Babies and young children at Mass

[plefe]

We go to worship, not babysit or mis Mass. I am not worried about offending others. My wife and I do an 8:30/11:00am split and share the workload. When we go as a Family, sometimes it works and sometimes it’s a mess. My wife has really blossomed spiritually, and it’s due to her not having to chase the little ones.

Jesus, Mar, and Joseph

 

[Lujack]

I don’t quite feel at home in a Mass unless there’s at least one crying baby. It seems to me the way it should be.

 

[PatriceA]

I don’t quite feel at home in a Mass unless there’s at least one crying baby. It seems to me the way it should be.

Ditto. Babies are no more a distraction than elderly people that may be hard of hearing and chat before and after mass. As long as we are all participating in the mass as a community, I say let the families with babies participate to the fullest extent.

 

[onegreenclover]

yeah, I’ve had it now. This Sunday a kid threw a toy that it was shaking around off of the balcony and onto the first floor during the gospel. This sent everyone into a frenzy and disrupted everything.

I’m honestly tired of kids misbehaving- not tired of their presence.

 

[Contra_Mundum_1]

yeah, I’ve had it now. This Sunday a kid threw a toy that it was shaking around off of the balcony and onto the first floor during the gospel. This sent everyone into a frenzy and disrupted everything.

I’m honestly tired of kids misbehaving- not tired of their presence.

Oh dear, this sounds really annoying.

 

[mommamaree]

yeah, I’ve had it now. This Sunday a kid threw a toy that it was shaking around off of the balcony and onto the first floor during the gospel. This sent everyone into a frenzy and disrupted everything.

I’m honestly tired of kids misbehaving- not tired of their presence.

My son (2yo) would totally do this, too. Last Sunday, just to be obstinant, he started throwing his Matchbox car (he doesn’t go anywhere without a Matchbox car, he even grips it tightly in his sleep) on the ground, and then acting like he couldn’t find it. He made a pathetic look with his puppy dog eyes, so we helped him find his car, only to have him throw it again. It took two or three times for us to figure out this is a new strategy for getting his way. So back to the nursery he went. But thankfully, we made it to the halfway point in Mass this time, longer than he has managed before.
Our children are good and loving children, who get compliments from grownups wherever they go (especially for how well they treat each other). With that said, when they get hungry or impatient, they can turn into little monsters. Our 5yo daughter is growing past this stage, thankfully, but our son is just entering that stage.
I share this so that you might understand that kids will misbehave, despite the best efforts of parents, and that it is not a flaw in the kid or the parent, but simply a process where the child learns how to behave in various situations. I understand that some people will get very distracted or upset by misbehaving or crying, which is why my husband and I are conscientious about removing a child who is loud or acting out. Unfortunately for us, our parish has no cry room, only a separate building where there is a nursery during the Sunday morning masses. So we are going to keep trying to encourage our 2yo son to learn how to make it through the whole mass with our family, especially with baby #3 on the way now.
By the way, we are new Catholics, so our kids have only been attending Mass since January, so maybe that is why it is taking a while for my kids to learn how to behave there.
Edited to Add: One more thing I just remembered about Sunday…amazingly, the Matchbox car hitting the floor and my son talking during our priest’s homily didn’t cause him to pause at all or lose his place, but seeing my tall husband get up and walk out with our son in his arms DID make him pause and watch him for a short moment before continuing. Our priest has always been so great with our kids, even welcoming them to his office and home (the rectory) for meetings while he was preparing us for entering the Church. So I half wondered if he was going to tell my husband to stay with our boy (we were sitting in the front row all the way off to one side, so the kids could see, but wouldn’t be front and center to cause a disruption. Oh well!

 

[Stanselmdoc]

A similar thread was posted at another Catholic forum I am on. Here is my response from that one:

I am a new mom, and my view on this issue has changed drastically since having a baby. I used to think “take your baby out when he is acting up. Geez, let others actually listen to the Mass!” Now, I think removing a child is a last resort.

