Babies At Mass

[leonie]

Awww, No one minds kids at Mass. It’s just when babies or young kids cry or become disruptive when they should be taken out.

** I doubt anyone on this forum is inconsiderate about this.** it’s like preaching to the choir.

To be honest, my parish is very good about this. I can’t remember ever thinking “I wish they would take that baby out.” Usually, parents jump up at the first squeak. We have a lot of babies and toddlers. It seems like the churches where people chat before Mass are the ones with inconsiderate parents.

One of the big problems that we parents have is the toddlers are better behaved in Church (closer to the front as possible), but not necessarily ready to sit in front. sigh.

My husband works alot and is not Catholic, so I’ve been at Mass many times with my six kids. It’s true that babysitting is not an option for many.

Although I still think that very young infants should probably not come to Mass just because of the** germ** factor. I try not to take my infants to Mass (except for Baptism) until they are over six months old.

 

[Karianne]

Hmm, didn’t someone somewhere say not to impeed children from coming to Jesus? Oh yeah that was Jesus.

Stop using Jesus for your own personal agenda! He didn’t say that it was okay to disregard others, and you’re twisting His words to suit yourself!

 

[Karianne]

I got to thinking about something… on any given Sunday, my parish has AT LEAST 100 preschoolers & babies under the age of 5. Add the parents, plus the older sibs and we’re gonna need a MUCH larger “cryroom” for us all to sit.

Not really cost effective. I have a MUCH better idea:

People who can’t tolerate the babies at mass can sit in silence in the cry room. Problem solved.

A cry room is for criers, not for adults who are not crying.
Your solution won’t work, but give it a shot, who knows.
I actually like this idea myself, folks could clean up the place and make sure the audio equipment is satisfactory.
Since it’s probably smelly in there (the moms who left it dirty probably won’t clean it first for the adults…but oh well…)
maybe we can’t get some incense or scented candles after it’s scrubbed down with clorox.

 

[Karianne]

I am just being honest. I have learned with 3 teens to ignore their arguements and let them resolve them on their own. And when I am praying is when it seems to happen. I know it is Satan trying to prevent me from that time. Now if I hear a serious bout or injury, I’ll stop, but otherwise, my school of thought is “If no one is blue, bleeding or dying, work it out amoungst yourselves.”

In mass, I hear when my 4 yr is trying to get my attention, after I tell him to be quiet or wait until after mass, I ignore him. He generally gets the point bc I don’t acknowledge him.

Pax Vobiscum

You are so right, it’s always been my experience that getting involved with my niece’s squabbles has never worked.
You’re lucky to have a four year old in your life. They’re the best!

 

[Marauder]

Stop using Jesus for your own personal agenda! He didn’t say that it was okay to disregard others, and you’re twisting His words to suit yourself!

Mighty charitable of you. I am not using Jesus for my own personal agenda. You are not to impeed children from Jesus. Sounds like you are trying to justify uncharitable behavior to me.

Next time I see an angry person glaring at a cooing baby I will be praying for them, both the baby and the angry person.

 

[Marauder]

A cry room is for criers, not for adults who are not crying.
Your solution won’t work, but give it a shot, who knows.
I actually like this idea myself, folks could clean up the place and make sure the audio equipment is satisfactory.
Since it’s probably smelly in there (the moms who left it dirty probably won’t clean it first for the adults…but oh well…)
maybe we can’t get some incense or scented candles after it’s scrubbed down with clorox.

Read the following commentary on cry rooms and see if you feel that same way.

holyspiritcatholic.org/theologyofcryroo.html

 

[Karianne]

tehn preay tell who is going to watch them while mom and dad are at Mass…do you mean I should leave my babies at home by themselves?

Hmm…our church does not have a cry room/isolation room (THANKS to GOD )
so what do you suggest that my family do? leave the babies at home with the toddlers while we attend mass or skip mass till the kids are teenagers?

As long as you take care of your baby and you respond to his needs and he’s happy and doesn’t cry you can bring him along, of course I don’t think you should leave him alone and please don’t use my posts as an excuse to do so!

 

[Karianne]

Read the following commentary on cry rooms and see if you feel that same way.

holyspiritcatholic.org/theologyofcryroo.html

Please post it, I don’t like to click on links.
I did yesterday and I had to re-boot.

