Meeting Persephone

My daughter's reached the age where she no longer asks how to do something or why certain things are important. We've now reached the age of "can I go ___?" She's become something of a phantom around our house this summer; showing up to eat, shower, grab more clothes, and then it's off to work or to hang out with friends. Hey, it's all part of growing up - for her as well as for me. I have to get used to her moving farther away from me regardless of how hard it is - it's going to happen ready or not. She's becoming more independent - just as I'd hoped for her - and she has many friends and interests. One of her interests, however, is not my path. And here is where we run into a difficulty sometimes.

At her age she's is responsible enough to weigh things out for herself and decide whether she wants to do them or not. I try not to get too involved unless my opinion is requested (and it seldom is). But now a friend of hers has a birthday coming up and despite the fact that nobody is doing anything for her actual birthday (so she will be here hanging out with Mini Me so she doesn't have to be alone), there are now plans that the following Saturday will be spent at the circus. She has informed Mini Me that she will be there - no ifs ands or buts about it.

But there is one thing. I do have a very personal moral objection to circuses - even those that are being attended for a birthday celebration. Mini Me has never been to a circus. She'd been invited to one before and given free passes to go to others but we've never gone because of my personal feelings about them. It's probably not real fair of me as they seem to be one of those things that everyone has done at one time or another - I went as a child myself. However, those who had taken me as a child were not real deep thinkers and considered it good wholesome entertainment for a child. Maybe it is. But it's something else too.

This would be a 3-ring circus event of the Barnum and Bailey caliber. The type of circus that uses animals for entertainment, crams them into small cages, and moves them around the country in extreme heat. I don't deny that those working with the animals care for them or that there might be vets on site at all times to care for these elephants, tigers, lions, bears, dogs, camels, penguins and whatever else might be part of the menagerie used in circuses these days. The point is that these animals have no choice in their situation at all. And when an animal does what is instinctual to an animal, including turning on their trainer or the audience, the animal is killed promptly in most cases. Hardly their natural environment this world of domination by human beings expecting them to perform unnatural acts for the sake of overindulged human beings.

So there it is. And I'm unsure whether to force my particular objection to her attendance on her or to let it ride and see how she decides for herself or, if she attends, what she thinks of the experience. She's old enough to decide and while I'd like her to decide to forego the experience the way I'd hope she would, it's up to her. Isn't it? After all, I've bitten my tongue when she goes to the rodeo and to demolition derbies with her friends despite the objections that I also have to those things. Should this be so different? Except for the fact that when she does go to these events, she seldom walks away with feelings of regret like I'd hope she'd have. Of course by denying her the right to choose, I'm only encouraging her later to want to experience all of those things she missed out on as a kid....

It's not easy being a Pagan parent with a non-Pagan child. She's still a minor and still in my care. I'd be well within my rights to tell her "no" that she cannot go to this circus based on MY moral objections that have nothing to do with her. But where would that get me? More importantly, where would that get her?

The Trash Heap has spoken.