Dear Other Parents in the Cry Room at Church

Listen, I know it’s hard. The Catholic Mass is a pretty brainy affair, when it comes down to it. If you know what’s going on and why it’s happening, you can be goosebumpy over every resonant and mystical phrase in the liturgy, which is to say: all of them. But your average three-year-old? Not picking up on it. And a whole hour of sit-and-listen, punctuated only by stand-and-listen, or sit-and-halfheartedly-sing-but-not-so-loudly-the-person-in-front-of-you- might-hear, or kneel-and-resemble-someone-praying—this demands willpower and mental exertion even of grownups. Preschoolers hardly stand a chance.

(Did you know that St. Therese’s parents wouldn’t let her go to Mass until she was like seven? I’m just saying.)

So, okay, I get it. It’s a challenge, having little kids at Mass. And having to sit in the cry room is a kind of purgatory. Actually it’s very much what I imagine Purgatory to be like. You’re thisclose to heaven but stuck outside, hearing snatches of the heavenly choir through tinny semi-functional speakers, surrounded by coughing and sniffling and shuffling and weeping and gnashing of teeth. Oh wait, those were MY teeth doing the gnashing.

See, that’s what I want to talk to you about. I know how hard it is, but listen to me: if I can do it, alone, with my five kids, FIVE, did I mention that?, and one of them is, let’s face it, a little Rain Man (God love him)—if I can do it, where “it” equals keep them relatively quiet and happy without the aid of (a) Fruit Loops, (b) Cheezits, or (c) handheld Happy Meal video game toys that make the same three obnoxious sound effects OVER AND OVER AND OVER—if I can do it, so can you.

Because did you get a look at me? I am Queen of the Wimps. Spaghetti arms, unmanageable hair, scrawny frame overpowered by bulging diaper bag. And it’s not like my kids are walking Precious Moments figurines, even if some of them sort of look like it. There are at least two with SERIOUS attitude. One of whom only sort of speaks English, which: long story. Oh, and another one also only sort of speaks English because she is ten months old.

Also? I don’t like coffee. Ponder the implications of this. No morning caffeine. See what I mean? You, dear Other Parents, you have such an advantage over me. Muscle, alertness, ability to communicate, a two-to-one child/adult ratio.

You can do it, really you can. It’s great that you think Mass is important enough to bring your kids to. I’m glad they’re there, super-glad. But, um, may I just suggest that perhaps there is a difference between “going to Mass” and “sitting in a semi-soundproofed room in the back of a church where Mass happens to be taking place, but fortunately not in a way that interferes with snack consumption or entertainments such as reading Ninja Turtles books, jumping off pews, coloring one’s arms with smudgy markers, or playing video games”?

Tags: kids at church church kids bad parents