Crying Plastic Baby at Mass

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I am taking this Child Development Class and one class requirement is that I take home for a weekend a plastic baby doll that cries, coos and does other things (some wet). My teacher told me I had to take it to Mass on Sunday with me. I have some problems with that. One problem is that I go to the Tridentine Mass, another thing is I serve the Tridentine Mass and another thing is that I am male and I would look goofy with a doll at church. I am thinking about leaving the baby at home with someone when I go to Mass or leaving it with a kid in the church while I am at the altar. However, these babies are expensive ($300-$400).
Please give me your opinions
 
CathMass said:
I am taking this Child Development Class and one class requirement is that I take home for a weekend a plastic baby doll that cries, coos and does other things (some wet). My teacher told me I had to take it to Mass on Sunday with me. I have some problems with that. One problem is that I go to the Tridentine Mass, another thing is I serve the Tridentine Mass and another thing is that I am male and I would look goofy with a doll at church. I am thinking about leaving the baby at home with someone when I go to Mass or leaving it with a kid in the church while I am at the altar. However, these babies are expensive ($300-$400).
Please give me your opinions
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I’ve heard of classes like that. I personally --would not take the doll to Mass. Real babies --Yes—but a doll is still a doll.

Ps.—is it one of those dolls that monitors and keeps track if it is attended to.
 
I know it has sensors in it and I heard the teacher was the only one who could control it. However, I don’t know if it has a monitor that indicates it is alone.
 
CathMass said:
I am taking this Child Development Class and one class requirement is that I take home for a weekend a plastic baby doll that cries, coos and does other things (some wet). My teacher told me I had to take it to Mass on Sunday with me. I have some problems with that. One problem is that I go to the Tridentine Mass, another thing is I serve the Tridentine Mass and another thing is that I am male and I would look goofy with a doll at church. I am thinking about leaving the baby at home with someone when I go to Mass or leaving it with a kid in the church while I am at the altar. However, these babies are expensive ($300-$400).
Please give me your opinions
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If you think plastic babies are expensive, wait until you see the cost of a real one :D.
Anyway, if you were to have a real baby, you would have a wife to watch her while you served. For your instructor to tell you that you must bring the baby to Mass is just a misunderstanding of what you will be doing there.

Ask your instructor if the baby can be left with a sitter for something important. Like going to the doctor or work. If a sitter is okay, leave the baby with someone at home. In the real world, arranging for a sitter is a life lesson in itself.

DO NOT just leave the baby with some kid at church. Just as with a real child, you would not think of doing this. It will cost you big bucks if the baby disappears. Home or with “Grandma” is your best bet.

But I do have to say that the title of this thread is the most unusual I have ever seen!!!
 
CathMass said:
I am taking this Child Development Class and one class requirement is that I take home for a weekend a plastic baby doll that cries, coos and does other things (some wet). My teacher told me I had to take it to Mass on Sunday with me. I have some problems with that. One problem is that I go to the Tridentine Mass, another thing is I serve the Tridentine Mass and another thing is that I am male and I would look goofy with a doll at church. I am thinking about leaving the baby at home with someone when I go to Mass or leaving it with a kid in the church while I am at the altar. However, these babies are expensive ($300-$400).
Please give me your opinions
Click to expand...
What would you do if it was a real child? They are worth a lot more than 300 or 400 bucks.
 
CathMass said:
I am taking this Child Development Class and one class requirement is that I take home for a weekend a plastic baby doll that cries, coos and does other things (some wet). My teacher told me I had to take it to Mass on Sunday with me. I have some problems with that. One problem is that I go to the Tridentine Mass, another thing is I serve the Tridentine Mass and another thing is that I am male and I would look goofy with a doll at church. I am thinking about leaving the baby at home with someone when I go to Mass or leaving it with a kid in the church while I am at the altar. However, these babies are expensive ($300-$400).
Please give me your opinions
Click to expand...
I wish I didn’t have to deal with crying babies at Mass either! 😉 But mine are all too real. 😃

My opinion is that you were given these babies to experience “real world” circumstances. Certainly you will take your children to Mass in the future, TLM or no. You may look silly, but think about the young, single mothers who have to take their children out, I’m sure at least some of them feel not only silly, but maybe also ashamed and embarassed of their circumstances. At least you can hand your baby back.

