This is a tough one. Since my Teen Witch book came out in 1998, I’ve gotten thousands of letters from teens. Some of these letters and e-mails despaired at the attitude of their parents in re-gard to magickal studies and Wicca. In these letters teens ask me how to “make” their parents understand. Opening a closed mind is an incredibly difficult task, especially if to open that mind someone must re-educate themselves on information they thought, up until the present, was correct. Add to this fact (and sadly so) that the issue of religion in the home is sometimes used as a negative control factor—meaning religion isn’t the issue at all, there are other psychological dynamics brewing—and an argument over religious choice is just the tip of the problem. Some parents “get religion” because something very terrible has happened to them in the past, and the religion they found helps to take away their fear of the future (or helps to obliterate the past). Others don’t want you to look at different religions because the tradition of their own religion is very important to them—it makes them feel grounded and it also makes them feel that they are giving you good practices to help carry you through adulthood. Neither of these two positions on religion are wrong, they are simply different. A third position, and slightly more distasteful, is that some parents are struggling with control issues themselves—the more out of control they feel, the tighter they try to manage others. Don’t jump to this explanation, however, just because your parents are exerting their authority—you may have done something to deserve their need to pull in the reins. As Witchcraft does not permit self-denial, you know whether or not you have legitimately earned their angst.
The best way to handle the fear that your parents exhibit in regard to Witchcraft is to carefully monitor your own behavior, as well as study other religions and why people believe and behave the way they do as much as possible. If this sounds like a lot of work—it is; however, you are the next generation. If you don’t learn as much as you can and keep an open mind, then you too in the future may become too settled and behave in the same closed way. By keeping up your school work, socializing with your friends in a positive way, staying away from drugs, alcohol, and crime, and helping the adults around the house, most adults (in time) will see that your new choice in spirituality is not harmful either to yourself or to the family unit. On top of this, studying all the major religions of the world, past and present, will not only help you to understand what has made the world tick for so many thousands of years, it will also influence your parents because they will want to look at your reading material and many times talk about it. Having a family “history night” is not as corny as it sounds. Everybody benefits.
As a parent of four children, I can certainly understand how and why parents sometimes overreact. Kids don’t come with instruction manuals. As a parent, you learn as you go and you are always in the spotlight. Parents must try to set a good example at all times, and that isn’t easy because we aren’t perfect and we do make mistakes. Many times a situation that is a “first” for you is also a “first” for your parents. Believe it or not, many of them lay awake at night worrying about whether or not they have done the right thing in decisions that involve you. They realize that your childhood and young adulthood are a one-time shot. They don’t want to mess up, either.
In the book of Tao there is a saying: “Once a statue is finished, it is too late to change the arms. Only with a new block of stone are there possibilities.”23 The story that goes along with this bit of wisdom will probably sound familiar to you. In the tale, a young boy is telling his father that he thinks it is unfair that the father always says, “Do as I say, not as I do.” Where the child feels that his father is being a hypocrite, the father says, “Oh, no. This is wisdom.” Of course, the son says, “So how do you figure that? If it is okay for you, why isn’t it okay for me?” The father takes his son to an artist that carves statues. There are lots of haunting stone people in the display area. The father points to the statues and says, “I’m like those statues. I am many years into my life, and I am set in my ways. My mistakes are carved into my soul, and I am the product of all my actions.” He then takes the son into the workshop out back and says, “But you—you are like those blocks of stone. You have not completely taken shape. I do not want you to make the same mistakes that I did. There is still time for you to learn, and it is my hope that you will become more beautiful than I.”
Puts a whole new twist on the “Do as I say, not as I do” routine, doesn’t it?