Abigail Loves Poverty

[tinuviel]

My church doesn't have a cry room, and I've seen and heard plenty of rowdy little kids. But big deal. I'm not there to get pissy about other people's kids, I'm there to pray. And so as most other people at my parish. I haven't really seen anyone getting persecuted for bringing children who act like children or babies who cry.

Of course, Abigail might think she's being persecuted whenever someone looks her direction without smiling, so who knows...

[Arete]

My church doesn't have a cry room, and I've seen and heard plenty of rowdy little kids. But big deal. I'm not there to get pissy about other people's kids, I'm there to pray. And so as most other people at my parish. I haven't really seen anyone getting persecuted for bringing children who act like children or babies who cry.

Of course, Abigail might think she's being persecuted whenever someone looks her direction without smiling, so who knows...

Yeah, but in my church parents with little ones tend to naturally gravitate toward the back pews in case they have to make an escape. A little whining or fussiness never bothered me either in church, but I have to say, when a kid has really become disruptive (hey, they are tired, or hungry or bored, or all three) usually Mom or Dad will take the kid into the playroom to decompress or even outside.

I have a feeling Abigail can't manage the basic courtesy of tending to her children's needs during Mass, and some people have rightfully given her a stinkeye. That kid is not going to become so holy during a service that they forget they want to eat or change scenery. Abigail can dream on.

[GeoBQn]

Here's her description of their seating arrangements in church:

I used to be one of these young women! I'd go to Mass, feel totally frustrated that my kids behavior was out of control, feel pinpricks of scorn from others, get frustrated that my husband wasn't doing more to help me, and leave Mass feeling so much more depleted than when I came into the door.

Here is one simple change that made a lifetime of difference. I sit next to my husband now during the Mass. I sit next to my husband--and its a fight not to let a kid sit between us--I hold a toddler, he holds the baby, and then our other kids "fan" out along side us. The squirmy son sits next to his Dad. I have the nine year old who loves to pray beside me. The five year old and toddler flip from side to side.

It is an incredible change to sit next to my husband, instead of hemming in all the kids on either side of the pew. I love sitting next to him. Whenever there is a deeply meaningful reading or song lyric, I get to just press his arm in recognition. We're being fed together the Word of God. As a side effect, I'm so much more peaceful, the kids are better behaved.

If one of them needs to go out of Mass (at this point that is most likely the newborn or the toddler) we just have an unspoken agreement that I'm the one who takes the kid out of Mass. That sort of happened by default because I'm the only one who can nurse a colicky Baby Abigail, but once we added "Tess too" to that equation, life is so much easier. We don't have that tense debate during the homily--"Does she need to leave? Who is taking her, you or me?" If Tess is screaming, I'm the one who does the walk of shame to the back of the church, while my husband stays still and holds the line. (My only son is way more likely to listen to his Dad and stay in the pew rather than fighting to leave also). God is so kind to me, that almost always I run into a favorite friend in the back of the church during my exit. Their smiles usually help me overcome my wounded pride.

[bea]

Everything is so much more PEACEFUL now that she's the one responsible for all the unpleasantness.

No shit, Sherlock. I'm sure your husband is much more laid back about Mass now that he knows he doesn't have to remove a child.

Also, I'm Catholic. I go to Saturday night mass, usually, while my husband takes care of the kids, because it's no fun to try to wrangle two wiggly kids while trying to pray. But I'm sure Abigail is too holy to do that.

[Arete]

From GeoBQn's quote she mentions she is the one to..."do the walk of shame to the back of the church". Oh, yeah. She's so holy she feels she needs to be in the front. When the toddler or baby do what toddlers and babies do, it takes the maximum amount of time to get them out and comforted from the front.

You know, I always had this idea that getting closer to God made you more solicitous of your neighbor's/fellow parishoner's feelings and comfort. :roll:

[Coconut Flan]

Overall I'd say 95% of families with infants and toddlers sit either in the back or near an exit in the more semi-circular churches. There is no "walk of shame" that way as it's five to ten feet to get out a door or get away from the immediate pews. Also there's so many fewer people to walk past to give her the "stink eye." Most are probably just being curious. Unless her kids are far more disruptive than average it's her call for drama. Although given how little self-discipline she has herself, I can see her with wild children.

[TheLurkingFrumper]

From GeoBQn's quote she mentions she is the one to..."do the walk of shame to the back of the church". Oh, yeah. She's so holy she feels she needs to be in the front. When the toddler or baby do what toddlers and babies do, it takes the maximum amount of time to get them out and comforted from the front.

