To let my 3yo run around shouting in a church...

[alardi]

Obviously not during a service(!).

Here's the scene:
Fine medieval church in a small market town. Sign on church door that says "The church is open to all visitors". It's market day so many people popping in and out to see the architexture, buy a card, light a candle..

I go in with my 3yo DS who likes to run to the back the church, stopping to talk shout about things on the way, then run back to the front area (near the door), where the children's door is so that he can look at books, play with Noah's Ark toys there, etc. He tends to shout when he speaks at all, so from a stranger's perspective, you could say he's running and shouting...

As he runs back, a sour faced old bat old lady sitting in the pews, stands up and shrieks speaks sternly "Excuse me, this is not a playground!"

So I apologised and left...DS kept asking why we had to leave and I said it was because the miserable old hag old lady didn't like children.

But I haven't set foot in the church since, don't want to cause offense, can't get over the feeling that churches are really only for the old and solemn and miserable, not for lively young children.

Or was I outrageous to ever take my unruly DS in, especially as we are contented, resolute unbelievers? I just felt the church was part of DS's heritage and even if we are slack secularists humanists, I didn't want churches/religion to seem like a foreign culture to DC (hence why we used to visit the church fairly frequently).

Haven't read all the posts on here , but pingping, one of yours is ridiculous.
How can you compare a reverent place of worship and reflection with a noisy supermarket??!

I don't look down on mothers with tantruming toddlers. They have to get their groceries and if I happen to catch their eye I usually say something like the world has decided it';s your turn to have one of those days, and offer to help if I can.

Even if the mother seems to be ignoring the tantruming child I just figure that she's trying to teach him that tantrums won't get him anywhere.

Another thing to remember is that as a parent, I really LIKE taking children into church to be peaceful - it gives them time to gather their thoughts/reflect, and it is a bit of time and space away from constant chatter/questions which are lovely, but can be a bit incessant. I remember taking my little brother to York for a day, and taking him to evensong in the Minster because we BOTH needed some quiet time.

Good point, tortoiseshell and one I had not thought of.

Hmm Pingping, they say 'brats', you say 'miserable bitch'...

Of course some 3 year olds are 'exuberant', and v unlikely to behave all the time. The point is, they don't stay 3 years old for the rest of their lives. They grow up into adults who hopefully learn to get along in the world by understanding that other people matter too. They begin to understand this, surely, by the people who love them explaining this concept to them. It then gets reinforced each time they forget it. Just like learning to do anything.

tortoiseshellWasMusicaYearsAgo-i agree.we're not religious but often go into the church for 'thinking time' as its nice and quiet and still after we visit fil or mil graves or 'special place' as dc call them.you dont have to be religious to find churches/places of worship a nice place to think /reflect.

I can kind of see both sides. I used to go to a fab church where the priest wouldn't be bothered at all about crying babies, toddlers in the aisles during service. He did get fed up with a drunken, noisy tramp though and chased him down the aisle in the middle of a service once.

But as a child when my non-believer parents would take me to churches to look at the architecture my parents always impressed on me to behave, whisper, etc as it was meant to be a quiet place and I should be respectful. That people may be praying, etc.

I always managed this.

Its not abot saying that churches should be like mausoleums (sp), etc. More about teaching children that they're not the only pepple on the beach and to think about others. I would not let my DD run round a church. She often goes to the cathedral in town and knows to be quiet.

Agree inependiente.
Methinks the people who are siding with the OP are those who thinks the world revolves round them and their kids. Your kids are your concern, not everyone elses. Discipline them, when necessary!

YABU.

I don't think it's at all appropriate for a child to run about, shouting and yelling in a church, synagogue, temple etc. They're places of reflection, peace and worship.

I think most three year olds would understand if they were asked to pipe down. Or we'd have to leave the church.

I'd never stay in a service with a yelling baby either. I'd take the child outside to establish the problem and deal with it there.

But of course I'd be very sympathetic to parents of yelling babies and shouting toddlers in these venues if I felt that they were doing their best to teach their children to behave appropriately. Obviously the yelling baby doesn't apply there in case I get the pedants jumping at me!

I do find it difficult to have an adult conversation with posters like ping

I also suspect the lady was not commenting on the child's behaviour but on the OP letting him do it. There is a big difference between a child coming into a church, running up the aisle shouting 'Look Mummy' and the mum saying quietly 'Oh yes, let's quietly look at this, and then you can hold my hand and show me something else' and a mum bringing a child into the church so that they can run around (in the OP she says 'he likes to run to the back, then run back to the front'). So maybe her comment was entirely aimed at the OP.

Kitty, have just seen you have six kids. Wow. Hat off to you.
Would you ever bring all of them into a church? - just asking!

My dh has reminded me of the time when my ds1 was under 2, I was pregnant with ds2, and we were invited to a friend's wedding. Ds1 was getting a bit noisy early on in the service, so dh whipped him quickly out, and took him for a drive (it was my friends who were getting married).

Later on, at the reception, we were complimented on how quiet and good he'd been in the church, and replied: "That's because he was in the carpark of Sainsburys."

I would not take very young children and babies to weddings or funerals. They can often detract from the person/people the service is all about.
And what's the point? What do they know about what's going on?

And before anyone leaps down my throat, that's my opinion and I know people sometimes don't have an option but to take them.

We took ours to weddings IF they were invited, and to my dad's funeral - we felt they were old enough (3, 5 and 7) to say goodbye to their Grandad. My mil came specially to look after them with us in church, and at the meal afterwards, then she took them to my mum's house whilst we went to the cremation.

I think they understood what was happening, and we felt it was the right decision to take them at the time.

Gateau, I was at a wedding once where the entire vows and the (no doubt lovely and poignant) reading given by a bridesmaid were totally drowned out by the nerve-jangling sounds of a screaming baby at the back.

Both of the couples mothers and quite a few of the other guests looked round as if to say 'fgs get that baby out of here' but the adoring parents were so in love with their bub that they smiled back at us all as if to say, 'yes, he's ours, isn't he wonderful?'.

If that had been my wedding I would have gone bonkers.

Some people just don't get the whole concept of their own child only being number one to them - they truly expect everybody else to think their baby should rule the world too.

Totally up to the parents, sunny.
Sounds like you have the right approach, ie your DH taking Ds out when he started to create.
I have seen some parents let a baby scream during a wedding service. Awful, I think.

My point exactly, morris.

Of course, some posters on this thread will think the people who looked down their nose at the sceaming baby are "miserable". No, they're just respectful. The service is not about the baby, but about the special couple.

Thanks Gateau! Actually I have had taken some of them into churches at various times. There has been a mass read for my aunt, fourher funeral services, or simply exhibitions in our local church.

I am not a reglar church-goer myself but I have always insisted that they do not talk above a whisper, behave with the greatest respect and understand that it is a place for worship and quiet contemplation

I have five kids and they all go to church every Sunday - sometimes twice!

Please excuse shit typos

I wonder what the OP would have said if her ds was unable to use the slide at the playground because an elderly lady was sitting at the top of it praying. And yet, civic amenities belong to all....

lol brilliant point well made tortoise