The Long Walk: Simple Strategies For Struggling Parents in Mass.
We all remember the scene in Star Wars when the officers on the Death Star line up in rank and file to welcome the dangerously evil Darth Vader. The commander in charge takes a big nervous gulp of air as the ramp opens up and steam sprays out from the Vader’s galactic space ship, queue Vader’s music. Dum dum dum, dum-dum-dum, dum-dum-dum. The camera starts on Darth Vader’s feet marching down the ramp and then spans up to show him in all his evil majesty. That was a long walk for everyone on the Death Star. That is not the long walk I am referring to in this title, however. The long walk I am referring to is the walk of shame when your child is wailing at the top of their lungs in the middle of Mass, and you are doing everything in your power to get to the safety of the Narthex (that space in the back of Sanctuary just on the other side of the doors). If you have kids, I guarantee you that you have made this walk of shame before. If you don’t have kids yet, just wait. And if you have kids that are older, at least you can resonate and empathize with what I am saying and smile as you remember the good old days.
My most intense walk of shame (I have had many of them) happened last year, during the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Our youngest of 5 kids was about 2 1/2 years old at the time. He is generally a good boy and mild mannered during Mass, but, as all 2 year olds eventually do, Max had entered a stage of pursuing independence. On this particular day, he entered the Mass with a firm determination to push his agenda to the limits, and if it came to it, to die the death of a martyr. During the Mass, I went through my normal warnings. First, I stared death into his eyes. Nothing. Next, I whispered nightmares into his ear. No change of heart. Then, I proceeded to give him a warning pinch on the thigh, a pinch that said, “this is the precursor of a much longer and harder pinch that is going to hurt if you don’t straighten up.” Still, defiance. Finally, I decided to give him a pinch he would not forget. Max tightened up, looked at me, and with all the intensity he could muster, started crying as loud as he possibly could. I pinched even harder in my desire for control, and it was at this point that Max decided this was the moment of all moments. His martyrdom had come, William Wallace’s cry for freedom was heard around the world! In as articulate a voice as possible, in the midst of his wailing, he cried out in the middle of the Mass, “STOP PINCHING ME DADDY!”
The rebellion had started! It was at this point that I swooped Max off of his feet and proceeded to take the long walk. We know what that is. It’s the moment in Mass when seemingly all is quiet. All are sitting in somber prayer, reflecting on some truth in the sacred space, and then, all attention swiftly turns to the marching cadence of wooden soled storm trooper’s boots hitting the cold tiled floor accompanied with the screams of Max the Martyr….hence, the long walk.
Three Reasons the Mass is important for Parents and Kids.
Being a Catholic parent is hard work. It certainly comes with a lot of sacrifice and headaches during the Mass. There has been a newer trend developing in Evangelical circles that purposefully separate the child from parent during Sunday worship. Although the idea has good intentions, it also comes with some detrimental consequences. The notion that my child will rarely ever see me worshipping in the assembly is a notion that doesn’t strike me as necessarily healthy. For the child, so much of who they become in their faith is grounded in the faith of their parents. When I was an Evangelical, it was definitely a lot easier as a parent to pay attention to the homily and to enter into a more worshipful state of being without all the worry. Also, my children were getting instruction and catechesis that was relevant and at there cognitive level. Children rarely get something out of the homily at mass, but as I ponder the role of parents in the life of a child, I think the Catholic way of worship has many benefits that we often overlook, and in the long is better for the human and spiritual development of our kids. Why? I’ll quickly offer three reasons.
Worship and Reverence
First and foremost, the parent is the most important agent when it comes to forming their children’s faith. The trend of separating kids and parents in Evangelical circles wasn’t always the case. I remember growing up in a relatively “High Church” Presbyterian liturgy and never had a children’s church where I left the adult service. It was the old school way. I remember the prayers, the public confessions, I remember my Dad and Mom singing the hymns and closing their eyes in prayer, taking notes during the homily, and disciplining my brother and me. Like every kid between the ages of one and ten, the last place I wanted to be was at church service, where I felt constricted in all aspects from being a kid. Nevertheless, it was somehow good for my soul to be there. I saw my parents worship God. I learned about the importance of God through the outward expression of my parents reverence.
