When did the crying room become the rumpus room?

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As the mother with a child with severe ADHD, I was happy for that “rumpus room,” and I’m sure other parishioners in the main sanctuary were, as well.

Unless a baby is noisily fussing or crying, parishioners should exercise more tolerance toward little coos and jabbers. And breastfeeding women. And rumpus rooms. For better and for worse, Mass is not a solitary or individual experience. It is to be done as a community, with all of the loving flaws that being in community can bring.
 
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Cry rooms started Beng put in churches in the late 40s and continued until the 70s and 80s. By the mid 90s most people involved in church architecture, both modern and traditional, had realized they were a dumb idea.
To the OP: do NOT use a cry room for a baby or toddler. I cannot stress this enough. With a baby, sit towards the back at the end of the week and accept you will likely have to get up and go to the back of the church or the narthax for a while once or twice during mass. For toddlers, they will never learn how to behave in church if you go weekly to a cry room. My younger brother and his wife did that with their kids and they still could not sit through mass quietly win they were 7.
I served on our building committee for a new church since the day it started (over 10 years). In all our meetings with other pastors who had built churches, diocesan officials, and architects, of all stripes, everyone said the same thing:. Do Not put in a cry room!!! They all had the same reasoning I just gave, and expressed the same problem you gave in the OP.
Lots of different ideas float about regarding church architecture. Our diocese has built a lot of churches in the last 25 years, they know what works and what doesn’t. Cry rooms are a mistake. A mistake to build, and a mistake to use.
 
I had one pastor, when building the “new church”, labeled that room the “Bawl Room”.

Kids will be kids, depending to some extent on what they are taught.
 
Unfortunately this is common nowadays with cry rooms and when you have more babies, it won’t help your older children to behave themselves when the other children are just yelling and playing in the cry room. Try the vestibule when necessary, but the more time in the pews the better. They are more likely to be quiet when they see others being quiet-its a good habit to reinforce early.
 
I recall attending “Sunday School” in my younger years. I remember marching up in front of mass after communion and singing songs like “Let the Children Come to Me” and “He is Lord” then going back to our parents. But I don’t find it very popular in churches today. I think either the depth and resources to continue it have declined OR families with young children don’t bother to come to church anymore.
 
We never used the crying rooms - except in a rare instance where we had to remove a child for a few minutes. We have four children in five years. (Although now, they are 13 to 9, I well remember those early years).

We decided from the beginning to move right up to one of the front pews. (so the kids weren’t just seeing the backs of people) We tried our best to control the young children. We have been thanked by many people over the years for bringing our very young children to mass. From afar, our children were generally well behaved - (although I had to admit to some that they would not have been quite as complimentary if they had sat right behind us.) .

Our kids were not saints by any means. We tried very hard to not disturb others. For each of our kids there was always one mass where I had to take the kids out of the mass and sit on one of entry steps and tell the child that we were going to sit right here until they learn to behave. Eventually, after sitting in silence for a five to ten minutes, the child would beg to be able to go back into church.

before we had kids, and In the early days of our kids, I had volunteered to work in a special program that was bringing sacraments to kids with special needs (autism, downs, etc.). That program was intended to celebrate everyone - and not hide people with differences. Most of that program was outside of church, but then we had a few masses where we celebrated all of our special needs kids. The congregation was always in awe and welcoming of the whole program - and we didn’t sit together as a group, but rather, sat spread throughout the congregation - as an integral part of that congregation.

I learned a lot from that program - and applied some of the methods we learned on my own young children… I do have to admit, that I usually didn’t get to pay close attention to mass itself, as I was always looking out for young children - but the kids learned early on how to behave - and it has paid off, not only in mass - but for other occasions where we expected them to be still for an hour (weddings, movies, etc.)
 
Obviously mileage may vary from child to child. We have been blessed with a (mostly) well-behaved daughter. We could count the times we had to use the cry room. She fussed when the homily got too long that the priest made it his cue to wrap up. 😛 This was when she was under two years old.

People say sit in front so that the children can ‘participate’ in mass. I agree with this notion. We didn’t usually sit in front, but I carried her so she could see what’s going on. I usually explained the mass to her in a whisper. I carried her when going to communion. And when she started to walk, she’d walk with us to communion. Ever since she could walk without holding our hands, she’d walk with her hands crossed to communion. All of this was before she was two.

My point is, it’s amazing sometimes what children can absorb even when they can’t speak or walk yet. I’d say they understand a lot more than we give them credits for. They imitate, so I think being in the pews with adults help to instill how to behave at mass. I imagine the situation might be a little different if my daughter sat with siblings / other children around her.

After mass, though, things may be a bit wild with the younger children (after most of the adults are gone). I think that’s a small price to pay for behaving well during mass. 🙂

Edit: Forgot to add, we also brought books and non-noise-making toys in case she got bored.
 
