Guest Author - Amelia Tucker
For the first time, I would like to open discussion on Wicca in the news. Recently, a headline caught my eye about a woman losing custody of her child, seemingly because of her Wiccan faith.
Looking at the reported story, there is a glaring sentence that should be highlighted more than her religion. The original story is linked to the bottom of this article.
Although reading the story for the first time, I see reference to her religion more than once, upon further reading, it seems that the mother discontinued her medication for depression and anxiety. No small thing, depression is a powerful illness and any medications should be added or removed with a health care provider in close communication with the person on the medication.
Of course, like any news article, the views do not come from a story on depression. A story with the hot topic of Wicca, however, will really bring in the comments.
My question to you, readers, is:
Should there be times that our faith should be unmentioned? Should we consider religion off topic for areas of our lives? It grates on me as a Wiccan mother, to think that my children could, in theory, be removed from my custody, simply because of my spiritual belief. Never do I threaten my children with anything bad happening to them if they misbehave. Especially by some imaginary entity. I also do not use veiled threats of being left behind, if they do not follow archaic rules. I do not tell my children that they HAVE to believe in any particular religion, because I do. These things are basic parenting issues and I chaff at the idea of someone using what I hold dear against something as precious as my children. This goes against everything that our family stands for.
I do see that there are many stories of cult type Christian beliefs are paraded in headlines for the sensationalism of the news story. I certainly do not want to give the impression that I think only Wiccan religion is presented badly in the news. Not every Christian lives on the fringe, neither does every Wiccan. I just feel a jolt of fear, that something as important as bringing up my children outside of the religion of the vocal masses, might work against the safety of my greatest job: Mothering.