Deeply connected with worship is witnessing what reverence looks like. With reverence, there is a proper posture, a proper disposition of the body as well as the soul, a proper attention given to the thing at hand. This reverence is taught by the model of the Parent. It is also taught by the parent pointing out to the child what reverence is not. Reverence is definitely not the same as worship, but if there is genuine worship, reverence is usually close at hand.
Building off of this, if we are modeling for our kids what worship and reverence is, there are a few things that my wife and I will never allow our kids to have access to in the Mass. They will never have access to an electronic device of any kind. They will never have access to a toy of any kind. They will never have access to a rattle of any kind that makes even the slightest noise. The biggest point I am making is that the Mass is not geared for kids and that’s OK. Kids will rarely learn about the faith in Mass as they would in a Sunday school classroom. But, believe me, they’re learning a lot about the faith, it’s just not how we typically understand modern day learning. They are observing, they are fumbling through the prayers, they are learning the movements, the postures, they are seeing the ritual, they are hearing the songs. As they mature, their participation in the Mass matures as well. It is similar to the process of a child learning how to speak. They don’t go to a separate class between the ages of 2 and 4 years old to learn the language of their parents. They simply sit at the parents feet and slowly and surely develop speech. I’m not saying Mass is easy when you are in the stage of parenting toddlers. It is anything but easy. Nevertheless, it is essential for the development of future faith.
Temperance
In addition to worship and reverence, there is one more important aspect that we get to teach our kids at Mass. It is the virtue of temperance. Temperance is one of the cardinal virtues within Christianity. Before the church, it was valued by Aristotle, Plato, and the Greek culture. Almost every civilization past and present have included some form temperance as a necessary human attribute. Even our popular culture, albeit superficial, values temperance. The dieting culture, the work-out culture, and the self help culture all value temperance as essential. What is Temperance? It is simply the ability to control our fleshly appetites. To say no to pleasures, to say yes to asceticism, all for the sake of strengthening control over our bodies and making our bodies our slave. At the most human and superficial of levels, teaching our kids to behave at Mass is giving them a head start in the virtue of temperance. The rest of this essay will address this issue.
The Mass is actually a great environment to teach kids about temperance because generally it is the last place a kid wants to be. Almost every child sees the Mass as a restriction to their freedom. Their goal therefore, is to earn their freedom by escaping the prison of the sanctuary and making it to the Narthex, particularly toddlers. I realize with each toddler there are different personalities. Some are by nature more quiet and conforming than others. Others are squirrelly and feel hopelessly imprisoned by the wooden pew. Know this, no matter the personality or the natural temperament of your child, ALL of them are testing our limits and learning our behaviors so that they know what they can and cannot get away with at Mass. Even as early as 6 months of age, our kids are playing the game. For example, I cannot tell you how often I have heard a 6 month old screaming at the top of their lungs, as if their appendix was bursting, and just moments after their parents pick them up and arise to make the long walk out of Mass, their children immediately stop crying. Did the pain from their appendix somehow miraculously stop? No. They simply got what they wanted. They wanted to see what it would take for them to get to leave Mass. They won. Even at 6 months old, they conquered us.
In the short run this small victory is insignificant SO LONG as the parent does not lose focus and continue to feed their child what the child wants. For example, one lesson that my wife and I learned early on is that the goal of shaping a child’s behavior during Mass is not necessarily won in the Sanctuary, the real battle is what happens after you take your child out of the sanctuary. If its my 6 month old who had an “appendicitis attack” during the Liturgy, and if I then take him out (as I should) to the Narthex, once we are in the back, do I let the Oscar nominee get down to crawl around and stretch his legs, thus rewarding him for his behavior in Mass? Or, do I double down on my authority and do all that I can to make his time in the Narthex more miserable than the pew that we were sitting on.
