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Hi rowenaravenwolf. Welcome to this message board, hope you enjoy your time here, lots of good stuff.
Well, rule of thumb, as with anything:
if you're not comfortable with doing something, don't do it. If your instincts say don't do it, then don't do it. Just say, "thanks for the advice, appreciate your sharing it with me," then move on. Remember when you were pregnant, and everywhere you went there were
always people giving you all sorts of pregnancy (and/or childrearing) advice, even when you didn't ask for it? Some of it made sense and was really helpful. Some of it was really whacky and ludicrous. But, rather than argue, you just said (well,
I did at least...), "Hey, thanks. I'll keep that in mind," so as not to make them feel bad because they were probably trying to help. But, if their "tip" didn't sound like something I'd want to do, then I just wouldn't do it, simple as that, no big deal.
I can't say that I have ever come across anything remotely resembling the kid-admiring-my-body "bonding" thing. So, maybe someone else knows what that's about, and could chime in and shed some light on it. I've been a member here going on 5 years, have read probably not all, but
close to all the posts on this board, and have not come across that advice.
I
can say that I have seen pointers for sharing Wicca with children. It seems, you could teach your kids about Wicca --
without teaching your kids about Wicca, know what I mean? Kids are naturally little pagans! They love
everything about nature. What is Wicca? A pagan path. What is the hallmark of a pagan path? A connection with nature. Any kid could relate with that. If you leave behind the idea of it being about a dogmatic bunch of rules and regulations where if you make a mistake, you will be punished eternally with hellfire (that's another religion, not this one, lol), then you will be free to think of a million ways to share your joy of Wicca without even "officially" teaching it to them. You could have so much fun sharing aspects of water, wind, Earth, fire, and even the elementals with them (my daughter used to leave fae folk miniature lunch boxes with a note and tiny bits of food in the refrigerator; I thought that was great, haha; I didn't tell her to do that). Follow their lead in what interests them, and then support that.
And there are many Wiccan holidays (for ideas, here is our forum about
Sabbats and Esbats). For instance, right now, it's Yule. That's a great opportunity to make a Yule log for instance, affix some candles to it, and talk about fire (heck, maybe "talk to" the fire with the little one, tell it how much we appreciate its helpfulness throughout the year --everything is animate to a kid). Basically, think of Wicca as a "celebration" of nature. There is a
Pagan Family and Parenting forum here where you might find some ideas for sharing Wicca with your kids, or you could post questions on there and get further feedback, etc. Yeah, you don't have to teach them dogmatic stuff at this point, nor get into spell craft and all that at this point, if you don't feel they're ready. Stick with more "tactile" things, things they could relate to: celebrations, being in the outdoors, etc.
Play it by ear, do only what feels right for you. Don't let anyone dictate to you what you "should" be doing. You're the mama.
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