 

[Karin]

Read the following commentary on cry rooms and see if you feel that same way.

holyspiritcatholic.org/theologyofcryroo.html

AWESOME ARTICLE!!!
*Among the primary arguments one hears against cry rooms are the following: *
*1) Children—even as infants—are part of the baptized assembly, which is the Body of Christ, and therefore should not be sequestered in a room apart from the liturgical action. *
*2) The problem of children making noise at Mass is best addressed by means of attentive parenting, not special architecture. *
*3) Restless and noisy children at Mass are inevitable, but a place in which to comfort them can easily be set aside in the vestibule/gathering space. (It has become fashionable for parishes to furnish this space with rocking chairs and even modesty partitions for breast-feeding mothers.) *
*4) Cry rooms usually present conditions in which parents feel less engaged in the actions of the Mass rather than more engaged. *
Probably the best tack to take at Holy Spirit is for the parish to pray about the issue and implement some practical guidelines for parents of small children. Parents should be encouraged to remove restless children from the worship environment without fear of being made to feel embarrassed. For their parts, the members of the congregation should be instructed to be patient with parents of small children, to assist them when restlessness become a problem, and to do their best not to embarrass anyone who must remove a noisy child from the worship setting

 

[Karianne]

Mighty charitable of you. I am not using Jesus for my own personal agenda. You are not to impeed children from Jesus. Sounds like you are trying to justify uncharitable behavior to me.

Next time I see an angry person glaring at a cooing baby I will be praying for them, both the baby and the angry person.

I’m glad that you’re praying for angry adults. Jesus is everywhere, especially with children, so you don’t need to take the child to church to see Him.
He’s at their homes, too.
I don’t like people quoting Jesus without the proper reverence.

 

[Marauder]

Please post it, I don’t like to click on links.
I did yesterday and I had to re-boot.

Posting entire articles is against forum policy. It is a parish church from Kentucky link, it is safe. The post before this one includes a large snippet from it.

 

[Karin]

I’m glad that you’re praying for angry adults. Jesus is everywhere, especially with children, so you don’t need to take the child to church to see Him.
He’s at their homes, too.
I don’t like people quoting Jesus without the proper reverence.

yes Jesus is everywhere…even at home…but this is really wrong (bolded part)…
*Children—even as infants—are part of the baptized assembly, which is the Body of Christ, and therefore should not be sequestered in a room apart from the liturgical action. *

 

[Karin]

Please post it, I don’t like to click on links.
I did yesterday and I had to re-boot.

Here ya go…
*The issue of cry rooms is one that most parishes involved in church-building or renovation eventually face, especially if, like Holy Spirit, their memberships are relatively young, dynamic and growing. While there are no specific, canonical rules that apply to provisions for infant children, I can say that the consensus among liturgists and liturgical designers is that cry rooms have no place in a contemporary Catholic place of worship. *
*Among the primary arguments one hears against cry rooms are the following: *
*1) Children—even as infants—are part of the baptized assembly, which is the Body of Christ, and therefore should not be sequestered in a room apart from the liturgical action. *
*2) The problem of children making noise at Mass is best addressed by means of attentive parenting, not special architecture. *
*3) Restless and noisy children at Mass are inevitable, but a place in which to comfort them can easily be set aside in the vestibule/gathering space. (It has become fashionable for parishes to furnish this space with rocking chairs and even modesty partitions for breast-feeding mothers.) *
*4) Cry rooms usually present conditions in which parents feel less engaged in the actions of the Mass rather than more engaged. *
Probably the best tack to take at Holy Spirit is for the parish to pray about the issue and implement some practical guidelines for parents of small children. Parents should be encouraged to remove restless children from the worship environment without fear of being made to feel embarrassed. For their parts, the members of the congregation should be instructed to be patient with parents of small children, to assist them when restlessness become a problem, and to do their best not to embarrass anyone who must remove a noisy child from the worship setting

 

[jmcrae]

Mighty charitable of you. I am not using Jesus for my own personal agenda. You are not to impeed children from Jesus.

