I'm someone who actually enjoys going to church. I like the spiritual fuel, I like the community feeling, I like the tradition, I like the routine, I like all of it. Granted, I like it a whole lot more now that we're back in Milwaukee and going to our old church where I enjoy listening to the priests and feel good about what they're saying. However, I honestly do like it.
Unfortunately, that's changing. Bringing our son Philo to church has made it more of a chore than it was before. He's fourteen months old and is a highly active, high-energy, extremely curious kid. He doesn't stop moving and exploring when he's at home, and he doesn't see any reason to stop once we enter the church. Our church has a small crying room and we just sit in there, and usually Mass is hectic, but do-able.
Today the crying room was extra-crowded and there were a few little babies who were at the crawling stage. Philo was being nice, but at fourteen months he isn't capable of understanding how to be careful or avoid stepping on a baby's hands. Mike and I left the crying room before he could trample one of the babies. After it became clear that he couldn't sit still in the pews or confine his explorations solely to the church foyer, Mike took him out to "God's crying room" (a nearby park). I followed them soon after.
I was frustrated. Other parents, including some of my friends, get their kids to sit through Mass and they piously tell me that it's necessary to get kids out there in the pews so they can get used to sitting there. But those kids, I think, can be bribed to sit still with food or toys. Philo doesn't care about food or toys. He cares about RUNNING. I suppose I could force him to sit, just hold him down until he stops crying, but that wouldn't be pleasant for the other parishioners or for Philo. And it wouldn't be fair to him, either. He's not bad, or undisciplined, he's just energetic. As I walked to the park I mulled over how unfair it was for Catholicism to expect us to have a bunch of kids and then make it so freaking difficult to get through Mass with them.
I talked with Mike about what might be going wrong. Were we bad parents? Was Philo a bad kid? Why didn't we see other kids like him, kids who wanted to run and shout during Mass? Even the kids in the crying room were pretty quiet and content to sit. Was something wrong with him?
My mom called after church and I asked her how on earth she kept us contained in church when we were Philo's age. She confessed that when we were toddlers our family just didn't go to church - in fact, we took a church hiatus until my youngest sibling was about two or three years old. She said that sitting through Mass with toddlers was just impossible. She then said that my grandparents, the two most hardcore Catholics I know, didn't take their kids to church during the toddler years either. Instead one parent would attend the early Mass and one would attend the later Mass, leaving the other parent at home to care for the kids.
I began to suspect that I knew where the kids like Philo were - they were at home.
I don't know what to do to fix the problem. Actually, I do have one idea. One of the parish churches has a big hall downstairs, and the few times I've been there with Philo I've thought about how nice it would be to have a PA system down in the hall so I could hear the Mass while watching Philo dash from one end of the hall to the other.
No amount of discipline is going to make it pleasant for a highly active toddler or the toddler's parents to sit through an hour-long Mass. The church should find a way to make it easier on the parents, otherwise parents with active toddlers will just keep staying home.
2 comments:
Liam crawls along and under the pews and occasionally has to be returned from the row in front of us. He also comments on the music, the candles and the truck decals on people's jackets at the top of his lungs. He drives his firetruck down the communion aisle on his hands and knees and drives his cars up and down the arms and legs of whoever he's sitting near, with appropriate truck commentary like his vrooming noises as loud as can be despite encouragement to use his whisper voice. The few other small children at the early service more or less sit in their parent's lap or sleep on their shoulders. But, Father is always glad to see us and always has something nice to say to Liam. So we go whenever its realistically possible. I recommend sitting in the same spot every week. And maybe up front. He can see the candles and bells better from there. The people who stay to sit by you will be friendly and will help corral Philo when he gets away. Anyone who thinks kids should be quiet and contained will sit elsewhere. We potty trained Liam when he started shouting that he was poopy in the middle of mass last fall. That was my limit :O)
oh and he can now sing Al-lei-lo-ia loudly and at totally inappropriate moments - but people seem to think that is cute.
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