Why don't (more) Catholic Churches have nurseries?

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chessnerd321

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Basically the title. I grew up in a smaller Protestant church, maybe 150 people, but we always had a couple people who would watch the kids under 5 for the congregation.

I get that Catholicism adds some extra layers of complexity, like those volunteers would have to find another mass to attend, or at least would probably want to and we do value kids at mass. But so many people here say those kids can’t do mass, totally understandable. But then they take turns going to mass with a spouse. If there’s even 3 or 4 couples like that at a parish starting a nursery would allow them to share mass with their spouse about 50% of the time.

Why have I never been to a Catholic church that does this? Am I just ignorant and many do, or is there some good reason? (I don’t have kids so I could be ignorant. But I usually read the bulletin so if it’s a thing it’s some sort of secret.)
 
In my experience, the Church wants the kids to be at Mass with their families, participating in the Mass to the extent the kid can do it. The Church doesn’t really want the kids shunted off to a nursery while Mom and Dad go to Mass. Generally by about age 4, give or take a year, most kids are able to handle getting through a Mass in the pew with their parents. In the parishes where I’ve seen a children’s Mass activity involving the children going off with a volunteer during part of the Mass, it’s generally just been for the homily; the kids get a child homily and pictures to color, or something like that, while the adults listen to the regular homily, and then the children are returned to their parents for the rest of the Mass.

The historic Catholic preferred strategy for dealing with noisy or rambunctious children at Mass was to have a “cry room” where parents could sit with their kids. Post-Vatican II, a lot of churches did away with the cry rooms on the basis that they separate families from the rest of the congregation, which was seen as undesirable. I have noticed that some traditionalist parishes still use the cry rooms and that in other places they have been brought back, but it’s the parent’s choice whether to use them or sit somewhere else with their kids.

I think there’s also a logistics problem at many of the larger Catholic churches in that we tend to have a lot of young children attending the Mass and there would be a lot of liability concerns nowadays with volunteers watching people’s very young children during Mass. Unlike a small Protestant church, Catholics at a sizable parish likely don’t all know each other and parents are not going to want to just hand their small children over to the care of some volunteer they don’t know very well. The required ratio of caregivers to young children, or the limitation on care group size, might also be hard to meet if a parish has lots of young families.
 
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I appreciate the comment, and as usual you make some good points. I just have a couple follow up questions. You say that we want young kids at mass. And we do. BUT based on what I see on this forum, many (most?) couples end up deciding that they simply cannot take their kids to mass and end up taking turns. With that in mind it seems like not having a nursery ministry is more about saving face so we can stand by our values rather than meeting practical needs of parishioners. Is that simply not as prevalent as this forum suggests? If it is I can’t help but feel we’re failing to meet a need.

Also, your point about size of parishes and stranger danger is well-taken. Especially in a Catholic church these days. But I looked up several of the Protestant megachurches in my area. All have an active nursery ministry according to their website. It actually seems like a good way to connect young families together, even if it’s awkward at first like many relationships in life.
 
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chessnerd321 said:
BUT based on what I see on this forum, many (most?) couples end up deciding that they simply cannot take their kids to mass and end up taking turns. With that in mind it seems like not having a nursery ministry is more about saving face so we can stand by our values rather than meeting practical needs of parishioners. Is that simply not as prevalent as this forum suggests?
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It’s not as prevalent as the forum suggests. Many young families WANT to have the small children with them at Mass. Many priests WANT the small children to be at the Mass if at all possible. We have had heated discussions about this before on the forum when somebody complained about being distracted by children crying or misbehaving in the Mass.

The recent specific thread where I told someone that maybe they and their husband should continue taking turns going to Mass while one stays home with the child involved a mom who had an overly active child and also had some illness or physical disability herself and couldn’t handle dealing with the child at Mass and in fact seemed to be worried that she was violating some Church precept by not taking her overly active very small child. She seemed happy to be told by a couple of people that she did NOT have to bring the child to Mass. I would not have suggested that if she hadn’t been sounding like that was her preferred solution, because many if not most parents of young children on here get affronted when someone suggests their kids don’t belong at Mass.

