And I would also like to point out (god, you lot have annoyed me in this today!!!)
that I am in the CHOIR.
I can't spend the whole service running after the child - that was one reason why CWs offered to take her - because it meant that I could concentrate on singing.
Have you ever been in a church service where one of the very small choir is singing like she's being strangled because a whining whinging toddler is griping every two seconds to be picked up? Have you ever tried to sing nicely and chorally when you're holding a 20lb child?
Have you ever tried to sing nicely and chorally when you're being smacked in the face by a child, or when said child is grunting and whining because they've just decided that water and lunch box aren't enough anymore and what they'd prefer is your boob? (cue child trying to undress you in the middle of the anthem!)
It's not about trying to keep the child under control while the service is in progress - it's about trying to ensure that the "staff" are professional and that they (mainly other choristers [sigh] ) aren't distracted so they can also be professional.
and it's about keeping the child occupied while I can't occupy her.
Most people who come to church aren't in the choir, or aren't members of the staff, so they don't have to worry about anything except their own children and their own enjoyment of the service.
And I refuse to allow Choral and Church traditions to be killed out in the name of "family friendly" - I believe that there is plenty of room for family friendly and traditional - one doesn't have to cancel the other out.
This church has had choral traditions for centuries, and they have always had huge numbers of families (I've got pictures of our choir as late as the turn of this century where there are more than 30 members, at least 1/3 or which are children)
It's about getting people to embrace tradition again, and getting them to come into a traditional church.
The issues facing churches today is not that they're not playful enough, or that they're not exciting enough, it's that my generation was the first generation largely not to go to church as children, which means we now have a generation of parents who have never been to church!
It has always been the case that children came to church because they came with their parents, and in turn ,they became parents who brought their children to church.
In the 60s and 70s, that started not to be the case. Parents started to say "I don't have to go, os I'm not going", and on it went - they didn't take their children to church, so the children didn't go.
and now today's parents are those children that weren't taken to church, so they don't know what it's like to go church - it's not a habit for most people, so of course they won't take their own children - it most likely doesn't even register that they can!
It's not to do with style of church, it's to do with habit and parenting.