Going to Mass separate from family

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LittleFlower378

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Whats everyones opinions? Im a Husband and father of three. We have a 3 year old and my wife works on the weekends so I sometimes will stay at home while my 3 year old naps on Saturday evenings while my wife gets off work and meets my mother in law and my two other kids at the vigil mass outside our boundry parish where our kids go to school(although a Catholic school my wife and I never came to an agreement on thus school) I then will go to mass on Sunday morning. Two holy priests have told me I should try to go to mass with my family because its important. But in honesty I think its more practical going to mass on Sunday morning especially with a 3 year old who is usually getting tired and routy at the vigil mass. We still do go to mass together as my wife is off work every 3rd weekend.
 
Sounds like you’re doing what’s best for your family. As the 3-year-old gets older, it will be easier to take him/her to vigil Mass.
 
When our kids were toddlers we often found ourselves going to separate masses. Don’t worry about it. It wil naturally get better with time, things change.
 
I don’t see what’s wrong with it. Yes, it’s good for families to go together, but your three-year-old will not be three forever! If asked again, just respectfully tell your priest that your son is not ready to sit through a full mass, you don’t wan’t to bother other people, and you’ll all be going together as soon an he’s old enough.
 
What is important is that your three year old grows up seeing that going to Mass is so important that mom & dad found a way to do it even when it was not convenient. Mass is not about all of you sitting together in the front pew impressing folks with your perfection, it is about getting there when it is messy and hard.
 
I will change my previous advice slightly. To me, it’s not that big of deal you are not gong as a family. However, it us time, when a child turns 3 to start getting him used to sitting through mass. Not always fun, but it needs to be done at a young age. I had neices and nephews who could not behave in church when they were 10 years old, their parents never took them to mass until they were six or seven. Bad idea. Fight the battle when they are young and they learn, it’s Sunday, we go to mass, that’s what we do.
 
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tafan2 said:
I will change my previous advice slightly. To me, it’s not that big of deal you are not gong as a family. However, it us time, when a child turns 3 to start getting him used to sitting through mass. Not always fun, but it needs to be done at a young age. I had neices and nephews who could not behave in church when they were 20 years old, their parents never took them to mass until they were six or seven. Bad idea. Fight the battle when they are young and they learn, it’s Sunday, we go to mass, that’s what we do.
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Kids vary.

I think our oldest started to be able to sit through a full Mass in the main church around 5 (previously we’d either gone separately or she went to the cry room) and our middle child started to be able around 3 (with good example from big sister). Our youngest started to be able to get through Mass well around 4.

Even at 5, our youngest recently treated me to an episode where (as she and I were making our way to the rest of the family in the front of the church), she darted forward without me toward her dad and older siblings, then realized MOMMY IS NOT WITH ME! and then made a dramatic dash back toward me across much of the church. facepalm I’m afraid there might also have been a loud squawk of dismay after she noticed her mistake.

I would say, keep trying, but don’t feel compelled to do something every Sunday that makes everybody crabby and distracted.
 
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Cry rooms, as one priest told me once, put in churches to ensure first and second graders misbehave at school masses so Catholic School teachers earn their pay. 🙂
 
LittleFlower378 said:
Two holy priests have told me I should try to go to mass with my family because its important.
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At least you and your family are getting to Mass! If the two priests are really “holy” then they should know without being told THAT is the important thing, and that you are showing your children that Sunday / HDO Mass is so important that you will go through all sorts of scheduling gymnastics just to make sure everyone gets to Mass!

The only other question I would ask is whether there is a school requirement to verify the kids’ Mass attendance. I ask this because when I was in grade school, there was a requirement that either we attend the children’s Mass, or, if we weren’t serving Mass, we attend with our parents. Once the school principal saw me after a different Mass alone and asked me where my mother was; when I informed her she was in the washroom, she was satisfied.
 
If you know kids that could not learn how to sit quietly for an hour from the age of seven until the age of twenty, there’s something else going on there!
 
tafan2 said:
However, it us time, when a child turns 3 to start getting him used to sitting through mass.
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Yes, this is true. It helps to “practice” for Church by saying the Rosary, or sitting still during a televised Mass.
 
LittleFlower378 said:
Whats everyones opinions? Im a Husband and father of three. We have a 3 year old and my wife works on the weekends so I sometimes will stay at home while my 3 year old naps on Saturday evenings while my wife gets off work and meets my mother in law and my two other kids at the vigil mass outside our boundry parish where our kids go to school(although a Catholic school my wife and I never came to an agreement on thus school) I then will go to mass on Sunday morning. Two holy priests have told me I should try to go to mass with my family because its important. But in honesty I think its more practical going to mass on Sunday morning especially with a 3 year old who is usually getting tired and routy at the vigil mass. We still do go to mass together as my wife is off work every 3rd weekend.
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The priority is go to mass together as a family. Thus the priest advised as such.

You, however, know better about your family situation. As long as you understand the importance of going to the mass together as a family, any other arrangement is actually as unavoidable alternative.

Try to work out going together (to mass) as much as possible, then if that is not feasible, then fall back to plan B.

Being a family, as a father and husband, your role is not just to fulfill your own obligation for mass, but also equally important, is to bring up your family in the Catholic faith, of which you are the leader and the head of the family. And bringing your family to the mass is one of the major responsibilities for you, of which you must be seen as doing.

God bless.
 
Even so by 7 a child is in school and I would even without training expect them to sit through Mass, if not be overly attentive.
 
Thanks for everyones response. Thanks Reuben, thats probably what the holy priests meant by trying to go mass as a first priority and, if not possible, to split up.
 
The mere idea of “proving you went to Mass” is wrong on so many levels 😦 I hope this is not the case!
 
TheLittleLady said:
The mere idea of “proving you went to Mass” is wrong on so many levels 😦 I hope this is not the case!
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What is wrong with a Catholic school following up to ensure that Catholic values are reinforced (and not undone) in Catholic families who send their Catholic children to the Catholic school?
 
In Canon Law, in Doctrine, in Tradition or tradition, tracking Mass attendance is never suggested.

If we are certain that parents need to be nannied, do we send inspectors over to review medicine cabinet, viewing/reading material, etc in the home?
 
tafan2 said:
I will change my previous advice slightly. To me, it’s not that big of deal you are not gong as a family. However, it us time, when a child turns 3 to start getting him used to sitting through mass.
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True, but that’s a losing proposition if Mass is during what is normally the kid’s nap time.

Going together is the ideal but if the ideal doesn’t work, then you do what works for your family. My own parents split up for Mass or got a sitter until my baby brother was about 3 1/2, so for about 8 years. No priest ever suggested that we should all go together.

I grew up in a parish where infants and toddlers at Mass were an oddity.
 
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