I will tell you why, but first, I think an important distinction needs to be made. There is acting up and there is **misbehaving. ** Acting up is completely different from misbehaving. Parents know the difference in their children. They know when they can calm their child down in a minute or so, and they know when it’s better to just take the kid out because nothing is going to help. Given that, it is very difficult for outsiders to know the difference. For some people, ANY noise from a child equals misbehaving. But there’s a world of difference between a child who needs to squirm and a child who’s kicking the pew in front of him.

Most importantly, parents often have a different breaking point with their children than other parishioners. Behavior that is “distracting” to one parishioner might be nothing at all to the parent. It’s a matter of perception. Perhaps the parent deals with screaming children all day, and the very fact that those kids are in the pew and not ripping the heads off one another is a miracle. A few kicks or pinches isn’t going to bother the mother.

For the 3 minutes that the nonparents are distracted, the parents dealing with the baby have a much more difficult task of concentrating.

More often than people might think, the priest has addressed the issue with the parents and said something along the lines of “I can always talk over them, let them stay, they are adorable!”

One gets out of the Mass what one puts into it. If you allow yourself to get distracted by a baby, that’s not the baby’s fault. Babies cry - it’s their only means of communication.

Maybe it’s just because I live in New England, but in the churches I’ve had the wonderful experience of visiting, cry rooms are a joke. They are either filled with Fatholics or they’re designed to so fully remove the child and parent from the Mass, that the parent is hardly able to participate.

Sometimes - and this is something I never knew until my daughter was born - the problem originates with other adults who seem to find it hilarious to play with the baby in the middle of Mass. I can’t tell you how infuriating this is, when I am the one who gets the dirty looks.

Lately, I’ve had to leave the pew with my daughter every Sunday. I refuse to go into the cry room, so I just stand in the back. Also, she is just starting to make noises and talk, yet she doesn’t know how to be quiet. I’m not going to remove her for experimenting with talking, like she’s doing something wrong. But others might interpret her noises as annoying - it’s a matter of perspective.

 

[pnewton]

. Also, she is just starting to make noises and talk, yet she doesn’t know how to be quiet. I’m not going to remove her for experimenting with talking, like she’s doing something wrong. But others might interpret her noises as annoying - it’s a matter of perspective.

We should all remember that it is unrealistic to expect that we all will agree on exactly how much is too much. Zero tolerance on any noise from children is as out of balance as believing no child should ever be removed. As long as parents consider the needs of others, then none of them should be judged for using their own parental instincts.

I would ask you to consider the possibility in the future of a bounce back into Mass, especially after you child gets older. I think it helps to get the child back on the horse, as it were. I know what you mean about the cry room though. For me, it was a type of Purgatory. There I was very strict with my son and did not care if you cried or was uncomfortable. I wanted him to hate being taken to the cry room.

I am sure you will do a great job teaching you child how to behave in Mass. Parents that care enough to try ususally do.

 

[yellowdaisy]

I frequently attend Saturday 5pm mass alone, and then on Sundays we attend as a family. This way, my hsuband can fully participate in mass, and I can be really active in teaching my daughter how to behave without missing anything.

My rules for mass (and my daughter has special needs, so the teaching is taking FOREVER) She’s 3.

1. We sit on the pew-- we do not stand on it or jump on it.
2. She can stand or sit during the standing parts-- she may not use that opportunity to climb all over the place. If she cant handle standing with us, then I will sit with her to prevent the climbing.
3. No yelling. Period. My daughter has a VERY hard time regulating the volume of her voice, so we have been modeling “whispering” during church if she MUST say something.
4. If we leave, we’re done. No in and out and in and out. If she and I have to leave, we’re going to go sit in the car, and sometimes I read aloud to her from a prayer book. Leaving is not a reward for bad behavior.

When she climbs around, I silently put her back in her spot and say “no jumping (or whatever), this is God’s house. We have to be respectful in God’s house”. No anger, no threats of discipline-- just training. Training for what is appropriate for God’s house. She cant be expected to KNOW what is approrpiate at her age, or with her needs, and she really can’t control her impulses. She LOVES to sing when we sing, and stand when we stand, etc.

