Totally agree with you. There is a difference with a normally well mannered, well raised child being noisy. Their attention needs to be refocused. There is a BIG difference with a child being allowed to run around, scream and yell and be rude to others. It all comes down to parenting. BOTH parents doing their job. Example: used to lead the music at local Episcopal Church. One family had three daughters. The youngest was allowed to scream out and disrupt everything. Went in for almost the entire service. Not once did the parents go out of the sanctuary with her to not disturb the others. It was so annoying and difficult to focus with a 6 year old screaming out.
I especially like this statement: "But it was inconsiderate of the parents to allow such behavior to go on." I do believe that many parents are trying to do the "gentle parenting" and allowing such things to go on. There are times when you have to do more than "gentle parenting."
Pathetic thing is this parenting style now given the nice nice label of “gentle parenting” has been around since “It Takes a Village” came out and the divorce rates within the Christian church began to skyrocket.
I agree with your criticism of the "gentle parenting" style. However, I am not sure what your reasons are for blaming Hillary Clinton's book for it. I've read it and there's a lot about it I don't like - "No, Hillary. It takes a family" - but its point appeared to me to be that the government should take care of children rather than their parents. It did not seem to be a parenting manual when I read it. Could you please cite places in the book that you believe started the "gentle parenting" trend?
Might go read it. Am I guessing you weren’t an adult during that time like I was. The Clinton administration started us on all the “________ - American” crap, don’t give Johnny a bad grade because it can hurt their self esteem, everyone gets a trophy and drugging up millions of children on Ritalin, et al to make them compliant.
Number 1… As one of those young mothers who raised six children on the third row from the front of the church building… Let me share some information that stuck with me. Many years ago, we were a part of a very small congregation where I asked one of the elderly elder’s wives what she thought about this very situation. She said, “Of course we want children in church, but once your children are keeping other people from worshiping, they need to be taken out and ‘corrected.’ Children should not be disturbing other peoples worship.” I sincerely took this to heart…
Number 2… This past Sunday, during the Lord’s Supper, about 80% of what was said I could NOT hear! There were several families whose children were screaming and banging and causing a huge ruckus! I was praying so hard for these young families to learn how to “parent” their children… There is NO parenting going on! 😔 It was so frustrating! At this point, I was almost in tears… Several of the families have special-needs children…. Guess what…? I have one of those also… People act like these children are animals, and cannot learn to act right and have self-control. Parents, you are doing your children a HUGE disservice! They are smarter than you think… They can learn… Please don’t treat them like an animal. They can learn to sit quietly for a short period of time. At this point it reminds me of the movie, The Miracle Worker. The 1962 version that’s in black-and-white. The one with Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke…
I would encourage all young parents to watch this movie… The 1962 version!
Nothing new under the sun… This has been happening for a long time. I pray that I have the right attitude and can give these young parents grace… But I also pray for these young parents, to grow up their children in the love and admonition of the Lord… 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽✝️✝️✝️
As the one of the two of us who has preached in a small room with a screaming infant, I can tell you that there is no "competing," no matter how loud the preacher gets. If you're saying a screaming child 15' away isn't a distraction, you're just lying to make a point.
Yeah I think the problem with your reaction here is that you’re missing on which side of the balance the lead weight already is. It seems to me like this Church is trying a mild small simple correction to a massive problem that weights on the other side. So this Church‘s statement doesn’t really need balance it needs reinforcement encouragement and here’s how we can go even further with this idea.
No, they’re leaning in to the common trope that church buildings are full of massive jerks. Throwing the faithful under the bus to get the praise of people who don’t care. I’m so sick of it.
Hmmm. Well, all I can say, as someone who had a lot of kids and took them to a lot of churches, that many churches are (not officially but in practice) very anti-child. You have your third or fourth and the pointed jokes start rolling out, “Don’t you know what causes that?” Your wife starts breastfeeding, and she gets dirty looks. You keep your kids in church and a half dozen people come by and oh so helpfully tell you about Sunday School or children’s church.