If my childhood parish had had a “cry room”, my mother and father would have gone together with me and sat in there. I can almost guarantee you my mom wasn’t going to be handing off her very young baby to any church sitter. She had been raised pre-Vatican II and expected every church to have a “cry room”.

Another consideration is that Catholic Mass lasts only one hour and the homily is usually quite short. At Protestant churches, the service can last much longer, preaching is often the main part of the event (so it’s important to be able to concentrate on the talk) and there are often family activities happening in connection with the service. It is not like a Catholic Mass where the idea is to get people in to fulfill Mass obligation and then usually they leave right afterwards.
Also, your point about size of parishes and stranger danger is well-taken. Especially in a Catholic church these days. But I looked up several of the Protestant megachurches in my area. All have an active nursery ministry according to their website.
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Look, if you think this is a great thing for Catholic churches to offer, I would suggest you volunteer to do it and pitch it to your pastor. There may be insurance or other regulatory reasons why he would decline. or else he might say, “Great, go do it.”
Or he might tell you that he prefers to have the little ones at Mass if they can be there at all.

I’m bowing out of this thread now, it’s turning into another one of those “why can’t Catholics be more like Protestants?” threads that we seem to have over and over. Good day.
 
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Cost, in many states if you are not “grandfathered in” a new nursery has to meet specific standards for child care.

Staffing. It can no longer be whomever wants to volunteer and their teenagers. If it is a Parish nursery, all of the safe environment regs must be followed (and this is a GOOD thing). To get even paid workers on holiday weekends is near impossible. No one wants to be over in the nursery on Easter or Christmas.

Few Catholic will use it anyway. Around here, that was the great idea a few years back. We hired a director, jumped through state hoops, only to find that it is used by 3 children (we have several hundred parishioners at Mass each weekend). Catholics just did not “grow up with” nurseries.
 
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There are Catholic parishes that have nurseries. And some have preschool for those who are approx. 3-5 years old. My parish has both, at least for some Masses.

But I think “traditionally” (and “traditionally” is going to vary from time to time, culture to culture, and place to place) parents either left the children at home or took them to Mass and dealt with the noise.

When I was young (late 50s, early 60s) my parents traded Masses. That was what my parents considered “normal”. Once there were more of us, and those of us who were older were in school, we often went as a family. But one or another of my parents was often in the back with a child who couldn’t sit through an entire Mass. When my youngest brother who is 11 years younger than me, came along, our family seemed to have a second round of Mass trading. By the time he was 3, my parish had implemented a preschool, and he went to that.

None of the parishes of which I was a member had crying rooms (those started popping up in the 1960s/1970s, as I recall; a number of nearby parishes put them in) but my current parish church is designed in such a way that a child who has difficulty sitting still can move around without disturbing others.
 
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This is very interesting. It seems the answer is generally just “people don’t want it because they didn’t grow up with it”. And that’s perfectly fine. I just find it surprising. Thanks everyone.
 
My parish has a nursery in the rear with a huge plate glass window so they can see the Mass and a speaker so they can hear the Mass.
 
We have that, it is a “cry room”.

We also have a nursery. It is like day-care. You have to register your child, the nursery is staffed by screened professionals who will care for your child while you go to Mass.
 
Most people would define a church nursery as a place that parents LEAVE their children in the care of another so they can attend Mass without them.

I suppose the nursery could be in a glassed off room with a view of the nave but if that is what your parish has, it is the first that I’ve known about.
 
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I suppose it would be possible to have a “communal cry room” where a few parents watch all the kids and still get to attend Mass. That sounds like a madhouse!
 
chessnerd321 said:
I suppose it would be possible to have a “communal cry room” where a few parents watch all the kids and still get to attend Mass. That sounds like a madhouse!
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The biggest problem I see with that idea is if a child sees he is in the some general place as Mommy and Daddy then he will make a bigger fuss than ever. It’s been my experience that most children will fuss and cry when their parents leave them with someone they know but will get over it after a few minutes. But if they are aware of their parents being nearby they will continue to cry for the parents.
 
Cry rooms ARE madhouses. That is why many parents avoid them.
 
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I’ve always called it the nursery. However, it might also be called a ‘cry room.’ Either name you call it, we have it.
 
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