IMHO I think you should continue with your assignment, juggle your schedule, take the “baby” to Mass and offer your experiences up as a sacrifice. After all, us Catholic parents have to do that on a daily basis.

Good luck! 😃
 
Jennifer123 said:
I wish I didn’t have to deal with crying babies at Mass either! 😉 But mine are all too real. 😃

My opinion is that you were given these babies to experience “real world” circumstances. Certainly you will take your children to Mass in the future, TLM or no. You may look silly, but think about the young, single mothers who have to take their children out, I’m sure at least some of them feel not only silly, but maybe also ashamed and embarassed of their circumstances. At least you can hand your baby back.

IMHO I think you should continue with your assignment, juggle your schedule, take the “baby” to Mass and offer your experiences up as a sacrifice. After all, us Catholic parents have to do that on a daily basis.

Good luck! 😃
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I disagree.
If your husband was serving, would you let him hand the baby to someone else? I don’t think so. You would keep the baby.
Catholic parents may have to deal with the baby in Holy Mass but you would not have the baby go onto the altar. That is what you are suggesting the OP do. Unless he has a wife assigned, he needs to have “Grandma” watch the baby. Either at home or in the pew.
 
The disruption you are considering inflicting upon a sacred mass and the entire parish for the sake of make-believe is unthinkable. Clearly your teacher has no appreciation of this. The lesson of caring for a baby is intended for you, not the 100, 200+ others in attendance–many of whom are probably all too familiar with the sound of a crying baby.

As you have no hope of soothing a doll–as you would a real baby–and you have no “need” to bring it with you–as would a nursing mother–leave it at home. One of the important ones of parenting is that we don’t force the world around us to endure every outburst from our children in every setting. Try and get a babysitter–a good life lesson for you as well.
 
This is what I find troubling. If it is one of those dolls with sensors—they will start crying at any point. Either the person taking care of the doll—sits there in the pew with a crying doll—or they will walk out with a crying doll. A real baby is one thing----but a doll is another.

Better option as was mentioned—find a sitter.
 
Walking_Home said:
This is what I find troubling. If it is one of those dolls with sensors—they will start crying at any point. Either the person taking care of the doll—sits there in the pew with a crying doll—or they will walk out with a crying doll. A real baby is one thing----but a doll is another.

Better option as was mentioned—find a sitter.
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I’m in total agreement with this. The lessons to be learned about crying babies will not be lost by not having the “baby” in the church. Intentionally bringing an artificial interruption into Mass is not appropriate IMO.

If you weren’t assigned a wife to help with this, maybe you can “rent” one for an hour and she can also get your laundry done and breakfast cooked while you’re gone…

http://bestsmileys.com/eek/3.gif
 
It seems that the key issue here is that you are likely to disrupt not only your own participation at Mass, but that of all the others who attend that Mass, for no real, justifiable reason.
 
ncjohn said:
I’m in total agreement with this. The lessons to be learned about crying babies will not be lost by not having the “baby” in the church. Intentionally bringing an artificial interruption into Mass is not appropriate IMO.

If you weren’t assigned a wife to help with this, maybe you can “rent” one for an hour and she can also get your laundry done and breakfast cooked while you’re gone…

http://bestsmileys.com/eek/3.gif
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😃
Seriously, the assumption of your teacher seems to be that you are a single parent with no other resources, and that your child cannot be in the care of another for even an hour.

