When did the crying room become the rumpus room?

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natrix

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My wife and I are lucky enough to have a beautiful eight-month-old daughter. We thought we would do the considerate thing on Sunday and celebrate mass from the crying room in case she… funnily enough, started crying.

I was appalled with what went on in there: five-year-old kids running around between the seats with toy cars playing out some mix between a cop drama and demolition derby, yelling at the top of their voices, and eventually ending up in a wrestling match just before communion. Occasionally one of their fathers would go “sh sh sh” which had little effect.

What is the proper response here?

(a) have a stern word to the offending parents during mass
(b) report the situation to the parish priest
(c) just have our family join the rest of the mass and forget about the crying room?

I’m thinking option (c) because our little girl seems to be an angel in church 😇 (though I’m sure if she makes a noise, some would think “Why isn’t she in the crying room?”)

PS I used to attend a church without a crying room and kids would do similar things in the back rows.
 
Patience is a virtue. I have no doubt whatsoever that somewhwere along the line you child is going to offend someone else. Mine did, and so have every other child I hve ever pobserved for any length of time.

You might keep in mind that people take serious offense fo what most would consider a common sense request. Some of us older people have learened to roll with the punches, but younger ones can get in a huff for any reason or none at all.

I would not want to learn, later, that my comments resulted in someone leaving the practice of their faith. And I say this seriously, as I know of all too many such incidents.

Your child is getting to the point where stepping back out of the main body of the church may be sufficient. I had twins, and never went to a crying room; but at some Masses I was out twice with an offender; I stood just outside the inner doors. Most churhces seem to have them; if not, simply getting up and moving to the back may be sufficient.

And I applaud you for doing something. Some people don’t have enough sense to take a crying or fussing child out…
 
Methinks that
This is your first child
You have forgotten being a 5 year old boy. 🙂

The cry room is whatever the kiddos make it.
Remember the words of Mr. Rogers–“the very same people who are noisy sometimes are the very same people who are quiet sometimes”

Take it in stride and be at peace 🕊️
 
You could try opiates. I believe they were widely used in the form of laudanum during the 19th century to keep children from being children.
 
The fact of the matter is that a lot of parents today do not take parenting serious. Part of being a parent is to correct a child when they do wrong. But it is easier for parents to let their kids run amok. Spare the discipline and spoil the child.
 
LOL there’s an urban legend/joke that goes around to the effect of giving kids cough syrup to make them sleep

DISCLAIMER I am not endorsing this. This is only a joke
 
oh, crying rooms…there is a whole other topic.

Babes in arms, toddlers, and children of all ages should be brought to the Mass.

The voices, noise and commotion of the children is not a bad thing, it is a sign of a living and growing Church.

Christ said, “Bring the children unto me”…he did not add the caveat, “…except those who are crying or cranky or unsettled.”
 
What I learned by experience is if kids find out that misbehaving in church gets them to the “crying room” where they can then do whatever they want, misbehavior happens quickly after the start of Mass.

A crying room should be just that, a room where a child is taken to calm down and then brought back to the pew. Only one parish in all of the ones I’ve belonged to had a crying room and that was set up by a non-Catholic congregation that shared the space with us. I’d never even heard of a crying room in church before 1994.
 
I’d go with option C.

We used to sit in the crying room with our son. We left because he is generally quite well behaved now, and the antics of the other kids in the crying room were starting to make him behave worse. There are a few kids whose parents let them act the way you have described- running around the room, yelling, spilling food everywhere and crunching it into the carpet, etc. Our son couldn’t understand why he was expected to sit quietly when some of the other children were acting like it was a playground. Once, one of the dads tried to get his kids to settle down and the mom said “Oh, let them be, that’s what this room is for”. :roll_eyes:

It was helpful for us when we needed it, but if your little girl generally does fine at Mass, it’s probably better to just ditch the crying room and not deal with it.
 
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natrix said:
My wife and I are lucky enough to have a beautiful eight-month-old daughter.
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Your child is just about to age into the “naughty” category, so be prepared for humble pie real soon. Infants are just about the easiest under-5s to take to Mass.

At some point, one-year-olds just want to RUN, and it may wind up being a huge challenge just keeping the kid in the cry room.
 
Bring your child into church, and let that be your focus.

I’ve never understood why some get annoyed at the sweet sound of a baby crying in public. Um… sorry this child’s pain and discomfort inconveniences you?

I can excuse the young folks who naively think, “Well, my kid won’t have a temper tantrum in public!” (Just wait!) But what grieves me most are those in the church who perpetuate this unwarranted ostracization of little ones.

“Let the little children come to me,” wasn’t a shrouded parable. It was a clear direction from Jesus. From God Himself. Let the little children come.

To that end, the concept of “children’s church” and the transformation of the cryroom into a defacto one ought to be considered among the worst inventions of the last 50 years. Newborn infants, nursing babies, toddlers, well-behaved children, rowdy children — all should be present for the Divine Service.

How else can a child be trained up in the way he should go - how can the little children come to Jesus - if they are kept from him?
 
