A
ardis3958
Guest
An espresso machine would be nice.
- Status
F
Faith1960
Guest
There are rules of behavior for the library**, too. Like being in church, if a child is being disruptive in the library, he or she needs to be taken out without getting a book. Try again tomorrow. I was just at the library early this afternoon, and all was quiet. Egads, why is this basic expectation of manners so offensive to parents these days – has society’s expectations on proper behavior really sunk so low that so many parents feel their children are entitled to behave however they wish at any given time and it’s everybody else’s problem if they don’t wish to be disturbed?
F
Faith1960
Guest
With so many parents allowing their kids to play, eat and drink during Mass, I’m sure there are some who would welcome that, too.
M
Mamanurse
Guest
Thank you for your post. As a mother of a child with Down syndrome I am so grateful for people like you. I am a revert to the CC, I can only tell you how disheartening my return would have been if I had been treated like a major problem. I am thankful for people like you within my parish. There is an older couple that sits near us at Mass and the gentleman carries my son up to Communion for me as I am 8mths pregnant and my DH is not Catholic, so I am alone at Mass. Thank you again for offering up your prayers for the parents that are struggling with little children at Mass instead of brooding over your own frustration.One of the most heart-breaking episodes I ever had at Mass was watching a young mother with a severely handicapped child cope with the needs of the child during Mass. She had a companion helper with her, and while there was little noise, there was certainly some distraction. Much of my prayer at that Mass and at some since has been to ask God to strengthen her and hers through this ordeal. What was so disheartening was to have her companion turn to me after Mass and apologise for their presence. I tried to assure her that I thought they were just where they needed to be, but I don’t think she heard me. Now if I see someone like that near me at church, I make it a point to go over and say something to them afterward. Maybe the parents of these young disruptive babies need that also. You cannot know if that baby is suffering from colic, or some disorder which causes high-pitched cries, but if so, the parents really need the comfort of the Mass or they would not have made the effort to be there. What we can know/believe is that everyone has some burden and needs to be at Mass and the encouragement of the community.
Defender 1, if children are too difficult for you, perhaps you do need to find a different Mass time. Our early Mass is less populated by children and maybe that is true in your Parish also. You might also speak with your pastor about which is the quietest Mass. We all have different needs at different times, and your distress is evident
P
pnewton
Guest
Why not, if that solves the problem?
Z
zab
Guest
Touchet!:knight2:
I
Imryl
Guest
Yeah. You want to equate rules in a library with rules in a church? In the library, you can watch porn within line of sight or ear shot of children. You can also mess with yourself while doing it. … And there’s nothing anyone can do about it because it’s protected under “free speech”.
Ordinarily I will take my youngest out if she make even a little bit of noise. But sometimes I just need to be there like everyone else.
I have in the past and will in the future kindly, or not so kindly, remind people to mind their own business. If you don’t like it, go find another Mass. It’ll be easier for you because you’re not the one lugging around multiple children.
We do try our best and if that isn’t good enough for you, to bad.
Why not do something constructive and attend two masses on Sunday. One, early so there aren’t so many distractions, and the second to offer help to any parent/parents who are struggling to keep their flock attentive and respectful. Gosh what a novel idea!
A
ardis3958
Guest
Interesting how people came up with the moviehouse example before the library example. Somehow the difference was the fact you pay to see a movie but church is free, so the expectation of decorum is justified when the fee is $12/ticket but utterly out of order when you can literally just walk in off the street and sit down. Libraries are of course free.
What’s especially interesting to me in this discussion are peoples reasons.
- For a lot of people religion *trumps *morality so you get people saying because Holy Mass is what it is therefore anything goes.
- Some people think in terms of rights, as if having a right to be in church automatically gives you the right to create a disturbance, and responding to a disturbance is the violation of the disturber’s rights. Rights rights rights Americans are all about their rights.
- A lot of people are pathological *excusers *who make up hidden scenarios to justify the disturbance, like someone who says “well what if the child is deaf”, etc etc so you shouldn’t do anything because you don’t know the real reason why.
- Then there’s the “change yourself” crowd who say if it’s bothering you that’s your problem.
- Closely related is the “offer it up” crowd.
- Also the *moral equivalence *argument, where they compare church with library/moviehouse/symphony and basically say church is not X therefore anything goes.
- You can refute a trumper by saying because of what mass is, therefore disturbances should be prohibited.
- A rights-advocate can be shut down by pointing to the rights of others to *not *be disturbed.
- An excuser can be shut down two ways, you can say “what if he’s *not *deaf” or you can go “what if everybody else has a headache”.
- The change-yourselfers can be given a taste of their own medicine and be advised if they have a problem with *my *problem they should step aside.
