Every religion that survives long enough eventually produces apostates. That sentence sounds much more dramatic than it needs to. Sometimes apostasy is a theological earthquake. Sometimes it is a teenager rolling their eyes and saying, “I don’t want to go.” If contemporary Paganism becomes genuinely intergenerational, then sooner or later a Pagan parent is going to hear words that generations of Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and other religious parents have heard:
“I don’t believe this.”
And what happens next may tell us more about Pagan values than a hundred statements about spiritual freedom.
It Is Easy to Support Freedom When the Child Chooses Us
Paganism often celebrates individual spiritual autonomy. Kermani found that many Pagan parents in her research emphasized tolerance and independence rather than requiring their children to maintain a particular Pagan identity (Kermani, 2013). That sounds admirable. But every principle gets tested at the point where it costs us something. It is easy to say, “My child can choose their own path,” when the child chooses a path close to ours. What happens when they become Catholic? Evangelical? Muslim? Atheist? What happens when they decide witchcraft is embarrassing? What happens when they refuse to honour the gods we honour? What happens when they explain our religion to their friends as “that weird thing my parents do”? Suddenly spiritual independence becomes less poetic.
A Religion of Converts May Take Rejection Personally
This is one place where contemporary Paganism may have a peculiar vulnerability. For many first-generation Pagans, choosing Paganism was not casual. It may have cost family peace. It may have required rebuilding an entire worldview. It may have brought ridicule, secrecy, discrimination, or the long effort of finding community. The path may feel hard-won. So imagine carrying all of that into parenthood and then hearing your child say they do not want it. The parent may hear more than disagreement. They may hear rejection of the struggle that brought them there. But the child did not make that journey. They cannot owe us gratitude for escaping a cage they never lived in.
Rebellion Is Part of Inheritance
Children do not simply receive culture. They edit it. Every generation does. Sometimes the editing is gentle. They change the songs. They drop a ritual nobody likes. They take environmental ethics more seriously than their parents did. They are more historically rigorous. Or less. They care less about labels. They combine things their parents kept separate. Sometimes the editing is severe. They leave. That does not necessarily mean the transmission failed. This is where I think we need a different measure of success.
Maybe Retention Is the Wrong Scoreboard
Fennell and Wildman-Hanlon asked an important sociological question: which children raised Pagan remain Pagan as adults? Their sample suggested that stronger childhood Pagan religiosity and more defined traditions were associated with greater adult retention (Fennell & Wildman-Hanlon, 2017). Useful information. But a parent is not a denomination measuring market share. Suppose a child grows up Pagan, becomes atheist, and still carries forward hospitality, reverence for land, intellectual honesty, care for ancestors, respect for religious difference, and the willingness to question authority. Did Pagan upbringing fail? Suppose another child calls themselves Pagan forever but becomes cruel, dishonest, exploitative, and obsessed with controlling other people’s spirituality. Did retention make that a success? The label may be the least interesting part of the inheritance.
The Child Who Leaves May Teach the Tradition Something
This is where institutions especially need to listen. People who leave can see things insiders stop seeing. Sometimes they leave because they simply believe something else. Sometimes they leave because the community hurt them. Sometimes they leave because the tradition never gave them enough substance to care about. Sometimes they leave because an inherited identity feels like somebody else’s clothing. If every departure is dismissed as immaturity, betrayal, negativity, or spiritual failure, the tradition loses information. A community that cannot listen to former members is a community intentionally destroying part of its own memory.
And What If They Come Back?
This may be the most interesting part. A person raised Pagan might leave at eighteen and return at forty. But they would not return as the same person who left. They might suddenly value the seasonal customs they once found boring. They might remember a grandparent’s altar differently after that grandparent dies. A childhood song might become sacred because nobody else remembers all the words. A ritual they rejected as a teenager might become the way they teach their own child about death. That is the strange power of inheritance. You can put it down without completely losing it. Sometimes you do not discover what you inherited until you try to leave it behind.
I Know Something About Leaving and Returning
My own journey has involved departures too. Not necessarily from Paganism itself, but from places, communities, identities, expectations, and versions of myself I once assumed were permanent. Leaving changes the meaning of home. You notice things from a distance that were invisible when you stood in the middle of them. And sometimes returning does not restore what existed before. It shows you that both you and the place have changed. That is part of why I am reluctant to define Pagan legacy as keeping people inside a circle. A circle that cannot be left is not sacred. It is confinement.
Love the Child More Than the Label
That may be the simplest rule in this entire rabbit warren. If we tell the next generation that spiritual freedom matters, then we have to mean it on the day they use that freedom against our hopes. Leave the door open. Keep a place at the table. Do not turn disagreement into exile. Do not make the ancestors into weapons. Do not tell a child the gods will punish them for disappointing us. Do not confuse their path with our reputation. And if they return, resist the temptation to say, “I told you so.” Maybe just move over and make room near the fire.
But There Is Another Kind of Leaving
A child can leave a religion. A family can also leave a place. The farm gets sold. The sacred grove becomes a subdivision. The festival land changes hands. People move across provinces, countries, and continents. A tree dies. A community disappears. If Pagan practice is deeply tied to land, locality, ancestors, and place, then inheritance has another problem.
What happens when the sacred place itself is no longer there?
References
Fennell, J., & Wildman-Hanlon, L. A. (2017). The children of converts: Beyond the first generation of contemporary Pagans. Social Compass, 64(2), 288–306. https://doi.org/10.1177/0037768617704165
Kermani, S. Z. (2013). Pagan family values: Childhood and the religious imagination in contemporary American Paganism. New York University Press.