Since when am I in the Broom Closet?!?

My mother suggested to me, tonight, that I sign my children up for Sunday School. Her primary concern is socialization (only Atticus gets to play with other kids his age, Titus was born after the cut-off date and so couldn't go to preschool this year) but I know she has slight concerns about their spiritual wellbeing as well. 

Religion is something that my mother and I rarely talk about. For the most part, we have very similar views on it. We both believe that it comes down to values, walking your talk, as opposed to public displays of expression, talking just to make yourself look good or get brownie points with a Higher Power. And that's pretty much where we let it lay. She knows I don't go to church, but apparently she repressed the why so much that she doesn't remember anymore. Or, most dreaded, perhaps she assumed the "why" to be a stage I was going through.

Regardless, the signs are there. She and my sister are always so interested in the jewelry my boys are wearing lately, asking them just what it is that they are wearing. Wait. Scratch that. They ask Titus what his one necklace is (a Thor's Hammer,) they never ask Atticus about his (a small pentacle with a waxing crescent Moon at the center.) Perhaps my mom noticed how similar it is to the necklace I always wear that she pretends not to notice. 

My mother is an expert at manipulation and playing games. I feel my paranoia creeping in and wonder at what she may be setting me up for. I may have wrongly assumed myself to be another dirty little secret in our family (at least for this reason) but then again, no one has ever said anything to me about baptizing the children. The closest thing I got to religious condemnation was for not being (legally) married for the births of my boys. Hmmm...

I'm reminded of a dream my husband had some time ago, in which I was holding a tiny baby, both of us happy, the rest of the kids playing in a bedroom, and my husband having to chase my family out of the bedroom as they yell at me for being a witch. 

This is something that I've been able to feel lingering at the edges for sometime now. I'd wrongly assumed it was something that the entire family new about, but another thing we didn't talk about (like how my cousin is a lesbian, oops!) That was the impression I was given. Argh. 

Holidays are coming, family will have to be dealt with, and I've a mother who threw me in the broom closet and is now trying to peek through the key hole. All I can say is, "what the hell?!?"