What happens in the Narthex stays in the Narthex.
When we make it to the Narthex, the worst thing we could do as a parent is to let our child down to play. This is a reward for bad behavior. Rather, what we need to do EVERY TIME is to limit their freedom and make their experience miserable. In the Narthex, I do two things consistently. First, I hold them in my lap and I don’t let them out of my grasp. The more they try to wiggle free, the tighter I hold them and the more uncomfortable I make them. The other thing I do if I have to take them out to the Narthex is “punish” them. Little do they know that once that door to the sanctuary closes, their cries are no longer distracting the congregation (muahahahahah). Therefore, every time we have to go to the Narthex because of their behavior, I will pinch them hard enough so that it gets their attention and hurts. I pinch them so that they have negative associations with the Narthex. Depending on the severity of their defiance in the Mass, I might even spank them. This form of training must begin as early as possible, no later than 6 moths old. For most kids, if you restrict their mobility and give them some form of punishment, after a handful of consistently doing this, their behavior in the Mass will become much better. OF course there are those occasions like I described with Max the Martyr above, but those become the exception, not the rule.
Once you have established with your children that taking them out of the Mass is bad news for them, you now have power over them and can use that to enforce greater discipline in the Mass. The discipline technique in the Mass is now used to warn them that they are dangerously close to being taken out of Mass. This is the KEY. Kids must associate being taken out of Mass as a punishment rather than a victory. If they know that going to the Narthex during the Liturgy is a bad thing, then you can use that as a warning to get them to straighten up their misbehavior in the Mass.
Use quick, direct actions to get their attention and communicate to them.
If my child is doing something we don’t approve of in Mass, my first action is simply to get the attention of my child. I do this by making solid eye contact with them for several seconds. In this glance, I am trying with all of my might to emulate the look of Christ at Armageddon.
“His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns…Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. He will rule them with an iron scepter. He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.” Revelation 19:12-15
Through my eyes I communicate to them that if they don’t stop whatever it is they are doing, I am going to do something to them they might not like. If, after this exchange of looks, they don’t “obey” my eye contact, I bend over and whisper calmly and directly right in their ear, “if you don’t stop (fill in the blank) you will receive the wrath of Daddy.”
If the nonsense ensues, I then resort to pinching. I have already mentioned pinching in the Narthex. I like pinching in Mass as a form of corporal punishment for a number of reasons. For one, it reminds them of what is coming in the Narthex. Two, its stealthy, yet painful. There is no smacking sound, no sudden motion of hand, no attention drawing behavior. Three, the intensity of the pinch communicates how serious you are in wanting them to stop. A light pinch communicates, “by the grace of God you are not in pain right now because all merciful Father is giving you an out.” This warning pinch almost always causes my kids to settle down, straighten up, and focus (at least for a few minutes until they lose their concentration again). It is on rare occasions that the warning pinch must turn into a more serious pinch. In these occasions I take the advice of sensei John Kreese from the Karate Kid Series. “Strike hard, Strike fast, No mercy.”
My favorite place to pinch is on the thigh or, if I am more serious, on the pressure point just on top of the shoulder near the neck. These are painful pinches, but my kids generally have the awareness that they are getting what they deserve and even though the pinch hurts, they are not going to cry, because crying brings on the Narthex.
A combination of these forms of discipline are the modes that I almost always use and are almost always effective. But once again, I must reiterate that they are only successful if the kids understand that behavior that takes them out of the Mass is something they do not want to experience.
