Cry Room or Playground?

I'm thinking about trying Jen's 7 posts in 7 days link-up. We'll see how this goes with a 2 month old ruling the house. There are a few posts I have been meaning to write for a week or two now and just haven't made or found the time. So we'll see what happens.

So anyways- we have been fortunate to have a fabulously behaved little guy at mass each weekend so far. Our schedule (or lack thereof) has worked out pretty nicely the past few weeks, where he has slept for pretty much all of mass. So people ooh and ah over our sweet little angel, even if he does scream quite frequently at home lately. Anyways, this Sunday our schedule didn't work out so perfectly. We were dressed and ready to go to mass at 10am, which is in fact early for us. We are usually 11:30am or 6:15pm mass goers. Nathan was due for a bottle soon, but we decided to try to go anyways. For the first time yet we walked into church with a screaming baby, banishing myself to the narthex, which is considered our cry room. Dan sat towards the back of church so I could easily slide back into the pew once I got him settled down. So I fed our little guy, and he was wonderful after that. Except, others had sat in the pew next to Dan too quickly for him to stop them, leaving little to no room for me -and Nathan still needed me to bounce him a bit. So I figured I'd just spend a little more time in the narthex, figuring I could still see and hear everything. No biggie... WRONG!

Now before I go ahead and bash cry rooms, I get it. We need a place for when our children are screaming, somewhere to either get in a quick feeding or calm a tantrum. Sometimes kids need that little time out, but I also believe that once we have calmed our children it is best to return to our pew and teach them how to participate in the mass. What I saw today was a zoo and a social hour all tied into one. The best behaved kids were the ones that actually needed the cry room. Their parents were still participating in the mass and doing their best to tend to their children all at once. But there were kids that had to be 5 or 6 running around, pushing cars, and acting like they were at a playdate rather than celebrating the mass. There were even mothers carrying on conversations as if they were supervising their kids on the playground rather than forming their children's faith. That's where I have a problem with cry rooms. They are abused. Instead of using it as a place to regroup and prepare our children to go back in and participate in the mass, it is being used as a playground. My heart just sank as I was surrounded by this chaos. I also quickly found myself passing judgement on everyone around me, which isn't good either. So once Nathan ate and was calm, I stood in the back of the church, where I could at least hear the mass and feel like more of a participant.

After today, I came up with a plan for any future Sundays that I may need to temporarily use the cry room. I really want to limit the amount of time spent back there so that Nathan can get used to being in church and so that I can be selfish and enjoy the mass myself. I know that there are going to be plenty of days as Nathan grows up that he is not going to participate in the ways we hope, and that he is going to misbehave at mass. That is just a part of raising children. But what am I teaching him if he spends every mass in the back, rolling on the floor playing with the other kids? I'm hoping that we can figure out the best ways possible to teach him to behave, participate, and to find ways to deal with moments when he needs to step out. But for now, we are going to try to have a fed and happy baby to avoid that cry room if possible!