You know, I always had this idea that getting closer to God made you more solicitous of your neighbor's/fellow parishoner's feelings and comfort. :roll:

I understand wanting to sit near the front with young kids; they're more likely to pay attention and be interested if they can see what's happening. However, I don't understand the "walk of shame." Babies and toddlers cry and get antsy. It's natural. Where is the shame? What is shameful about a baby crying?

[rollmeover]

Yeah, we sit at the front at mass. If our kids need to have a break, who cares? I don't get hysterical when the adults around us chat or rustle about getting sweets or their phone rings because they forgot to turn it off. Hearing a crying babe or grumbly toddler is good in my opinion - we are family and the little ones brlong right there with us not in a cry room or Sunday school.

[dairyfreelife]

Yeah, we sit at the front at mass. If our kids need to have a break, who cares? I don't get hysterical when the adults around us chat or rustle about getting sweets or their phone rings because they forgot to turn it off. Hearing a crying babe or grumbly toddler is good in my opinion - we are family and the little ones brlong right there with us not in a cry room or Sunday school.

Hmm, something smells a little fishy. But I don't get why Sunday School is so bad. Most children I know love it and are excited to go. You are not less of a family because you let your preschool aged child be taught in another room where lessons are catered to their age level.

[Dysfundamental]

Catholic churches rarely if ever have Sunday school. Kids are expected to attend mass; the religious education for kids (called in my childhood as a Roman Catholic, "CCD" for Confraternity of Christian Doctrine) happens at another time, either on a weekday afternoon or on Sundays after mass.

Sunday school sounds great to me! I hated having my Tuesday afternoons taken up by religious education.

My current (Episcopal) church has Sunday school before the service, and then children attend the service with their parents or other adult caregivers; there's a Gospel Story Time during the gospel and sermon that children can attend in the vestry. It is cute to watch them file out and in for that.

[Patsy]

Catholic churches rarely if ever have Sunday school. Kids are expected to attend mass; the religious education for kids (called in my childhood as a Roman Catholic, "CCD" for Confraternity of Christian Doctrine) happens at another time, either on a weekday afternoon or on Sundays after mass.

Sunday school sounds great to me! I hated having my Tuesday afternoons taken up by religious education.

My current (Episcopal) church has Sunday school before the service, and then children attend the service with their parents or other adult caregivers; there's a Gospel Story Time during the gospel and sermon that children can attend in the vestry. It is cute to watch them file out and in for that.

We had "children's liturgy" at my Catholic church, which started after the service began and ended, iirc, just before eucharist. So similar timing to a typical "Sunday school", I think.

[lilwriter85]

CCD at the Catholic parish my family attended, changed over the years. I remember when I first started going in the 1st grade. Classes were on Tuesdays at 4 pm. A year later I remember they changed classes to Saturday mornings. During my First Holy Communion prep year, the FHC class had classes on Sunday afternoons.

[dairyfreelife]

Catholic churches rarely if ever have Sunday school. Kids are expected to attend mass; the religious education for kids (called in my childhood as a Roman Catholic, "CCD" for Confraternity of Christian Doctrine) happens at another time, either on a weekday afternoon or on Sundays after mass.

Sunday school sounds great to me! I hated having my Tuesday afternoons taken up by religious education.

My current (Episcopal) church has Sunday school before the service, and then children attend the service with their parents or other adult caregivers; there's a Gospel Story Time during the gospel and sermon that children can attend in the vestry. It is cute to watch them file out and in for that.

I'm not sure if you are referring to my comment above, but rollmeover's statement sounds so typical of fundie talk that I sensed a possible troll. She said her children don't belong in a cry room or Sunday school, but with her because they're a family. It came across that Sunday school is bad and I disagreed.

If you were not commenting to me, carry on then. ;)

[rollmeover]

Hmm, something smells a little fishy. But I don't get why Sunday School is so bad. Most children I know love it and are excited to go. You are not less of a family because you let your preschool aged child be taught in another room where lessons are catered to their age level.

What smells fishy? Oh you think I'm a fundie troll? No, just a normal muddling along catholic.

