feminist, modern Witchcraft that includes kids in its rituals. “I know that was traumatic and unhealthy for them, having feelings about growing up different and weird,” she says.”

During the article Richards also interviews Patrick McCollum, a teacher at Cherry Hill Seminary and the first government-recognized Wiccan chaplain in the United States. In addition to discussing the challenges faced by Pagan families, he also talks about the explosive growth of modern Paganism.

“It’s grown from being obscure to becoming one of the top four faith groups in the United States,”

While I agree we are no longer obscure, I don’t think we are in the top four yet, unless our growth has been far more explosive than anyone could have predicted. Even if we are close to 1.2 million (collectively) as McCollum claims in the article, that still puts us behind Islam, Buddhism, and self-identified Agnostics. But McCollum’s larger points about the burgeoning growth of “Pagan babies” are still relevant.

“The increasing presence of children is transforming a community that has historically practiced behind closed doors. “Twenty-five years ago when the first Pagan children were coming out, there was no place for them in the Pagan community,” says McCollum, who has raised three children. “Now every major event you have for Pagans, they have playgrounds and directors that oversee children’s programs.” That’s a dramatic departure from Pagan parenting of the past. “It was dangerous to participate in Pagan events, and if you take your children, you might have someone come up and firebomb you,” McCollum says of the 1960s and ’70s. Parents who did involve their children faced the possibility of having them taken away…”

Custody battles where a parent’s Pagan religion are used against them are still very much with us, and are still destroying lives. McCollum claims that this trend is far more pervasive than we realize.

“In custody proceedings, even in the Bay Area, according to McCollum, it’s not unheard of for an ill-informed judge to revoke custody of a child based on a parent’s practices. “There isn’t a month that goes by that I don’t get a call from some Pagan parents who are potentially losing their children because they are Pagan,” he says.”

The issues regarding Pagan children is only going to grow and become more complex as our growing population has more and more children. Eventually our collective size is going to mean that custody struggles and issues of accommodation within our overwhelmingly Christian nation are going to become more heated. But I don’t think we will be in this struggle alone. As the court case of Wiccan Cynthia Simpson showed, where several minority faith organizations rallied to file amicus briefs. But in the long-run, a re-strengthening of the separation of Church and State seems the only real solution to guaranteeing our continued rights, and those of our children.

Tags: Children, custody case, Paganism, Patrick McCollum, Spiral Scouts, Wicca