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Some children are far more high spirited and willful than others. As a father of a very high spirited two year old nothing is more infuriating than hearing “little Elias is soooo still and quiet in church, why isn’t your son?”.
 
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I do not care if they use the cry room or some other designated spot. I have taught First Communion classes where a number of children started attending Mass after First Communion. It is best if they start going at an early age.
 
I never used my parish’s cry room for just this reason. I took my infant to mass when I calculated the best chance she would nap, or right after eating when she would be happy and content to just be held. As she grew, I changed tactics, when she was little we would sit in front so she could see what was going on in the front of church, rather than having to stare at big people’s behinds. If you parish has a children’s mass, take advantage of that. But DO NOT feel bad if your child cries during mass. If you can settle him/her quickly, then there’s no reason to leave your pew. If she falls and bangs her head and is wailing uncontrollably, then a trip to the bathroom may be in order. Don’t let the frowning older folks bully you into thinking you are not welcome at mass with little children. There are just as many of us older folks who love to see the little ones because it ensures us that the church is healthy and thriving. By staying in the cry room and letting them run uncontrollably, the children aren’t learning how to behave in church. By bringing them into the church with everyone else and then teaching them, they will eventually learn to behave as you want them too.
 
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Best response ever.

Our old parish had a nursery fro under 4 yr olds
Nowhere near the sanctuary.
I t was loud and no one cared. If your cry room is such that it can be disruptive, you have other options.
Attempt to control outbursts and remove the child when such occur,
Or worship separately until the child is able to be content for that period of time.

Most people don’t want to do that, so patience, YES, is a big virtue. Your child is too small for this, but it’s a nice thing to think about.

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I guess we were already doing those suggestions in the card unknowingly, except for the part about sitting toward the front. We sat more in the middle, but I carried my daughter so she could see. Or we sat by the aisle so she could pop her head out of the pew and see from there. We still do this even now that she’s nine.

Though with us being in the choir nowadays, she gets the front row seat anyway. 😃
 
My dad was a noisy little boy. He was always being shushed down in church (not a Catholic one) and being punished for his rowdiness, which was worse because he was bored. He came to associate church with a bad experience, and was a near-lifelong agnostic partly because of this. Nowadays many churches have nurseries where children can cry, be fed or just play off some of their excess energy. This might be a good investment for Catholic churches with young children.
 
This is exactly my experience with our little ones.

Parents, sit as close as possible to the front so you child can see what’s happening in the liturgy. They will absorb so very much, even when you think they’re not! If your little ones are rambunctious, still sit in the front, but on the aisle so you can quickly make an escape for a brief time, if necessary.
 
Parents should teach their kids early on to be respectful at Mass.
 
0Scarlett_nidiyilii said:
LOL there’s an urban legend/joke that goes around to the effect of giving kids cough syrup to make them sleep
Click to expand...
This is not an urban legend. The stuff used to be over the counter. Now it is Benedryl that is used, by some.

If it was me, I would approach the pastor about some reasonable guidelines. The cry room belongs to no one parent. Just as it is unrealistic to expect all children to behave like one’s own, it is also unjust to let your kids take it over as they will. Good forbid we have rules of courtesy.
 
The one thing on there is, I’ve never come back once I’ve left with our youngest. He can’t sit still for 2min. I don’t think that I’ve sat through a Mass in 6-8 months. I usually get somewhere around 3,000 steps per Mass.
 
I don’t have children of my own but I have a 5 year old niece. I took her to Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, and admittedly felt rather self conscious when she started talking all the time, asking questions, generally making noise. But then when we went to leave, after a trip to the bathroom, she asked “can we go talk to Jesus again?” and I thought that’s worth it. She’s been bored at Mass and asked to leave, so I’ve taken her to the porch at the back (it’s where most of the kids go when they fuss and they can get loud) I’ve seen children running around the pews etc. after Mass but I dislike when people tell them “Don’t run!” with no explanation. I like to explain to them “This is important because of x, y, z” Plus you know when I was 3 years old I climbed onto the communion railings and shimmied along them like a tree branch…now I’m a reader, and very active in my parish so we all misbehaved at church a little when we were kids I think!
 
When you take a misbehaving child out to another special room, call it nursery or cry room, filled with toys it becomes a reward for misbehaving. Taking the child somewhere to talk to them about why their behavior is unacceptable and then taking them back to the church is teaching opportunity. Taking a child into an empty church sometime during the week when no one else is there and walking him/her around and pointing out the interesting colors and shapes and windows and talking about what will happen at Mass and practicing making the sign of the cross and kneeling for prayer and lighting a candle will go a long way in teaching a child what to expect. Making the child stand and kneel and say “and with your spirit” during Mass is also possible and quite doable…I’ve done these things with grandchildren as young as three who have made it through Mass with no problem. Also, there’s no law against promising a cupcake after Mass for cooperative behavior!
 
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