Dear Sister Sunday,
I can hardly write this for crying. I went to Mass this morning, a weekday Mass, with my toddlers. I needed guidance and encouragement for a difficult situation I’m facing. I like to sit near the front with my kids because I think they behave better when they see what’s going on. The kids were squirmy, like toddlers are, and making noise, but they weren’t yelling or crying or throwing tantrums. If they had been, I would’ve walked to the back of the church, or outside, until they calmed down. They were just acting like toddlers. Three different people frowned at us and shushed my kids. Of course, the kids didn't pay any attention, but I was so embarrassed. Couldn't they see I was trying to keep the kids quiet while also praying and paying attention to the Mass? Nobody offered to help me, and, believe me, even a smile of encouragement would have been really helpful. I started crying, picked up my kids and left. I’m just devastated. What should I do? And, maybe more important, where should I go?
Signed, Heartbroken
Dear Heartbroken,
I remember when I had my first three children, all under the age of four. We were an unwieldy bunch, someone always wet or hungry or crying or spitting up or deciding to sing “The Itsy-Bitsy Spider” as a solo number. (And I would later have a fifth child who liked to lie on the floor during Mass — don’t ask me why — and inquire from time to time, “What’s God doing now?”) You can see why I told an older friend that I hated to bring them to Mass because they didn’t always behave.
I will always be grateful for her wise advice. She said, “Well, they’ll never learn to behave in church if you don’t bring them to church. You wouldn’t expect them to know how to sit at a table and use good manners if you didn’t bring them to the table every day where they could watch people getting through an entire meal with out flinging mashed peas on the floor.” She knew where my children belonged: in church. We don’t tell our babies that we will bring them into the life of the house as soon as they are able to make their beds and help with the dishes. No. We know that they learn to be members of a household — or the household of faith — by living in one and watching others and making plenty of messes while they learn.
So, in answer to your question: baptized Christians — even the smallest — belong in church. With us. And you.
My mother retired and came to live near us the summer before our fifth child was born. In the course of the 23 years she was either nearby or in our home, I had time to reflect on incontinence, a state of both young, and old, age. And the age of continence — which we in our foolish pride believe to be permanent once we have attained it — is actually brief. Helplessness is our fate, at the beginning and at the end of life, and that realization ought to help us be more tolerant of human failing. Because on the adult end of the spectrum, for example, people suffer strokes and develop dementias, conditions which can lead to toddler-like emotional outbursts. Still we all know these afflicted men and women are brothers and sisters still, our brothers and sisters, members, like us, of the Body of Christ.
I recognize the need of caregivers to make sure that the people them around aren’t prevented from hearing or participating in the Mass because of the outbursts of the people, whether children or adults, in their care. But, if, as you write, the toddlers were doing what toddlers do: squirming, babbling or announcing the urgent need to go potty, then I am saddened that anyone would want to to discourage their presence at Mass. Personally, I love the sound of babies and children in Mass. It is the sound of life, the abundant life Christ promises and invites us to embrace. And I am not alone. Though you mentioned the three shushers, you did not mention the others who were at Mass. I'm betting you had more friends around than you know.
You write that you are facing a difficult situation. I'm sorry. I know it's hard. There were probably others at Mass facing difficult situations, too. Maybe the frowners and shushers are bearing heavy burdens. I'm guessing that if you could talk with anyone of them you'd discover that there's more to the story. There usually is.
Whatever happens, please, please, keep coming to Mass with your children. They need us and we need them. They are part of our body, the Body of Christ, and it does grave injury for any part of the body to be severed from its whole.
And, if you’re out Sister Sunday’s way, please come to my parish for Mass. Bring the kids and sit by me. I’ll bet I have some Cheerios in my purse.
Bless you,
Sister Sunday
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