My impression is that the modern American church is massively anti-child, and if anything is needed, it is on the side of making fun of those who don’t have children.
But my point is that there is an elephant sitting on one side of the teeter totter… and our job should be to kill it. (And eat it, but I’m a former missionary :) ). Our churches are anti-child, and this includes not teaching how to parent.
And not teaching what the role of elderly people should be. When I was a kid, a mom by herself would have an elderly woman come sit next to the kids, or an older girl or even boy from one of the other families come sit with the kids.
And their discipline would be supported by the family and the church.
I agree with what you're saying, and advocated for that kind of practice above. But I think this tweet is a good summary of the problem with that church's messaging:
"When it comes to kids in church, 80% of parents need to hear that their kids are not nearly as disruptive as they think and that they should keep bringing their kids. 20% of parents will inflict their screaming banshees on anyone forever nonstop before they will ever reconsider their terrible non-parenting strategies.
The challenge with these "bring your noisy kids!" announcements is that the 20% for whom they're not written will embrace them and the 80% for whom they are written won't."
I guess that seems to me to be missing about 75% of the church… the ones that don’t have kids.
If I have kids in my congregation that are screaming banshees, then I think I have some sermons on parenting that need to be preached. I want 100% of the kids in the service at all times… along with a room in the back for the application of the board of education to the seat of learning. So, except for those short wisdom breaks, I want them in the service.
And I want to marshal the entire church toward: getting people married, getting married people to have children, getting people with children to breastfeed those children, getting them to bring the children to service, and getting them to have even more children, and getting the entire church to actively support all of the above.
Totally agree with you. There is a difference with a normally well mannered, well raised child being noisy. Their attention needs to be refocused. There is a BIG difference with a child being allowed to run around, scream and yell and be rude to others. It all comes down to parenting. BOTH parents doing their job. Example: used to lead the music at local Episcopal Church. One family had three daughters. The youngest was allowed to scream out and disrupt everything. Went in for almost the entire service. Not once did the parents go out of the sanctuary with her to not disturb the others. It was so annoying and difficult to focus with a 6 year old screaming out.
I especially like this statement: "But it was inconsiderate of the parents to allow such behavior to go on." I do believe that many parents are trying to do the "gentle parenting" and allowing such things to go on. There are times when you have to do more than "gentle parenting."
Pathetic thing is this parenting style now given the nice nice label of “gentle parenting” has been around since “It Takes a Village” came out and the divorce rates within the Christian church began to skyrocket.
I agree with your criticism of the "gentle parenting" style. However, I am not sure what your reasons are for blaming Hillary Clinton's book for it. I've read it and there's a lot about it I don't like - "No, Hillary. It takes a family" - but its point appeared to me to be that the government should take care of children rather than their parents. It did not seem to be a parenting manual when I read it. Could you please cite places in the book that you believe started the "gentle parenting" trend?
Might go read it. Am I guessing you weren’t an adult during that time like I was. The Clinton administration started us on all the “________ - American” crap, don’t give Johnny a bad grade because it can hurt their self esteem, everyone gets a trophy and drugging up millions of children on Ritalin, et al to make them compliant.
A thousand amens!
Two thoughts…
Number 1… As one of those young mothers who raised six children on the third row from the front of the church building… Let me share some information that stuck with me. Many years ago, we were a part of a very small congregation where I asked one of the elderly elder’s wives what she thought about this very situation. She said, “Of course we want children in church, but once your children are keeping other people from worshiping, they need to be taken out and ‘corrected.’ Children should not be disturbing other peoples worship.” I sincerely took this to heart…
Number 2… This past Sunday, during the Lord’s Supper, about 80% of what was said I could NOT hear! There were several families whose children were screaming and banging and causing a huge ruckus! I was praying so hard for these young families to learn how to “parent” their children… There is NO parenting going on! 😔 It was so frustrating! At this point, I was almost in tears… Several of the families have special-needs children…. Guess what…? I have one of those also… People act like these children are animals, and cannot learn to act right and have self-control. Parents, you are doing your children a HUGE disservice! They are smarter than you think… They can learn… Please don’t treat them like an animal. They can learn to sit quietly for a short period of time. At this point it reminds me of the movie, The Miracle Worker. The 1962 version that’s in black-and-white. The one with Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke…
I would encourage all young parents to watch this movie… The 1962 version!