I’d tell the teacher that she needs to provide you with a plastic wife with a plastic breast, to sooth the child (discretely of course 😉 )
 
I wasn’t assigned a wife. :mad: Second my teacher is a Methodist with some Catholic knowledge. I was thinking of paying our organist’s daughter to watch the baby during Mass.

Also some people in my class joked that I should “baptize” the baby.😃
 
Yeah, they had these things when I was in middle school called “Baby Think It Over”. I think the idea was supposed to scare adolescents into abstinence by having to take care of a life-size, weight, electronic-chip controlled baby doll. The teacher could read the data recorded about how well you took care of it, and that was a big part of your grade.

I think you need to play along with this, even for one weekend. If you cannot find a doll-sitter, you were not provided a church-going spouse, and your church does not offer a nursery service, then you have to inform your pastor that you cannot serve this weekend. In the course of a week, you have had intercourse, gotten pregnant, given birth, and you will not be able to serve on the altar because you need to be in the pew taking care of your family. But the good news is that, at the rate things are going, your new child should be starting prep for First Communion in a few weeks!
 
I guess I shouldn’t take my children to Mass then - heaven forbid they should disrupt other people? :confused:

These “babies” are being given for a reason - in order to learn a lesson about the real realities of life with children and babies. Certainly he can serve at another Mass when he doesn’t have this assignment, he can find a replacement for himself, he can find a sitter, or he can arrange for his parents or another mature, responsible adult, like a grandparent, to watch the kid while he serves at Mass.

What I meant by “taking the baby to Mass” is that, while obviously he can’t serve at the altar, he would have to deal with a baby while at Mass, which is a situation I personally face all the time. It’s not going to be all that real, and he may even have to leave Mass for a time to “soothe” the baby, but that is not something I myself haven’t done with a real child.

I fail to see what exactly he is learning by not having to deal with priorities when it comes to having kids? I would love to go to more daily masses, be able to sit through a whole Mass without having any distractions, be able to focus completely on the readings, but I can’t because of my own two babies. But this is an important calling, the vocation of parenthood, where we learn we can’t always have it our way.
 
Jennifer123 said:
I guess I shouldn’t take my children to Mass then - heaven forbid they should disrupt other people? :confused:
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Real babies rank much higher in the “necessary” category than a plastic baby.
These “babies” are being given for a reason - in order to learn a lesson about the real realities of life with children and babies.
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And yet, in the end, everybody knows they are not real. Nobody would rush into a burning house to save one. So the question is, is it justified to disrupt the Mass as a part of this lesson? Would it be justified for a paramedic class to stage a fake heart attack at a Mass to see how its students react?
 
VociMike said:
Real babies rank much higher in the “necessary” category than a plastic baby.

And yet, in the end, everybody knows they are not real. Nobody would rush into a burning house to save one. So the question is, is it justified to disrupt the Mass as a part of this lesson? Would it be justified for a paramedic class to stage a fake heart attack at a Mass to see how its students react?
Click to expand...
Excellent point! I think it’s a sad commentary on our society that young people need an artificial experience like this to realize the difficulty in caring for a baby. This is a product of the anti-family, birth control culture we live in, where they no longer come in contact with real life babies being raised by friends and relatives.
 
:o This is the most odd situation. I really feel bad for you to be agonizing over this one. Sorry to say this and I mean no offense, but I hardly think you will fail as a “parent” if you miss an hour of caring for the Plastic Baby.
I would really try to reason with this teacher that you need that one hour and that you will be willing to do an additional hour or an additional situation like going to the pediatrician’s office or some thing just as fun 😛

but I dont think you will be “missing out” by not taking the plastic baby with you since its bound to be a distraction and could make others there unable to focus! What if a small child there gets very upset by seeing this?

It could be traumatic for a child who just said goodbye to dollies to see an adult playing with a plastic baby!:rolleyes:

In any event- try to get someone to take care of your “baby” and dont sweat it.

Could you find someone with a baby swing to put the baby in for the hour? Maybe if its being rocked (not too fast) you may get away with it?
 
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