- The offer-it-ups can be told that sins can be omissions too.
- The moral-equators can be run around in circles just by saying that whatever example they come up with is just not the same. Like if someone says church is not a movie because you pay, just say paying makes no difference.
And when I see parents failing to do their duty, I can almost predict what sort of morality they are working with. It’s interesting how these sorts of things go hand-in-hand! You can tell a lot about a person just by watching how he interacts with society.
I
Imryl
Guest
No, some of us are just older and wiser - or just plain wiser - and know when to pick a fight, and when to let it go. These are not “excuses” these are reasons for acting in a just and appropriate manner depending on the circumstances.
Most parents do their “duty” just fine. Observing one, two or even three aberrant episodes doesn’t mean 1) the kid is bad, unchurched or ill-mannered or 2) the parents aren’t doing their due diligence.
Just because I could really careless what people at Mass think about me or my children, who are almost always well behaved, doesn’t mean I’m not considerate of their sensibilities… But don’t expect me to be walked on by someone who won’t extend the same courtesy to me.
This is a two way street.
Most parents do their “duty” just fine. Observing one, two or even three aberrant episodes doesn’t mean 1) the kid is bad, unchurched or ill-mannered or 2) the parents aren’t doing their due diligence.
Just because I could really careless what people at Mass think about me or my children, who are almost always well behaved, doesn’t mean I’m not considerate of their sensibilities… But don’t expect me to be walked on by someone who won’t extend the same courtesy to me.
This is a two way street.
J
jilly4ski
Guest
Maybe first, you need to define what you mean by this statement.
How are parents failing in their duty and how can you judge if the parents are failing in that duty?
Can you know for sure that a particular child does not have a disability or developmental challenges, which makes them more prone to disruption. Or that the parent with the crying baby is the only parent in church with several other children who cannot be left alone in the pew when they take the crying one out?
A
ardis3958
Guest
In general parents have the duty to train children in self-control; you can judge if a parent is failing at it by watching how the child conducts himself in society. Everybody knows an example of an out-of-control kid whose mom lets him get away with anything and everything because she doesn’t want to hurt his feelings.
What if the out-of-control child is developmentally normal but is the victim of lax parenting? Does there always have to be an invisible hidden reason that we have to come up with in our imagination, to invent an excuse for someone else to justify their behavior? But more importantly … to justify us not doing anything about it? Because sometimes I think that’s the real reason, people are afraid to stand up for what is right, so they come up with excuses for wrongdoers, but it’s really an excuse for themselves. I would love to be able to break all kinds of social rules and sit back and let everyone else come up with excuses for me like maybe I have brain damage or something, anything, just something that is a what-if that exists only in their imaginations, and therefore they should just let me break whatever rules I want!
J
jilly4ski
Guest
Sigh, we should give people the benefit of the doubt. what if one of those “out of control” children that you notice at Mass do have a disability like autism or some other disability which prevents the child from learning or acting out social norms. Then you look like a fool for blaming the parents.
And what age are you talking about. It seemed like a lot of people were discussing crying babies. Do you really think that a parent can prevent all the crying at Mass that a child might do, by strict parenting?
R
Renko
Guest
We have the same problem in our church, these little ones scream so loud, we can’t even hear the priest. We had one such family who had three little ones that continuesly disrupted the mass so bad, the priest actually had to stop talking and gave the couple a dirty look before the mother took the kids out in the hallway, and we could still hear them. Unreal! Happy to say these people have left our church because every one was so disgusted with this family, some one left them a message. Now they attend a church across town which is associated with our parish, and they are having the same problem with these people and they are not too happy about it. I’m not saying children should’nt be brought to mass, but only after they are taught what mass all about. We have a nun who wasn’t aloud to go to mass until she was seven years old. 
M
Mamanurse
Guest
So apparently according to you my son with Down syndrome will never be able to attend Mass then. My son is 5 yrs old and still cannot say my name, let alone grasp what it means to be quiet and still when in the presence of the Eucharist. This thread has gotten really disturbing and makes me thankful for the family friendly parish I attend. PeaceWe have the same problem in our church, these little ones scream so loud, we can’t even hear the priest. We had one such family who had three little ones that continuesly disrupted the mass so bad, the priest actually had to stop talking and gave the couple a dirty look before the mother took the kids out in the hallway, and we could still hear them. Unreal! Happy to say these people have left our church because every one was so disgusted with this family, some one left them a message. Now they attend a church across town which is associated with our parish, and they are having the same problem with these people and they are not too happy about it. I’m not saying children should’nt be brought to mass, but only after they are taught what mass all about. We have a nun who wasn’t aloud to go to mass until she was seven years old.