Nothing new under the sun… This has been happening for a long time. I pray that I have the right attitude and can give these young parents grace… But I also pray for these young parents, to grow up their children in the love and admonition of the Lord… 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽✝️✝️✝️
Not much of a preacher if you can't preach over a child crying.
I guess he can always yell, but you'd probably have a problem with that, too.
Why would I have a problem with a preacher raising his voice in a sermon? That doesn't even make sense.
Did I say raise his voice? No, I did not.
As the one of the two of us who has preached in a small room with a screaming infant, I can tell you that there is no "competing," no matter how loud the preacher gets. If you're saying a screaming child 15' away isn't a distraction, you're just lying to make a point.
And he would be more than happy to demonstrate at your congregation this Sunday morning.
My husband has preached for over 20 years and doesn't have a problem with speaking over a screaming child.
Good for him!
As a listener, I'd rather he not have to.
2 Timothy 4:3
Yeah I think the problem with your reaction here is that you’re missing on which side of the balance the lead weight already is. It seems to me like this Church is trying a mild small simple correction to a massive problem that weights on the other side. So this Church‘s statement doesn’t really need balance it needs reinforcement encouragement and here’s how we can go even further with this idea.
No, they’re leaning in to the common trope that church buildings are full of massive jerks. Throwing the faithful under the bus to get the praise of people who don’t care. I’m so sick of it.
https://jackwilkie.co/p/an-alcoholic-goes-to-church
Hmmm. Well, all I can say, as someone who had a lot of kids and took them to a lot of churches, that many churches are (not officially but in practice) very anti-child. You have your third or fourth and the pointed jokes start rolling out, “Don’t you know what causes that?” Your wife starts breastfeeding, and she gets dirty looks. You keep your kids in church and a half dozen people come by and oh so helpfully tell you about Sunday School or children’s church.
My impression is that the modern American church is massively anti-child, and if anything is needed, it is on the side of making fun of those who don’t have children.
I agree with that, and have heard the same. Most churches seem to want below replacement rate families.
But I've never had any issue with someone criticizing the noise, especially when people see an effort being made.
Well, I have, but it is never direct.
But my point is that there is an elephant sitting on one side of the teeter totter… and our job should be to kill it. (And eat it, but I’m a former missionary :) ). Our churches are anti-child, and this includes not teaching how to parent.
And not teaching what the role of elderly people should be. When I was a kid, a mom by herself would have an elderly woman come sit next to the kids, or an older girl or even boy from one of the other families come sit with the kids.
And their discipline would be supported by the family and the church.
We’ve gone really, really downhill.
I agree with what you're saying, and advocated for that kind of practice above. But I think this tweet is a good summary of the problem with that church's messaging:
"When it comes to kids in church, 80% of parents need to hear that their kids are not nearly as disruptive as they think and that they should keep bringing their kids. 20% of parents will inflict their screaming banshees on anyone forever nonstop before they will ever reconsider their terrible non-parenting strategies.
The challenge with these "bring your noisy kids!" announcements is that the 20% for whom they're not written will embrace them and the 80% for whom they are written won't."
https://x.com/HansFiene/status/2028870938758988024
Hmmm.
I guess that seems to me to be missing about 75% of the church… the ones that don’t have kids.
If I have kids in my congregation that are screaming banshees, then I think I have some sermons on parenting that need to be preached. I want 100% of the kids in the service at all times… along with a room in the back for the application of the board of education to the seat of learning. So, except for those short wisdom breaks, I want them in the service.
And I want to marshal the entire church toward: getting people married, getting married people to have children, getting people with children to breastfeed those children, getting them to bring the children to service, and getting them to have even more children, and getting the entire church to actively support all of the above.