by Karen Frazier, Managing Editor
Paranormal Underground e-Magazine

I’m sitting and watching Paranormal State with my son (recorded from last night). Not necessarily because I love most of the TV paranormal shows, but because I feel like I need to stay up to date with shows like Paranormal State, Ghost Hunters, Ghost Hunters International, Ghost Adventures and more for my work with the magazine. One day, I hope that there will be some startling piece of paranormal evidence that can’t be debunked.

But I digress. That wasn’t what I was going to post about. I think enough attention is paid to all of the TV paranormal stuff without my input. What I meant to write about is my 12-year-old son and the paranormal.

You see, I’m not quite sure what I’m doing to him with all of the paranormal stuff. During Paranormal State this morning, the lady on the show was saying how the basement terrified her – and Tanner said, “Well of course. Look at all of those pipes and wires. It’s always the basement that’s scary. It’s a fear cage.”

Are 12-year-old boys supposed to know about EMF and fear cages? Recently, I was tinkering with a Radio Shack hack ghost box, and he said to me, “You should really try that in a Farraday cage.”

The boy is an amazing debunker. I’ve always encouraged the use of critical thinking when he watches the paranormal shows with me. And he is great at exercising it.

So here’s my question. Am I stealing his belief? Am I encouraging him to think too critically?

I’ve spent all of my life chasing faith – wanting to find that one thing to believe in. Am I doing this with Tanner? Am I taking away his belief so that he spends his life chasing something that he can never quite find?

My goal has always been to raise a critical thinker who can discover his own belief system. As a result, I have never spoon-fed him any faith. I’ve kept my beliefs (or lack of them) my own, and encouraged him to explore the universe and find what rings true to him.

But I’ve never quite found myself. I am 43 (yes – 43), and belief is still a daily struggle. There are times when I feel it would be so easy if I could just believe. How much comfort could I take from that – being a person of strong faith? Faith, to me, seems magical. And elusive. I see people of faith – who believe that there is a plan for everything, and that everything is perfection, and I long to know what they know. Is this what I am setting my son up for? A lifelong search for that magical element of faith that he sees in other people?

I have always believed that at some point, I will find faith. I guess you could say I have had faith in that.

I always believed that allowing my son to choose his own beliefs was the right thing to do. Now I wonder. Will he be an adult who believes in something, or will he spend his whole life chasing something that feels elusive?

I guess in the end, I only have so much influence as a parent. I can’t control how he chooses to experience the world. His search will be his own, because I raised him to think for himself.

A mother worries. It’s what we do. But maybe the faith that I will finally find is faith in my son to follow the path that is best for him.