A
ardis3958
Guest
The “what-if” line of thought is really intriguing to me. I mean it’s like an invisible anchored dogchain that exists only in the mind of the person who may be in a position to do something.Sigh, we should give people the benefit of the doubt. what if one of those “out of control” children that you notice at Mass do have a disability like autism or some other disability which prevents the child from learning or acting out social norms. Then you look like a fool for blaming the parents.
And what age are you talking about. It seemed like a lot of people were discussing crying babies. Do you really think that a parent can prevent all the crying at Mass that a child might do, by strict parenting?
- I once saw someone crash an invitation-only party by putting on a trendy hip-hop sort of jacket and cap, grabbed something that looked like equipment from the trunk of his car, and walked straight in through the back door right past security. I wonder if security must have thought, well this must be the DJ so they didn’t even stop him. It’s the same way of thinking, making up an excuse that exists only in your own mind, and the effect is to hold you back from doing something. Because if he really was the DJ, he would have been told that he needs to show his badge to security!
- But it also looks like an excuse to make yourself feel better. The same kind of thing happened in a classroom I was in once, the teacher had a telephone on his desk because his room doubled as his office and he was the school guidance counselor. The phone began to ring and he just reached over and unplugged the cord from the back of it and stuck it under the receiver. One of the students gasped and said, “what if it was an emergency!?!?” That really made me think, because what IF it was? Then I realized this was a case of making imaginary excuses for a pretty straightforward situation. Emergency or not, the call would have automatically bounced to the school secretary. But the kid who said it could be an emergency was only making an excuse for his own anxiety at hearing the phone ring. For him, you always have to rush and answer the phone, because it can always be a potential emergency. It never is, but he lived in a world of imaginary what-ifs that controlled him from the inside.
- But there’s a third story that proves my point. A guy was parking his car on the street and someone came out and asked him to park somewhere else because his own car was illegally parked against a fire hydrant right in front of where the guy was parking and could he back away from the hydrant into that space. So like he was born yesterday the guy pulled away and parked somewhere else … but the other guy never backed away from the hydrant. Turns out he deliberately parked against the hydrant so that he could save the parking space in front of his own house for a guest he was trying to impress, by giving the same fake excuse to anyone who pulled into the space. The guy who gave up the space bought the sob-story without realizing that if the space was empty to begin with then he would have already backed off from the hydrant! People can be so naive sometimes.
Truth be told, it is so rare that any of these imaginary excuses turn out to be right.
Anyway, I’m talking about children of any age. At some point children become self-controlling. It’s different if it’s before or after that point.
F
Faith1960
Guest
I went to Mass this evening and am happy to report that there was no screaming tonight and the cry room had lots of occupants. :clapping: There was a mom (or maybe it was a grandparent) with a little one approximately 7 or 8 months old. He didn’t scream at all, but he did have a plastic toy he kept playing with; one of those things where the baby pushes something and the top pops up, and yes, it was rather loud. It didnt distract me much but I’d imagine it could’ve distracted people sitting right behind them.
At any rate, he never screamed once, but when it was time for the consecration, he did start to fuss a wee bit. Guess what mommy did? She took him out!
At any rate, he never screamed once, but when it was time for the consecration, he did start to fuss a wee bit. Guess what mommy did? She took him out!
F
Faith1960
Guest
Poor little guy. Why are you just assuming he’ll never be able to refrain from screaming during Mass? Did his doctor tell you that?
F
Faith1960
Guest
What if those adults who are being distracted have some sort of disability? Wouldn’t parents who allow their children to be loud look foolish for blaming them for not being able to tolerate the noise level?Sigh, we should give people the benefit of the doubt. what if one of those “out of control” children that you notice at Mass do have a disability like autism or some other disability which prevents the child from learning or acting out social norms. Then you look like a fool for blaming the parents.
F
Faith1960
Guest
LOL. When one child is screaming during Mass everybody who is unable to hear or concentrate should leave while the parents of said child should stay put and let the little tyke scream? Is that really your solution?
J
jilly4ski
Guest
your excuses to to be uncharitable to parents with difficult children are interesting. So do you use the same excuses to look at the couple sitting in front of you who has been married 3 years but don’t have any children and assume it is because they are using contraception?
Your logical fallacy is the same. You are using a generalization (that parents these days tend to be over permissive) and applying it to real concrete people who are sitting in Church with you. Just like the people who judge individual couples who don’t have children.
But I can use a generalization of my own, the rates of autism and autism spectrum disorders are increasing these days (30-60 per 10,000), and you cannot tell by looking at a child if they have these disorders. These children cannot become “self controlling” all the time. Thus you cannot be sure that you are not looking at one of these children when you are looking at a mis-behaving child.
- Status