It was the Sunday after Christmas Day, and our four girls were experiencing the typical post-festivities burnout. We shuffled into our usual seats in the balcony for Mass at our parish. Everything seemed upsetting to our four year old on that day, particularly any frantic attempts by my husband or me to keep her quiet. Her wails got progressively louder and my husband felt compelled to remove her. The second they reached the stairwell, she was immediately happy again and thought that it would be a good time to play on the stairwell. When my 3 year old and 2 year old saw that their ticket to the fun stairwell party with daddy was merely by wailing, adding their wails to the chorus was to them the work of a moment. Scott and I were mortified.
That is an example of an extreme off day for us. Usually other than a few false bathroom breaks, shout whispering, and a fussy, hungry baby needing to be nursed, the children are pretty well behaved at Mass, considering they are all aged 4 and younger. And we have been extremely fortunate in that our fellow church-goers in the pews around us are always very patient and kind to us and our children. If Wren, in a fit of two-year-old pique, manages to elude our hand holding attempts and falls face-first down the (carpeted) balcony steps and shrieks in indignation, the people around us either ignore it or turn to give us an encouraging and sympathetic smile. It is important to us to attend Mass together as a family, and we have only received patience and encouragement from our fellow parishioners, for which I am very grateful. I had assumed that our experience was the norm in most Catholic parishes, but after reading the vitriolic comments to this article, my confidence is shaken. I had no idea that in some churches, church-goers not only resent the presence of children at Mass, but they make sure that parents feel that their young children are unwelcome. It boggled the mind.
As anyone who has actually taken (or remembers taking) young children to Mass knows, it is an extremely stressful endeavor. Young children are naturally loud, curious, restless, and unable to appreciate the subtle nuances of social propriety. They are forces of nature that you really cannot keep a stranglehold of control over at all times. (And this is coming from a pretty strict disciplinarian). But I can assure you that we, as parents, are doing our very best to keep our young children under some semblance of control during Mass. Speaking from personal experience, the more we take our young children to Mass, the better they behave as they learn what is expected of them by attending. However, we are human, and the children are still learning, and sometimes we all fail. Sometimes the toddler escapes and runs toward the altar. Sometimes your brilliant idea to bring board books and coloring books about Mary to keep them quiet completely backfires and a noisy brawl breaks out over who gets the pink crayon. Sometimes your child is banned from the nursery because she spends the whole time screaming for you and throwing her face against the hard floor in protest and is traumatizing all of the other kids. (That happened to a friend of mine, and definitely not me at all).
It seemed to me that these commenters are treating the Holy Mass as if it were some sort of performance made for their own personal enjoyment. “Small children are disrupting MY experience of the Mass! They don’t belong!” But the Mass isn’t a performance designed to keep you focused and reverent without any effort from you. It is a small sacrifice we offer in thanksgiving for the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ. There will always be temptations surrounding you to take your attention off of the Mass, whether it be the overly affectionate couple beside you, the woman who loudly and determinedly sings off key directly behind you, the man who keeps checking his cell phone in front of you, or the old man with dementia who keeps muttering to himself three pews up. Does that mean that they all don’t belong in the church either? Shouldn’t we as Catholics welcome these mortifications we suffer during Mass and put them to good use by offering them up?
The growing intolerance for young children in public places these days makes perfect sense when you consider that attitudes toward having children in general tend to be negative and people seem to be having fewer and fewer babies. But it makes absolutely no sense to me for there to be an intolerance for young children in a Catholic Mass. Families who have had the courage to follow the Church’s teachings on openness to life are then made to feel unwelcome in their own churches?! These families are already facing enormous condemnation and criticism on numerous fronts, the last thing they need is hostility from their brothers and sisters in the Catholic faith as well. During this Year of Mercy, it would behoove us to show some compassion and mercy toward our neighbors who are tackling the herculean effort of taking young ones to Mass.
