The Beginning

Hello, bloglings! My name is Alicia, and I welcome you to my little corner of the interwebs. I've decided to start a blog about being a stay at home pagan mom. I find it highly unlikely that this will be an exciting or terribly popular place, but that's ok - that isn't exactly why I'm here. Mostly, I'm beginning this new adventure because I'm sort of tired of being alone. In my part of the world, being a pagan is a lonely business, and I miss the spiritual support and encouragement that, as a Christian teenager, we got during "fellowship". I miss sharing with other people of my faith the great things God was doing is my life, and giving each other spiritual advice, and celebrating and worshipping and praying together. I may worship different deities now than I did then, but the Gods are still doing great things in my life, both big and small, and I still want to share those things with other people who will appreciate how good They are. I still have struggles and problems in my life, and I still want to share those things with others who will support and encourage me, and help me in a faith-based way. My hope for this blog is to find a few like-minded people seeking the same things, and for us to be there for each other in ways people of other faiths can't.

The phase of life I'm in right now is probably best compared, weird as it may seem, to the Christian women who refer to themselves as "Titus II wives". I'm a stay-at-home-mom and wife (my son, Gabriel, will be three in November, and my husband, Chris, and I were handfasted last weekend after almost seven years together - hooray!), and though there are many things I want to do in my life that involve working outside the home (my true passion is studying the Holocaust and genocides, and my dream job is working at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum), right now I feel very strongly that my place in this world is at home, raising my child, a job that my beliefs tell me belongs to no one else in the world. To me motherhood and fatherhood are sacred duties given to us by the gods, and if at all possible at least one parent should stay home, until a child starts school, at least, and do the job him/herself. Please let me be clear: in NO WAY am I saying that I look down on or disapprove of working parents, or ANYTHING of the sort. I was raised by a working mommy, and she still managed to be pretty much the best parent ever. But given the choice, I would have rather not had to go to a babysitter while she worked when I was very small, and I know it killed her that she couldn't stay home with me. Right now, my job is to raise Gabriel to be the best person he can be, to teach him about the wonders of the world and the infinite love of the Goddess and God, and to provide a good foundation for our little family to stand on and thrive.
The feminist, little ball of fire left-wing liberal part of me (which is...well, all of me LOL) feels sort of ambivalent about the whole Suzy Homemaker thing, like I'm letting myself down, or not living up to my potential, or being brain-washed by the crazy right-wingers who thing all wives should just reproduce, cook, clean, and be subservient to their husbands. But at the same time, that's not at all the person that I am, or the one I strive to be. Chris drives a long way in a car without air conditioning every day to work super-hard so that I can stay home and raise Gabriel, something many parents would love to do but can't, and I really feel like the least I can do in return is keep our home in shape and cook dinner sometimes (cooking and I have a slowly-improving but very wary relationship). It's definitely a struggle financially, and I'm very grateful to have a partner who's also willing to make sacrifices so that Gabriel can be raised by his mama, and not a babysitter.

Phew! That's a whole lotta stuff, but at the same time I'm very glad to get it out and down on virtual paper. That's all for now - but I'm sure I'll be back soon!

With brightest blessings,
Alicia