I WAS that five year old who’d never seen the inside of a church before, was suddenly deemed “old enough” to behave myself, and had no idea what was going on in mass until my teenage years. I believe we need to give children the benefits of attending mass as SOON as we possibly can!

This isnt to say my daughter has never missed a mass. There have been pleanty of times when her behavior was just not up to snuff and weknew we werent going to make it through without a scene, so in that instance we did separate masses.

I think good church behavior requires training-- not discipline! It’s different you know…

 

[mchale]

Just a quick me too .

My wife and I attend a fairly conservative, though not strictly traditional Parish near DC (Though I have the feeling the Pastor might love having a regular Tridentine service). We have a son who just turned 10 months old. All things considered, he is actually very good in church. Though, like most 10 month olds, he does make noise from time to time.

In any case, a few weeks ago, I had taken my son to the back of the Church because he was getting a little loud during communion. The pastor was coming back to start distributing communion in the back of the Church (It was a rather crowded mass) just as my son cried out. He simply smiled, gently punched my son on his arm and said something like “You go slugger!”.

Have I mentioned that my wife and I are very happy with this parish .

–
Bill

 

[mommamaree]

Just a quick me too .

My wife and I attend a fairly conservative, though not strictly traditional Parish near DC (Though I have the feeling the Pastor might love having a regular Tridentine service). We have a son who just turned 10 months old. All things considered, he is actually very good in church. Though, like most 10 month olds, he does make noise from time to time.

In any case, a few weeks ago, I had taken my son to the back of the Church because he was getting a little loud during communion. The pastor was coming back to start distributing communion in the back of the Church (It was a rather crowded mass) just as my son cried out. He simply smiled, gently punched my son on his arm and said something like “You go slugger!”.

Have I mentioned that my wife and I are very happy with this parish .

–
Bill

Aren’t priests like that just wonderful? Just today, I had a nice conversation with our priest about bringing our baptized (Lutheran) daughter and our nonbaptized son into the Catholic church, and a couple of times he made funny comments about how boisterous our son (2yo) is. He also commented on how intelligent and curious our 5yo daughter is. It blows my mind that in such a large parish, he knows the personalities of our children so quickly and so accurately, and that he appreciates the very things that do make it challenging to parent our children. He is wonderful with children, and very accepting of their understandably childish behavior.

 

[cccw2009]

Do you bring babies and young children to Mass?

Most people would agree that they are adorable when they are quiet but what when they are not? How much does it bother you?
Some parents leave the church immediately when the little ones start being fussy, others don’t because they think that children should be welcome in church.

I’m having a baby very soon and plan to take it to Mass (and take it outside if it starts making noise) but feel a bit unsure about it at the same time. In my parish people are annoyed when children are heard. They are too polite to say anything to parents directly but it is definitely felt as a general attitude. This is the only TLM around here and I would love to keep attending it. On the other hand, is a NO “children’s Mass” a better option in your opinion?

Thank you!

Don’t worry about what others think! We always take our 10 month old to Mass. When we first took him, I was a little nervous because when our son cries, he screams! So we would sit near the side door to make a quick escape if need be. But so far, he has been wonderfully quiet during Mass. Babies cry, that’s what they do. If you’re nervous then you might want to sit near the back in case your baby has a melt down. The babies/children in my parish are pretty quiet. God welcomes all, including the little ones, so forget what others may think and take your newborn!
Congratulations!

 

[Contra_Mundum_1]

Don’t worry about what others think! We always take our 10 month old to Mass. When we first took him, I was a little nervous because when our son cries, he screams! So we would sit near the side door to make a quick escape if need be. But so far, he has been wonderfully quiet during Mass. Babies cry, that’s what they do. If you’re nervous then you might want to sit near the back in case your baby has a melt down. The babies/children in my parish are pretty quiet. God welcomes all, including the little ones, so forget what others may think and take your newborn!
Congratulations!

Thank you!