I know it has been mentioned in blog posts about this before, but it bears repeating that Matthew 19:13-14 states, “Then some children were brought to Him so that He might lay His hands on them and pray, and [the commenters to that article, wait, I mean] disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.‘”
Ha. That happened to my parents when they brought us to mass during the mid 80s. They were practically kicked out by their priest (!!!). After that priest finally retired they started going back to mass. Their current priest loves kids and the mayhem they can create during mass. And to be honest. It IS hilarious when a toddler grabs an altar bell and tries to make a run for it 😀
My parents once told me that this was pretty normal back then. So. So. SAD. Thank the Lord people came to their senses around here.
So far when we take our kids to the Lutheran Church they were baptised in (I still stubbornly refuse to convert although I only attend the easter vigil and join my family at Lutheran for all other occasions) we sometimes get strange stares, but also tons of hidden or not so hidden smiles from other churchgoers. And honestly I think in all that kids turmoil I’m the most annoying person in the room with my constant *psssshhhhh*s 😉
My stand: kids are part of every parish. Without kids the parish dies out. So they are part of mass, service or whatever you might call it. Isn’t mass and service not only about the sermon and tradition, but also a big get-together to celebrate the greatness of God?!?
Everyone who has a problem with kids being kids at church should try to find a parish with a late-night or early-morning mass. The danger of having to attend it together with families is much less!
Maybe you should print out the mass schedules in your area and highlight all those too-early-or-late-for-families masses and hand them to complaining [beep]! I think the right-at-lunchtime is probably not too crowded with families, too!
You are spot on, as usual!
“Speaking from personal experience, the more we take our young children to Mass, the better they behave as they learn what is expected of them by attending.”
Amen, amen (except we have Sacrament Meeting instead of Mass).
I’m grateful we’ve never encountered that kind of sad attitude in church. Once we did on a plane, and many a time I have on the subway, but never in church.
But I think the same sentiment applies regardless of the setting, it is through teaching and helping your child grow that they become more capable. People seem to think you should keep your kid from society until they’re able to navigate and contribute to it. They forget that at one point they were learning too.
Exactly! As with anything, they learn by doing.
As always, what an incredible post! I grew up in the LDS church, another faith where family is the focus of everything, and one of my struggles since leaving the Church (really, for a variety of reasons I won’t get into in one comment, haha) has been that children are not part of the church experience.
But speaking as someone who grew up attending church with my 5 siblings, and as someone who still finds attending church with her family to be very edifying, keep fighting the good fight. You and your family are so inspirational!
Thank you so much! Church yesterday went pretty smoothly. I watched Wren kneel and fold her little hands and my heart just melted! Stuff like that makes the hard days totally worth it!
How sweet! I love seeing the faith of our little ones grow :).
you are so right. I was lutherun when my kids were young and I beleived that how are they going to learn to behave if they do not attend. Well one Sunday we were having communion and as i walked up front to take communion, my child was fast asleep in my arms. I had so many people on the way up volunteer to hold her while I went up. I said oh no thank you, she is sound asleep, it will be ok. Well no sooner than I got up front and kneeled down did the wailing begin. Of course all the way through what the pastor was saying to us did she cry. I got up to head back and back to sleep again.. I never did that again, my husband and I took turns after that!! LOL It was funny to me but I am sure not to everybody else. I still can find the humor in it, but I was embarrassed at the time too. Kids!!
Yes! Sometimes there is just nothing you can do about it! Whenever I see a mom struggling, I try to give her the solidarity look 😘
nailed it again, Sylvia! despite an almost 2yo toddler losing it every mass and a 3yo who is just now starting to understand being quiet during mass, we are often praised after mass (often in our hometown) how well behaved the children are. we still get lots of looks for sitting in the front pew with “all those kids,” but I want to teach them the right way. it’s not always easy. correction: it’s rarely easy 😉 we also try to teach the kids to give others the benefit of the doubt, just like the article stated. we never know what others are going through. grace!
Thanks, Court! Always love hearing your words of wisdom.
“words of wisdom” 😉