An Introduction      It can be frustrating reading something and wondering just where the person who wrote it is coming from.  The tendency seems to be to downplay any personal info and focus on job experience and degrees-even if the book or article is firmly within the domestic sphere.  I choose not to follow that pattern.      I am a Pagan homeschooling mother of 8, 6 of whom are still at home and 2 married.  I'm a grandmother 3 times over now, yet still a daughter.  I've been Pagan since I was 18, and since my husband was also Pagan when we met, we were handfasted and have raised our children that way.      Unfortunately, the Pagan community has not always been child-friendly. For example, at one Pagan gathering, we were told children weren't allowed because "we want to be the children". At one point many years ago, attitudes like this finally drove us away for a while and we spent time banging around various Christian churches looking for support for being a family.  This was highly educational and we feel the Gods made us aware of many things by going through this, but of course it was ultimately frustrating and we returned to our roots-sadder, wiser, and very determined.      Determined, that is, to be a Pagan family and pass those beliefs and lifeways on to the next generation.  It has been interesting to see what has already passed on to the next generation with my oldest two and what hasn't.  My husband and I have racked up about 20 years of being Pagan and feel we definitely have some clear ideas on belief, family and cultural necessities.      These articles aren't pulled from somebody else's ideas.  They aren't market driven, although I hope they are filling a niche.  I've celebrated all the holidays many times over with children of various ages.  I'm a mother of toddlers (now) up to mid-twenties.  I've always homeschooled and our births have run the gamut from hospital to free births.  I've dealt with both support of Pagan parenting from other families, and with extreme hostility.  I've held a couple of jobs while being a mother, but mostly (overwhelmingly) I've been a stay-at-home mom.      It has taken years for me to realize certain things I wish someone had told me at the beginning of my mothering,  at the beginning of my marriage.  It has been a heartache that there has been so little, very little, support for being a Pagan Mother and Father and family.   We hope to help remedy that. Colette Tanafon Articles Home