Who should run sunday school / junior church

[NoseyNooNoo]

I attend a C of E church. I have a 1yr old and 3yr old neither of whom go to junior church yet but are with me in the congregation. DH attends sporadically (he's Catholic). I really enjoy the Sunday Eucharistic and need this weekly 'spiritual top-up'. I am a member of the parochial council and the Mothers Union.

The vicar, a nice bloke, has been making overtures for me to participate in the running of Junior Church which is run by a small number of mums. They definitely need more adult members. I'd probably be really good at it HOWEVER, I don't want to do it. I go to church on Sunday to enjoy the Eucharist. I don't go to spend most of the time in a seperate room looking after everyone else's children.

I've noticed that the other people who it is being hinted should help out are other mothers of young children. Now, I'm not sure what the point of Junior Church (sunday school) is but I guess it is to bring the younger members into our church which over time helps all of the congregation.

Should it be up to the young mums? How about those children's dads? In a church I'd hazard a guess that most children live with their father and actually in my church there are more dads who attend than mums. Should it just be the parents anyway, how about the rest of the congregation.

Sooner or later vicar will corner me and I'll be saying 'no' but I'm not sure if this is reasonable.

In our church there is a rota of mums and dads - I help out in the creche once a month (my 3yr old DC is in the creche) and have to undergo some child protection training once a year in order to do this. I can therefore stay in the service and listen to the sermon etc 3 weeks out of 4.

There is a creche leader who organises the rota and takes it in turns with another leader to be in charge every week with a rota of mums and dads as helpers.

I agree totally with the OP. When my dcs were young I moved churches because despite volunteering for roles that used my talents, I was only ever asked to do the creche, which I hated, while my friend who is not a mother but loves kids was only asked to do 'adult' volunteering, and my dp was invited to take onprominent roles during the service (which he would have hated).

I now volunteer for things that I love and I can give service thankfully and cheerfully, and with gratitude for the opportunities.

OP, we have this very well sorted in our church (not sure if we have more chidlren than you though so not sure if workable) We have six classes depending on age (baby creche, creche, 3-4, 4-6, 7-11, teenagers) and tbh MOST of the adults are involved at some point in the calender. I teach 7-11 year olds between 1-2 a month BUT we went through a phase where it was 3 times a month and that was Not Good; you need feeding too and I was only attending family service then which was a bit of a waster of time as I spent the whole time watching the DDs. WEsolved that problem by having "leaders" and "helpers" to satisfy the 2 adult role, that meant people didn't have to commit to teaching, just being there and they could always decide to teach after a while.

I can't agree more OP, you need to HIT THE IDEA ON THE HEAD that it is a "mum thing" NO no no; TELL your vicar that won't do VERY explicitly.

I must say, our church is NOT a liberal one but dads are heavily involved with running children's groups. So I have never felt miffed by doing all the "women's work" whilst men get to sit in the service (although I FREQUENTLY get miffed at the fact that as a woman I am forbidden to lead services, but that's a whole different basket of loaves and fishes )

Maybe the answer OP is that you don't just need a few more poeple, you need a LOT more poeple. DON'T get suckered in to taking all the responsibility and missing all the teaching; that is no good for you.

AND another thing, make sure your church has a proper policy on maternity leave for group runners; at ours you get 6 months leave as a group leader/helper and that is REALLY important.

And hang on to those feminist thoughts and shout them LOUD!!!!