This past weekend I was asked to attend a baptism for one of my favorite neighborhood children. I do not belong to the same church as my neighbors, but I did not want to miss this huge day in her life. Other than the neighbors I did not know anyone, so as I entered their church I took a seat in the back. I did not mind sitting in the back by myself, I did not mind the looks I received from the dozens of other attendees, and it did not bother me (too much) that I was so completely out-of-place. What did bother me, however, was that during the prayer, the several talks, and even a piano solo, many young children were either crying or screaming the entire time.
I would look over at the numerous parents with the whiny children and they appeared to be oblivious about the badly-timed antics their own children were making. I could not get the screaming, crying, and whining out of my head; however, the parents seemed to not be affected in any way. I wondered how the parents were able to ignore the horrible sounds so many of the children were making. Does it take practice? Are the parents so used to the behavior of their child that they are able to easily tune it out? Someone help me understand!
After 1 1/2 hours I left the church building, gave many hugs to my adorable little friend, and went home. I was exhausted. I did not attend the festive lunch being provided to celebrate the occasion because I was perplexed by the entire situation. What could have been an inspiring and sweet event was tainted by the tears, screaming, and incessant whining of a dozen children. I would have taken my child out in the hall so that the rest of the audience could enjoy the event; however, it appeared to be an acceptable practice of ignoring your child and still be able to listen to what others are saying.
I guess I have become one of “those mothers” who talk about how they would have reacted, and what they would have done in the same situation. I always laughed at the thought of becoming a cliche’, but after this experience I wear that badge proudly.
Amber Dixon is the owner of Amber Gold Marketing, a marketing and public relations consulting firm. Although she has always loved the marketing industry, her first love is being with her family. She has been married for 14 years and has an 11-year-old son who reminds her of the important things in life. Amber has also been “adopted” by 8 neighborhood children as their second mom and enjoys making snowcones for them, blending fresh salsa with ingredients from her garden with them, and working on projects like paper mache’ and homemade cards.
I knew, even before seeing where you live, what church you must have been visiting.
And here I tried to keep it generic. :-) I guess it is more common than I thought.
I grew up in it. I have family still in it. They are all like this.
Let me guess, Catholic? I have heard that they tend to be completely tolerant of crying children. At the church I go to, parents tend to run out the back with crying or whining children.
Usually they have a nursery, at least most of the churches I've been dragged to.
Here's a funny story. I once visited a very large Catholic church that had a glassed-in mom-baby room in the balcony so that new mothers could see the service without the rest of the congregation hearing their babies. Mid service there was a loud wham, wham, wham sound. Two thousand heads slammed to the left and saw a baby banging a rattle against the glass. A mortified mother ran and whisked the baby away. I just thought it was funny that this baby figured out how to beat the system.
*snort*
No. But similar. I am finding that this is rather common; however, I will never understand it. I think parents should be respectful enough to the other individuals in attendance to step outside until the child is calm enough to return. From what I understand, speakers are placed in the lobby so that parents do not miss anything.
It's true – the very few times I've gone to church, I've taken my kids to the "kid" room. You can hear perfectly in there.
I have a theory for this: the parents know the children won't pay attention if they are admonished. Thus, the parents keep quiet, figuring one humiliation is better than two.