A bit of hindsight on my experience as a pagan parent.

Here is a great article about raising children in a pagan family.

Hand-Me-Down Paganism

I love this article. I know that my early endeavors to keep from pressuring my child have just left a void that has left my oldest in a state of confusion, as she sees and hears about all of the things her Christian friends do. Like any void, it longs to be filled, and here in the Bible Belt, it's far too easy for it to be filled with the very things I don't want my child to think.

For a long time, my child wanted to know WHY we weren't Christian like all of her friends, and are we going to go to a church? Granted, this is mostly born of her desire to go to the fun little children'c activities and playgrounds at the churches, but then, those are also the things Christians use to teach their children about their religion.

My oldest tends to have a more mature way of thinking about serious things, so she wasn't content with a simple "because we aren't," in response to "why?" So I had to do what I really didn't want to do in the first place. I had to tell her exactly why we weren't Christian. I had to explain that we didn't like the way Christians were expected to believe and behave, and that we didn't agree with many of the beliefs they have about people of different religions or girls who love and want to marry girls, and boys who love and want to marry other boys. She would grill us for details and examples, and would be content with nothing less.

I realize now that leaving your child a "clean slate" is like freshly poured cement. It's far too easy for someone to just come along and make their mark, or even for random events to leave unintentional impressions. The only way to keep that slate clean is to keep it guarded and sheltered, and even if you manage to keep it unmarred by the outside world, you just might find that it has hardened beyond the point of anything making an impression at all.

My angle on books my kids could read, and if I would let them.

While I think flat out censorship of books is wrong, I can't say I would NEVER forbid my kid to read a book. I would have to look at it first, check out what was in it. I wouldn't mind them reading books geared towards various religious sects, for example, but I would want to check what kind of message was being sent in the book. It may seem nice and wholesome on the outside, but if there is any indication that the book is making out some other religion/race/whatever to be bad, then yes, I would forbid them to read it. It's the same premise as any parent forbidding their child to read Harry Potter because they think wizards and witchcraft are bad, and don't want them to think that it is ok. The difference for me is, I don't want them reading anything that might even subtly indicate that any specific race/religion/whatever is bad. At ages 3 and 6, my kids might question what they read, if it conflicted with what my husband and I teach them, but it would still cause confusion. It would introduce the thought of, "Well, these people say this is bad. Mommy and Daddy say it isn't, but what if they're wrong?" Also, by my giving them permission to read that book, I am tacitly saying that what is in that book is ok.

There is one other reason I would keep my kids from reading, or reading to my kids, some books. It has only happened once, but I would do it again. My kids get books from the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, and for the most part, I've liked the books we've received. There was one book though, that I just didn't like. It was called "Flossy and the Fox." by Patricia McKissack. The message of the story was great. It was about a girl who uses smart thinking to outwit a fox that has been plaguing the area. What I didn't like was the way she talked. She had that slave-era, southern accent dialect. I know that that is how they talked back then, and it's not that I have any hatred because of it. But my three year old is in that age of quickly learning new words, proper grammar, and proper pronunciation, and mimicking what she hears. My six year old still has some trouble with annunciation and grammar. I would rather avoid having them pick up the bad grammar and pronunciation, then have to correct them in public. Also, and this is purely a personal quirk, the word "flossy" was a slang term for a girl's private parts when I was a kid. It just made it really odd and uncomfortable for me when reading the book.

These are purely personal choices when it comes to what my children read, though. No matter what I think of a book, if someone else is ok with their kids reading it, then that is their choice. I would never espouse completely banning a book from say, the school library, just because I don't agree with it.

Girls and makeup

My parents were very militant about not letting me wear makeup, which just pushed me into sneaking into doing it on my own. By high school I was full on goth. I loved it, still do, though I don't put on the full get-out much anymore. Not much point when I'm sitting around the house playing sub-rural housewife. I will say, if you can learn to put liquid eyeliner on on the school bus, you can put it on anywhere.

My kids play around a bit with my makeup at home, and occasionally at friends'. I'm trying to lay the foundation now for understanding "too much" and technique. My oldest had to wear some for a dance recital, though I made sure it was as neutral and natural as possible for a 5 year old. Just enough to emphasize the eyes and lips under the glare of stage lights.

I'm gonna play it by ear as to when to let my 2 girls wear makeup. I do think that some of the timing has to be based on what is the social norm among their peers. I'm not planning on encouraging them to wear makeup just because "everyone else is." But I do know that if I hard line against it, they are likely to try to do it behind my back. With a Scorpio and a Capricorn-cusp-Sagittarius, I'm planning ahead. I figure, if/when they start asking about it, I'll slowly permit them different things, and let them pick to some extent. Maybe starting with lip gloss and/or translucent powder, and on from there.

Once girls reach puberty (which seems to happen younger and younger,) and start the "joys" of womanhood, they want to grasp any element they can to help them understand that new identity. Makeup doesn't HAVE to be part of that, but in the age of peer pressure, it's tricky figuring out how to explain that, and have it sink in. My thought is that they're more likely to listen if I give them a choice. Then I can tell them that it's ok with me if they wear some makeup, and that if they prove to me they can wear it responsibly, I'll give them more latitude. I can also tell them that if they decide they don't want to wear makeup, they don't have to. A subtle bit of reverse peer pressure. I'm not flat out saying, "Just because all the other girls are doing it, doesn't mean you have to." That kind of thing put ME on the defensive as a tween/teen. Instead, it's just a whisper in the back of their mind that they can choose to latch onto if they want, as if it were their own idea.