Parents and their reaction to your path

[HarpingHawke]

I wasn't raised with any particular religion, even though I was baptized catholic by my grandmother's insistence. My Dad's atheist, and likes to keep religion in general at arms length, so we don't really discuss it. My mom's pantheist, and is also a philosophy, mythology, and history fanatic. Honestly, I'm probably a lot more conservative than she is anyway, which seems to be opposite from the norm on this board.

Your family sounds a lot like mine. Except for Mom, but oh well.
And it's nice to see a fellow conservative.

[Caffeinated Autumn]

This SIG looked fairly empty, so I figured I'd liven it up a bit by posting a thread.

So, I'd be interested to hear about different people's experiences with their parents. Do they know about your religion? Are they accepting? Do you have Pagan parents?

My mother is a Christian, but not very religious, while my father is an atheist. They found out about my religion when they walked in on me doing a full moon ritual. While they thought it was a bit weird, they were content to let me continue, with the proviso that I wasn't allowed candles, incense or ritual knives. So it was overall a good outcome.

Although I've been keeping my rituals smaller and more private since then, and I don't really talk about religion with my parents, so I think they think it was just a phase and I'm not doing it any more.

How about you?

I'm not a teen anymore but I thought it would be good to contribute to this thread. :whis:

Both my parents and siblings are Catholic. My mother was pretty hesitant about me being a Wiccan/Witch. I tried to ease her in slowly though. Now, shes more accepting of it but we don't really talk about it unless she asks a question about Wicca/witchcraft which is once in a blue moon. My dad and I don't talk about it. Not that he's against it or anything but mostly because he's too busy doing his own thing around the house.

As for my extended family from both sides, i don't think they know and I wouldn't really care if they did. Were never really close to begin with.

[SerpentineSorcerer]

This SIG looked fairly empty, so I figured I'd liven it up a bit by posting a thread.

So, I'd be interested to hear about different people's experiences with their parents. Do they know about your religion? Are they accepting? Do you have Pagan parents?

 
It's a funny story with my parents. My mother, I came out of the broom closet to her many years ago. Her reaction was better than I hoped, in that she didn't spontaneously combust but rather had a shocked moment of panic. After calming her down and explaining I wasn't about to sacrifice the cat or vomit snakes at the neighbor she had a much better reaction. Funnily she has always been big into the paranormal, so I used that to appeal to her reason. I don't tell her EVERYTHING about my religious faith but we are pretty amicable when it comes to it.

My father....oh boy. Him, and the entire side of my paternal family knows nothing about nothing about my faith. They are very conservative catholics, and the Matriarch (my grandma) is a pre-vatican II, thinks the Jews killed Jesus, super devout irish woman. She's a stone-haired lioness and I'm not about to have THAT conversation anywhere she might hear about it. Now my dad isn't that wound tight, but given that he thinks Russia is about to invade any day and that he calls the President "Obummer" and a socialist...yeah, no. I keep up appearances and don't let my real standing in religious or political or social matters become apparent.

Though, the reaction to the lot of them finding out that I'm a Green Party, democratic socialist, bi-sexual, worshiper of old gods might be something worth filming. :p

Now my siblings, they don't really know much about what I believe. My younger sister knows, and is alright with it/doesn't bother her too much. My brothers, they probably know, as does my youngest sister since she has full access to my facebook account. But it doesn't come up. Now my uncle, my mother's brother, he likes to say he's a pagan. Judging from what little I've seen and heard he's an old timie neo-wiccan. And by old timie, I mean he uses outdated information and talks about how pagans are this, and that such as "Pagans are sexually free people" which is code for Pagans are Swingers....and believes that the gods were aliens, and in a number of conspiracy theories. His kids though, they gravitate towards some aspects of "paganism" but don't really have a path themselves.

My maternal grandmother, she's been a member of the American Spiritualist Church for longer than I've been alive (which is about 28+ years). She's also been involved with Power Doctors (the Appalachian Granny magic kind) and a number of people who practice the old native ways. She's really the reason why and often times how I got involved with pagan religions as much as I did from a very early age, nurtured my exploration of it. She thinks my uncle wouldn't know real power and knowledge of the old ways if it came up and bit him, and does not live down the accusations of being a witch.

So it's always been a battle between extremes in my family.

[SilverSpring]

This SIG looked fairly empty, so I figured I'd liven it up a bit by posting a thread.

So, I'd be interested to hear about different people's experiences with their parents. Do they know about your religion? Are they accepting? Do you have Pagan parents?

My mother is a Christian, but not very religious, while my father is an atheist. They found out about my religion when they walked in on me doing a full moon ritual. While they thought it was a bit weird, they were content to let me continue, with the proviso that I wasn't allowed candles, incense or ritual knives. So it was overall a good outcome.

Although I've been keeping my rituals smaller and more private since then, and I don't really talk about religion with my parents, so I think they think it was just a phase and I'm not doing it any more.

How about you?

I was raised Catholic by devout Irish catholic parents.  Church every Sunday, communion, conformation, the whole deal.  They know many of my theories on meditation, all gods being facets of the same universal spirit, crystal and herbal energies and healing, etc.  However I don't use words like Witch, pagan, and magic.  Nor do I dissuade them in believing that I am still a Christian with my own unique viewpoints.  I know it would destroy my mother if I told her I wasn't a Christian.  Poor thing believes unbaptized babies go to hell .  So they know my basic belief without putting labels on it.  It keeps everyone happy and I can be myself.  She even bought my a beautiful pentagram necklace at the ren fair, although I don't think she knows what a pentagram it LOL.

Oh and I'm also not a Teen and happily married to a man that is completely supportive!