The Difficult Stages
There are some tough stages in parenting that are never easy. From ages 6 months to about 4 years, the kids are just complete squirrels. Over the years, Carrie and I have learned do’s and don’ts that we treat as law. For example, as already mentioned, the kids need to sit relatively quiet and still without having the help of some other devices that are completely distracting from the reason you are there. A phone or an iPad does not teach kids anything. It actually makes their temperance worse because it feeds their desire to be entertained and it causes them to have a weak attention span. It also is the antithesis of worship. The goal during this development stage is that they would fight their tendency to want to feed their flesh and that they would learn how to sit in quietness and stillness even though as a kid that is the last thing they want to do.
When the child becomes mobile, either by crawling or walking, you must enter into a different mode of discipline because the child is now testing new boundaries. At this age, we begin to employ the “no feet on the ground rule.” The only time that we let their feet touch the floor during Mass is when the congregation is standing or kneeling. When we touch the floor, they may do so, if we are sitting down, they also should be sitting down in relative quietness. At certain ages, they want to climb on the pew, play with the kneeler, use the hymn holder as a pull up bar, treat the hymnals as shot puts or sound machines, etc. To whatever level that you want your child to be still is the level that you employ disciplinary strategies to instill those in your kid. If you don’t want them to rustle pages of the hymn book, then you communicate the seriousness of your desire through the strategies I employed above (looking, whispering, pinching, pinching harder, taking out to the Narthex where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth). As you communicate these things with consistency, your child will learn what sort of behavior is appropriate and what sort of behavior is inappropriate in the Mass. And all parties win. You win by having some peace, others around you win because they don’t have to roll their eyes at how distracting your child is being in the Mass, and the child wins by learning that he/she can actually make it through Mass, albeit begrudgingly, by being quiet and respectful.
Praise, Encouragement, and Rewards
Of course, praise and encouragement are huge parts of this process. Each time your child is well behaved in Mass, you praise him/her after the Mass telling them how good they were and proud you are of them. Perhaps you might even have some treat for them if they made it through the Mass well behaved. But don’t reward them for bad behavior! And don’t ever give them toys or rewards in the Mass. You would be amazed at how quiet and reverent even a 4 year old can be. It just takes hard work.
Two Miracles at Mass.
Once it has been solidified that the Narthex is bad news for them, they begin to think of other more sophisticated strategies that might get them out of Mass. This usually comes around the age of 4-5. At this age, the Mass begins to develop a second miracle. The first, of course, is Transubstantiation, where the bread and wine become Christ’s real Body and blood. The second, newer miracle, is a physical mutation of my child’s bladder. During the homily, their bladders would mysteriously shrink to the size of a pea. One miracle brings us into the presence of Christ, the other becomes the last rational excuse to leave the presence of Christ and escape the tyranny of Dad Vader.
Carrie and I came across a wise family who had 6 kids and gave us this advice. If your kids have to leave the Mass for the bathroom, they stay for another Mass. (Wow! And you thought I was intense!). Even though we did not take their advice (partly for our own sanity), you can modify some version of this for your own situation.
Conclusion
In time, as your children get used to your posture and your discipline tactics, they begin to realize that Mass is a part of life, and perhaps, rather than sitting in drudgery, they will one day begin to enjoy the peace and solemnity that is offered through Christ. That’s another lesson altogether, and generally requires far more intentionality throughout the week. We will save that for another day.
In summary, here are the key points you need to focus on.
Mass is an opportunity to teach your kids what worship and reverence looks like, but also, if nothing else, to instill in them seeds of temperance.
Never Let your children do something in Mass that you yourself would not do (I.e. phone, iPad, toys, rattles that make noise, etc.)
Make your children have negative associations with the Narthex. Be Consistent with this!!!
Once they see the Narthex as worse than the Sanctuary, use that to your advantage to bring about behavior modification during the MAss.
Use quick, direct, and consistent methods to address your children during Mass (Eye contact, whispering in their ear, pinching, etc.).
If they must use the bathroom during the Liturgy, they have to stay longer.
Finally, be a genuine example for your kids. Enter into the Liturgy with as much focus and reverence as possible, seeing the Mass as a deep form of prayer and worship. They will model what they see. I promise you that.