Loud Child in Church

[Difficile]

We go to a child friendly Church, with lots of families including Ben and his four children. Three of the four go into kid's groups, but the youngest (2), refuses to leave her Dad and wants to stay in the service.

Fine.

Except, Ben then doesn't parent his daughter, Abby, he leaves her to (usually female) friends in the congregation to cope with. Last time he left Abby with her godmother, Jane, who is lovely, but has 3 small children of her own, including twins (3) and a small baby, and her husband took all their kids to the Sunday School, including the baby, to give her a break for an hour.

Abby is very boisterous, loud, and she wants to be played with throughout the service. Jane tried her best to keep Abby quiet, but Ben doesn't bring anything with him to entertain her or feed her (I have also looked after her one week), and try as she might to tell Abby to be quiet it made absolutely no difference.

Jane was clearly embarrassed and flustered, but Ben seemed to be studiously ignoring the fact that Abby was disrupting half the Church. Jane is very quiet and won't say anything about this herself, but she mentioned to me that she felt guilty and upset after last week as she knew how loud Abby had been.

WIBU to say something to Ben this week about essentially using friends as free childcare, and ask that he takes Abby out when she's making too much noise?

WWJD?

Either the other people need to stop agreeing to take care of Abby (and maybe lose Ben and family), or they need to find a way to support Ben, who seems like he needs a break. Maybe he needs a visit from one of the church pastoral people to see what kind of support he has an if they can help? If this is the only break he gets, maybe some sort of arrangement can be made? I'd hope they'd do the same for a single mother as well.

Church is supposed to be about community and church 'families' should be there to help one another and carry each other's burdens. If people are more concerned that their weekly worshiptainment is being disrupted, they need to do some soul searching, I think.

That's fair enough. I do think it's very much dependent of the vicar though. An experienced vicar who knows their congregation well is very likely to pick up on even small issues as they can read people well - but I do certainly agree that having a quiet word in their ear about something after the service is a good idea. Obviously, I don't think they're psychic or superhuman :-) (That said, my blind grandfather - also a vicar - once took one of his 'flock' to one side for a chat after a service as her singing was slightly less noisy than it usually was. It turned out she'd lost her cat that morning. But he definitely was one of a kind, bless him).

He's a single father of four. He's probably exhausted and close to breaking point, not idle.
I agree with a PP, a bag of toys and snacks to keep any
noisy kids entertained would be useful, and ask Ben to contribute to the contents.

Is there a children's area with toys? I'm not sure why Jane is getting flustered, do people turn an stare? They know she isn't the child's mother or carer so why would anyone assume she was responsible?

Personally, I would speak to Jane and reassure her that this isn't her circus and no one is blaming her. As for Ben the circumstances are difficult and the last thing you want to do is lose him and Abby from the church. A better go ahead is for everyone to ignore it, she's two, two year olds can be like this and she will grow and settle. Otherwise if it concerns you that much then maybe invest in some paper, crayons, quite toys as a donation to the church or better yet get the church to invest in some quite bags. Sunday school isn't for every child and two is very young to be in there anyway.

That's my thoughts too. He's probably shattered in more ways than one if he's recently widowed and trying to function with 4 kids.
He's tried to settle the LO into Sunday School but couldn't do it and he was missing the service.
He probably desperately needs his faith right now and he church pushing him away or pushing him harder could just push him over the edge - where else does he turn?

Can Jane sit elsewhere? Away from Ben and his daughter.I had this at my church when I sat with other parents and ended up being distracted by children to the point where I missed a lot of the service. I went and sat with the old folk on the opposite side of the church. Totally different experience and gave me the time for contemplation and reflection that I had been missing out on.

You sound like the awful woman that complained to the priest about babies crying at my local parish church. There are more god awful people like you? Excuse the pun!

Can I just add to this, that I've also looked after Abby on occasion, including being a helper in the Sunday School group she would go in to and have said that I'd take her in to the group with me. I'm not just some busy body bystander.