Xantippe said:
My wife and I are lucky enough to have a beautiful eight-month-old daughter.

Your child is just about to age into the “naughty” category, so be prepared for humble pie real soon. Infants are just about the easiest under-5s to take to Mass.

At some point, one-year-olds just want to RUN, and it may wind up being a huge challenge just keeping the kid in the cry room.
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x2. My 2 year old is an absolute terror in mass. Thankfully, we have a childcare option, but when it’s not available, mass is a great challenge for my wife and me. I’m hoping that within the next few months, she calms down enough where we can bring her into the sanctuary without disrupting the experience for ourselves and our neighbors.
 
Mileage varies, that is all there is to it. Some people are fine in Mass from birth to death and some have to make a sacrifice all their lives in order to focus properly. Most of us fall somewhere between.

I’d say absolutely to have your daughter in the main part of the church with everyone else, if she can do that. Go to the cry room when she’s actually crying and DO NOT let her get down to run around in there. We started in the “cry room” because our children would not sit still for anything. They were either asleep or moving. The problem is that the “cry room” reinforced this idea that church is one more place to run around. We actually tag teamed it to leave them at home for an extended period of time so we could re-introduce them to the main church at a later age.

When they came back, we sat in the front row if they were quiet enough not to distract anyone else. Doughnuts after Mass were contingent upon being able to report something Father said in his homily that was different than what the brother reported. We waited to let them start altar serving until they could truly sit quietly for all of Mass. They were very enthusiastic about altar serving when they were allowed to start, and stayed that way until they hit the “retirement age.”

My theory is this: If your child is naturally capable of being with everyone else most of the time, do that. If you are going to have to make Mass into a battle field every week, then get creative about how you handle it. What you don’t want is a situation where the child can find some advantage in acting up at Mass or looks at Mass as something with all “down” sides and no “up” side–go to the trouble of making sure their dress clothing is comfortable, that it is becoming to them and so on. You want them to hit their First Holy Communion preparation with the idea that (a) they can be quiet and attentive at Mass and (b) Mass has something positive to offer them and (c ) different people get to that point at different ages and it isn’t any of their business what other people are doing.
 
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steido01 said:
I’ve never understood why some get annoyed at the sweet sound of a baby crying in public. Um… sorry this child’s pain and discomfort inconveniences you?
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I am old enough to remember when parents with crying-age children sat near an exit, left for the vestibule as soon as their child started crying and came back when the child quieted down. Other people want to hear the prayers of the Mass and especially the homily (when they cannot fill in what they don’t hear by reading the Missal).

It is rude to stay in church and keep everyone else from hearing the homily. Having said that, yes, I’d say that letting the cry room become romper room is an unfortunate use of the space. It may be inevitable, though, because a parent with a crying infant can hardly leave the not-crying toddler back in the pew alone. When there is one toddler or preschooler running around and having a good time, the others will join in. When the space was used for running around last week, that is how the children will come to see that section of seating in future weeks. I think it is one of those “bad idea but it beats the alternative” things. It needs to be there because some of us need it for at least part of our children’s childhood.
 
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As a father of three children, two five year olds and one three year old, I have to say “I’m sorry” and “I can’t leave the cry room”. It is sometimes very hard to keep children in line,and all I can say,is that spanking them is not always the best option 😀. I am a student of the liturgy, and in ancient churches there is a reason why curtains, veils, walls and screens went up fairly quickly to divide the faithful from the clerics and the altar. I am convinced it was because of rowdy children. So be patient with us, and rest assured, this very real cross that you bear in attending mass with us rowdy families will make you great saints!
 
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danhager said:
As a father of three children, two five year olds and one three year old, I have to say “I’m sorry” and “I can’t leave the cry room”. It is sometimes very hard to keep children in line,and all I can say,is that spanking them is not always the best option 😀. I am a student of the liturgy, and in ancient churches there is a reason why curtains, veils, walls and screens went up fairly quickly to divide the faithful from the clerics and the altar. I am convinced it was because of rowdy children. So be patient with us, and rest assured, this very real cross that you bear in attending mass with us rowdy families will make you great saints!
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Exactly. I come from a family of eight and an era when there were many such. Mileage varies.

I’d say that for the sake of the children and parents who need the cry room, the fewer the families who use it, the better. As I said, too, children ought to be taught to mind their own business about what other families do. That is a good habit to start early.
 
natrix said:
© just have our family join the rest of the mass and forget about the crying room?
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I’d go with the copyright. It is the safer option. 😃

I’d abandon the cry room and go to Mass. The Mass is for the whole family. If the kid starts going nuts then you can take them out for a bit. I can’t say I exactly love a screaming baby, but I’m learning to. I try to think how it means new Catholics. If you have a cry room then some people will think you should use it. Ignore them.
 
Kids are not required to sit still, ever, for anything.

Cry room should be reserved for, oh, crying?

It is not intended to be an isolation room for parents and children.

Child cries, gets fussy, to the cry room to be comforted, fed, changed, rocked then back to the pew. This helps the child learn how to sit quietly for a few minutes.
 
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