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In the correspondence-based work that I do with Pagan youth, much of my communications revolve around answering questions and giving suggestions about how to live a Pagan life with both the restraints and opportunities that being a young person represents. This Youth Q&A column will be updated regularly with my questions and answers, shared with permission from the questioner. Only the names will be removed for privacy and safety.

Question: 
Having a sword or athame is the only thing my mom won’t let me do. Everything else is fine with her. I have to have one for my altar, right?
Age 16, Syracuse NY

The results are in! You may have seen my last post discussing a survey question I sent out to my youth network asking what their favorite part about being a young Witch or Pagan is. The results were surprising to most but I can’t say I was very surprised. However, the results of this survey question did surprise me a little.

To a network of thousands of young people on social media and email, I asked “what is the biggest challenge for you, being a young Witch or Pagan?” I received over sixty responses within 48 hours. Here is a small sampling of the responses:

Writing and marketing my new book, Teen Spirit Wicca, has been a very interesting process. Most people know that my prime work in the community is based on advocacy and youth outreach/support. Advocating for young Witches and Pagans means constantly engaging with this demographic and being open to their interests, likes, and dislikes. I learned so much while interviewing teens during the initial writing of TSW, but I continue to learn as I pose new questions to the community that has built up around it. So for the next few months I'm asking the young Pagan community about their thoughts on a number of topics that I'll report on here. Some of them will be deeper and more intellectual, and some will be based on simple feelings. I ask these questions through a number of outlets including Facebook pages, groups, and via email to the youth I know.

Last week I started with a simple question: What in your opinion is the best part of being a young Wiccan, Witch, or Pagan? How is it helpful for you? What are you most proud of?

I get some variation of this question in my inbox at least once a week, if not more often:

I’m thirteen. Will you be my teacher? And by the way, don’t tell my parents I emailed you.

Recently a thirteen-year-old girl wrote me. She told me she’d just been to Salem, MA, and a card reader there told her she was a Witch. The girl wanted me to tell her if she really was a Witch.

This pissed me off. Not at the girl, who was understandably confused, but at the irresponsible, thoughtless card reader who would tell a thirteen-year-old girl such a thing and send her on her merry way, apparently without concerns about the possible consequences for her young client, which could (and apparently did) range from confusion to fear to freaking out.

(And let’s not forget, folks, that one of the few things most Witches appear to agree on is that we don’t proselytize. This was dangerously close to that.)

Anyway, the boneheaded card reader did inadvertently bring up a question that I get regularly in one form or another, mostly from teens, but also from older folks:

How do I know if I’m a Witch?