We are a very large church with over 70 regular children attending so they can't all be in church all the time, and due to an influx of babies recently we even have a baby crèche where under 2s can be left.

I'm not saying it's wrong that Abby stays in the service, and we all help as much as we can, but we also can't tell Abby off or request that she's quiet in the same way a parent can, and whilst it is advertised as a child friendly service, we (I also have 2 young children) are all being encouraged to send our children to the appropriate groups so we don't disturb everyone.

Poor kid. She's probably miserable and bored being forced to go to church every Sunday. Ben should grow up and take his children somewhere nice on a Sunday until they're old enough to decide whether they want to attend church.

a baby crèche where under 2s can be left.

And how many of those under 2s have lost their mother? You are still framing this as a problem rather than an opportunity to show love and support for someone in a hard situation. I think you need to pray about your own attitude rather than worry about someone else’s.

i think kids in church is unreasonable full stop as they can’t consent to act of worship etc, religion is an adult choice and adults shouldn’t try and confer it on kids.?

Sorry missed that Ben was a widower with four kids. In which case, every ‘Christian’ in that congregation should be supporting not judging. Ideally he wouldn’t bring kids who are too young to make up their minds about religion to church but given him circumstances you should all wrap your arms around him, otherwise literally what is the point of your ‘church’?

They're not worshipping at that age. Most of them already believe in fairies and goblins and father Christmas so what's another fairy tale? And they get to socialise while their parents daydream quietly in the pews.

I'm more concerned that people are forcing religion down kid's necks by taking them to a church. Wait till they are old enough to make their own decisions before trying to indoctrinate them. Any disturbance they cause it's a good disturbance.

It is STILL none of your business.
You claim not to be a busybody, but that’s exactly what you are being. Keep your beak out of other people’s business.

Trust me it won't indoctrinate, them I was brought Up RC went to a very holy convent primary school had nuns as teachers ,went to church e very Sunday
I'm agnostic at best now
I dint know anyone I went to.school with who still practices, so they didn't do a very good job of indoctrination
That said people are allowed to have religious beliefs if they wish and bring their children up as they see fit.

Well its like anything you see it as the norm
I went ti church every Sunday as a child as did most of my school friends my Brownie ,and guides group were all attached to the church I went to I had a great childhood
I'm a very lapsed Catholic as an adult but I have very fond memories of the community .

Do you have the same concerns about parents passing on their culture, language, exercise and eating habits, or adherence to the law or morals?

What did the pastor/vicar say when you asked them to speak to this parent about the sermon being constantly interrupted and distracted by this child every week and other people not being able to enjoy it?

You do of course realise you are' forcing' your lack of belief on your children by not taking them to church. What is the difference? My kids went to church every week from the week they were born. None of them attend regularly now but it certainly did them no harm. They had a sense of community. They got to sing a lot. They mixed with people of all ages and had a whole raft of different generations of people caring for them.

The sudden influx of the bitter type of atheist - the mention of church is like a dog whistle. Your personal beliefs or lack of them have nothing to do with what OP is asking and you're derailing the thread.

It’s really none of your business how a parent chooses to raise their children, I was raised catholic and thankful as it’s made me and my children accepting and tolerant of others, you should try it

I agree it depends on the ‘disruption’. It’s great to have kids at a service. Our church has a corner for children to play in and no one cares when there noise…until something significantly disruptive happens. We had one lad who crawled under the pews and kept shoving people out the way and kept shouting so loudly we couldn’t hear the vicar over the microphone. There comes a point where it’s no cute.

Ben probably needs that hour of relection and prayer to get him through the week. I imagine it's where he feels close to his DWife and gives him faith the future will be ok.

This is what I never understand about ‘child friendly’ services where the children are so disruptive that the ‘service’ bit is redundant. I don’t know why parents can’t see that there is a fine line between the congregation tolerating a bit of child noise and toddling around, and disrupting the whole thing. As a regular church goer it does piss me off. I sat through one service recently where one grandma was encouraging a small child to loudly shout and squeal even though we were praying. Why? Why bother coming?