No, of course not, but bringing children to Jesus assumes that they are coming TO JESUS; not to play, to act up, nor to generally be totally oblivious of where they are (a lot of kids give me the impression that they are waiting for their parents to finish being at Mass, rather than thinking of themselves as being at Mass; more rarely, I get the impression that they think they are on a set of monkey bars).

If the child doesn’t know that he is in the presence of Jesus, then it’s up to the parent to make the child aware, and to require age-appropriate behavior from the child.

 

[Marauder]

I’m glad that you’re praying for angry adults. Jesus is everywhere, especially with children, so you don’t need to take the child to church to see Him.
He’s at their homes, too.

Jesus is everywhere but he is present in a different form at Mass in the form of the Eucharist. To deny Jesus to children is going against his own words. To deny the graces associated with attending Mass to children is a great disservice.

I don’t like people quoting Jesus without the proper reverence.

I wasn’t quoting Jesus directly, I was paraphrasing. Many “children should be seen but not heard” people forget the lines in the Bible talking about not impeeding children from coming to him.

 

[jmcrae]

I wasn’t quoting Jesus directly, I was paraphrasing. Many “children should be seen but not heard” people forget the lines in the Bible talking about not impeeding children from coming to him.

So it’s “impeding children from coming to Jesus” if we require age-appropriate civilized behavior from them, and an awareness on their part of where they are?

 

[Marauder]

So it’s “impeding children from coming to Jesus” if we require age-appropriate civilized behavior from them, and an awareness on their part of where they are?

Requiring age-appropriate civilized behavior is not where this thread was going. The poster that I was addressing was basically saying that ALL kids should be in either a cry room, baby sitting, or at home. THAT is impeding children from coming to Jesus.

Of course it seems that different people have different opinions of age-appropriate behavior. One persons view of a 2 year old making occasional noise is age-appropriate when another person’s view is “How dare the parents allow the kid to do that?”

 

[Karin]

So it’s “impeding children from coming to Jesus” if we require age-appropriate civilized behavior from them, and an awareness on their part of where they are?

nope it is impeding when we say keep your kids at home…they really do not need to be at mass…and I have counted two posters that have expressed this sentiment!

 

[JMJDevotee]

It sounds to me that we all need to practice patience-a gift of the Holy Spirit. Parents whose kids are not old enough to know or understand how to behave in Mass. Fellow parishoners who are distracted by those children who cannot behave.

We must allow the Holy Spirit to alleviate all the bad feelings by asking for help in using patience and love.

Pax Vobiscum

 

[Mommyof02green]

holyspiritcatholic.org:

Restless and noisy children at Mass are inevitable, but a place in which to comfort them can easily be set aside in the vestibule/gathering space. (It has become fashionable for parishes to furnish this space with rocking chairs and even modesty partitions for breast-feeding mothers.)

That is what my parish did when it remodel the vestibule in 1997. Before the remodel we had a “cry-room” but it wasn’t used… Not because it was stinky, but because it was small and most of the problem especially with toddlers is they don’t want to be in a tight space… that’s why they squirm in the pew! Therefore the parents at my parish just used the vestibule, or took the kids sit to the fire place area in the adjacent Fellowship Hall, or let the child walk the hall in the adjacent Fellowship Hall

So when the church was remodeled they tore down the walls of the “cry-room” and made it part of the vestibule. Not only that but they tore down the wall between the main church and the vestibule and put up a “glass wall”. So it doesn’t matter where you stand in the vestibule you can see what is going on in the church, unless you are standing in front of the wooden doors (man can’t see through wood ) They also put some chairs where the old cry-room was…. So you can sit in the vestibule if you want too.

The other thing the church did was up date the sound system so you can hear mass while standing/sitting in the vestibule. The Church also updated the sound system so you can hear Mass if you walk into the adjacent Fellowship Hall. Some of our nursing mothers would go into the Fellowship Hall and sit in the fireplace area to nurse. Well now they can hear Mass if they choose to sit in the Fellowship Hall Fire Place Area and nurse. Also with the updated sound system, if you have a ‘wonderer’ a child that won’t sit you can let them wonder up and down the hall in Fellowship Hall and still hear Mass and be apart of what is going on….

Honestly over the years everyone is happy that they have done away with the “cry-room” and made it easier for parents to care for their children and still feel and be apart of the Mass.