Before I had kids, I had a few definite ideas about parenthood. Among them, Az the Husband and I were certain that our children would sit with us in church services, because it was perfectly reasonable to expect a child to sit quietly in church for an hour. Parents just needed to teach their children to sit still.
It’s okay. I can’t stop laughing either.
Predictably, in that spiritual knee-to-the-gut by which parenthood corrects our pride, my first child was an extremely active little girl. By four-months-old, she would not sit in my lap – she danced, instead, bouncing on her little legs, heaving herself forward and backward. By the time she could walk, JellyBean was merely a pastel blur streaking across the sanctuary.
So we recognized we did not know everything about parenting, and we sent her to the nursery until she was old enough to try again.
JellyBean is now almost four, and her two-year-old sister Sweetpea has a milder nature, so I have been trying once again to introduce them to sitting in the worship service. Sunday we tried again.
David danced before the Lord, and presumably God didn’t mind. Good thing, because during every piece of music, my girls stepped into the aisle and danced. Once it was sweetly holding hands, like a gentle round of ring-around-the rosie. Then JellyBean did her best Angelina Ballerina impersonation during the Gloria Patri, standing on her toes in the aisle and delicately raising her leg to the level of the pew. I was relieved to see she was wearing clean underpants.
The children love our pastor, who brings them doughnuts when he visits the house. To them, he is a rock star. So when he walked onto the dais on Sunday morning, he had their rapt attention. Sweetpea was particularly interested in his long clerical robe. She tried to take off down the aisle to get to him. I corralled her back into her seat and she objected loudly, “I want to play dress up!”
We settled down for the pastoral prayer. Sweetpea chattered and I tried to shush her, so she began yelling, “No! I won’t be quiet! I don’t want to be quiet! No quiet!”
And that was the end. I took them out of the service and to the nursery.
I am eager for the day that worship services feel more like worship again, and less like circus-training the monkeys. Even if they’re cute monkeys that Jesus loves.
they’ll be monkeys for a while, i’m afraid, but you deserve kudos for continuing to try and keeping the faith
Oh, I feel your pain. I remember when John and I both got to sit through an entire worship service and sermon, and hear every song, and every word… kind of… it’s getting fuzzy now….
Well, as a good friend of mine likes to say “I was a much better parent before I had kids”.
I am still bribing my 8yo to sit through church with TinTin comic books but these days I am starting to see the fleetingly rare moments of absolute beauty. This past Sunday, my son lay down the over-read comic book, his face focused raptly on our pastor as the sermon was delivered, and a sunbeam lit the edges of his face in just the same angle as when I first lay eyes on his perfect baby face encircled as if by a golden halo.
Those are such great quotes from SweetPea. We had a few peaceful years in church. Now we get to endure Boykiddo slumped in his seat with his arms crossed, rolling his eyes and sighing heavily. Fun.
As a former Catholic, I always thought my taking my kids to church was a near occasion of sin. I was a good girl who cared greatly what people thought. My children didn’t inherit that limitation. I was often tempted to walk out and abandon them. They talked loudly, they whined, they squabbled, they climbed on the pews, they kicked the pews, they scattered cheerios, raisins, books and toys on the floor, they asked to nurse in piercing screams. Our churches never had nurseries. I kept trying different denominations. where people might not recognize us.
Yet my brother Mark was worse. He managed to crawl from the front to the church to the back under the pews. My frantic mom couldn’t find him. My mom once took her granddaughter Mercedes (nicknamed Merce) to church, knowing Merce had never set foot in a Catholic Church. When the priest intoned the prayer, Lord Have Mercy, Christ Have Mercy, Merce protested in a loud voice, No, he can’t have me.”
Oh, I love the mercy story. That is perfect.
‘Circus training the monkeys.’
I am sooo going to use that line at some point.
Bless you for even trying. Personally, I feel selfish about that worship service time. It’s grown-up time, time for me to praise God and be stirred by His spirit without little ones needing my attention. I’d rather have Sunday mornings than any other “me” time.
So they go to the nursery. And we’ll start worshiping as a family when they are able to understand what’s going on.
Last Sunday was Bub’s second time in church – not for the whole service, just for the first twenty minutes or so until children’s church begins. He loved it – he kept looking over at me with a proud little smile and I was amazed at his apparent grasp of the fact that this is a privilege, a rite of passage on the way to becoming a big kid.
I have no problem with him leaving before the sermon – I figure at this age it makes more sense to let them join the congregation for the parts they can benefit from rather than using church as an excuse to teach sitting skills. (This, of course, from the mother of a child who is already notorious over there for his LACK of sitting skills.)
We tried too…and thought that we finally mastered it when Ty-Baby snuggled quietly into my husband’s shoulder.
He threw up a second later.
We keep Sean with us during services, because we have these ideals and dammit, we are stickin’ to them. He does fairly well, but even at that it’s not really worship for me – it’s more like a juggling act of Goldfish, sticker books, crayons, other entertainment. If we had more than one, I’d probably go to the nursery during services and lay/lie/prostrate/whatever down.
I always leave church VERY sweaty. It’s not pretty.
We haven’t even tried to find a church since we moved – we’d only end up bouncing the baby on the church steps and not hearing anything anyway. Sigh. Our last church had a “children’s mosh pit” where they cleared out the pews and put down carpet so you could sit on the floor with your kids. I miss that.
Oh my, we can relate.
Have you ever read “Parenting in the Pew”? Really a great book.
Well, at least you have the nursery option. I have yet to see one here. Which may explain the big cathedrals with only a handfull of old people on most Sundays…
The Baby only attends maybe every fourth service. The rest of the time, she and daddy hang out unchurched at home.
“Parents just needed to teach their children to sit still.”
Aaah, yes. This was one of the many things that I had all figured out before I had kids. It’s so easy, right? Just teach them to be still! (Insert hysterical laughter here.)
“I am eager for the day that worship services feel more like worship again, and less like circus-training the monkeys.”
Amen, sista’.
[...] Oh, yeah, I can relate. [...]
i have fought long in hard in several congregations I’ve been a part of about the necessity of having a nursery so that parents can enjoy worship. It’s amazing how many churches say they want to attract young families and then are unwilling to staff a nursery.
The description of your dancing children made me think of the song Lord of the Dance (not to be confused with Michael Flatley), a song that I love so much, it was part of my wedding.
All I’m saying is today our morning worship entailed a back-flip from our three year old – scaled right up my cords and flipped himself over.
It also entailed him instructing the pastor not to lift up the newly dedicated baby (no up! no up!) and encouragement for the congregation to clap, pat, clap, pat (little einstein style) for the baby to “get back to his daddy!”
I’m just relieved when he is using his indoor voice & oh so thankful when our peanuts are blessed on their way to Sunday School – where he instantly becomes shy, retiring and clings to my leg pathetically…sigh.