I am woefully insdequate at communicating lately! I mean fFor my family we don't do children's liturgy of the word which would be our equivalent of Sunday school. We prefer to keep the children with us because that's where we think our kids belong. But by family in my first post I meant the whole congregation is a family - in a family we don't typically exclude all the kids or the older people and I see kids pushed out in a PA way at church. There's an older lady who sits near us and if my kids so much as whisper she turns and glares daggers while chatting away if she has friends come to sit near her. But honestly? I don't care what anyone else does - I guess a little more than half of my friends send their kids out and that's fine by me. My kids are quiet and enjoy church but if your kids can't cope or you feel they learn more then I am all in favour of a parent opting to use children's liturgy - what I think is wrong is people making parents feel bad if their child makes a noise or moves. I like having babies and toddlers in church and don't think people should feel shamed if their child cries. But I am doing a crap job at explaining!

[moodygirl86]

What smells fishy? Oh you think I'm a fundie troll? No, just a normal muddling along catholic.

I am woefully insdequate at communicating lately! I mean fFor my family we don't do children's liturgy of the word which would be our equivalent of Sunday school. We prefer to keep the children with us because that's where we think our kids belong. But by family in my first post I meant the whole congregation is a family - in a family we don't typically exclude all the kids or the older people and I see kids pushed out in a PA way at church. There's an older lady who sits near us and if my kids so much as whisper she turns and glares daggers while chatting away if she has friends come to sit near her. But honestly? I don't care what anyone else does - I guess a little more than half of my friends send their kids out and that's fine by me. My kids are quiet and enjoy church but if your kids can't cope or you feel they learn more then I am all in favour of a parent opting to use children's liturgy - what I think is wrong is people making parents feel bad if their child makes a noise or moves. I like having babies and toddlers in church and don't think people should feel shamed if their child cries. But I am doing a crap job at explaining!

Rollmeover, thanks for explaining so graciously. You'll find that this forum is quite the melting pot, with both male and female members of different backgrounds and opinions. Because we're quite informal with relaxed moderation, we do attract the odd troll/troublemaker, which is why some members are alert to this as a possibility. You don't seem like one to me, just carry on posting in conversations that interest you. Do this across a range of active topics so we get to "know" you via your writing style. Enjoy FJ and welcome!

[Dysfundamental]

I don't think "children's liturgy" is the same as Sunday school, exactly. My impression (and I have no kids, am no longer Roman Catholic, and the Catholic church I went to as a child was waaaaaaaay too small to have any such thing, so please correct me, people who are more knowledgeable!) is that it's the day's Gospel explained in child-friendly terms and maybe coloring or crafts? That's what the Gospel Story Time is at my Episcopal church.

At least in my day, when I would go with friends to Protestant churches' Sunday schools, it was a bit more formal religious education, more like what we did in CCD, except for the littlest kids. Maybe that has changed, or maybe it varies by region or by denomination (the friends I'm thinking of were Congregationalist, Methodist, and Northern Baptist).

[Coconut Flan]

That's correct. CCD and Sunday School are more nearly equivalent and Children's Church and children's Liturgy of the Word are more alike at least from what I've seen. Two or three of our local catholic parishes have begun offering CCD on Sunday mornings. I'm sure they don't mean for it to be instead of Mass but I'm willing to bet that occurs for quite a few of the children.

[Arete]

Yeah, we sit at the front at mass. If our kids need to have a break, who cares? I don't get hysterical when the adults around us chat or rustle about getting sweets or their phone rings because they forgot to turn it off. Hearing a crying babe or grumbly toddler is good in my opinion - we are family and the little ones brlong right there with us not in a cry room or Sunday school.

I have never witnessed anyone get hysterical if a phone rings or a quick "I need to get the baby out" conversation needs to happen, because we are all human. However, if the same person always has to both sit in the front and has a toddler that cannot tolerate sitting still for that long, that is just plain inconsiderate of other people. Just like if it's always the same person who can't remember to mute the ringer on his/her phone. There is a difference between "things come up scenarios" and "repeat offenders".

Abigail sounds like she is a repeat offender. When you have a baby and a toddler, you just don't belong in the front. You DO NOT. The reason is you cannot expect a baby or a toddler to be quiet for almost an hour (Catholic Mass) or almost three (a full Greek Orthodox litrugy, which is the perspective I usually write from). They need to eat. They need to stretch. They get bored. That is why most parents who have them voluntarily sit near the back, so that they can make a discreet exit when they have to and limit the cry and whine time. Abigail sitting at the front with 5 children we know she cannot handle on the best of days is being an inconsiderate, pompous, holy bore. She does not report any hysterical people, just some sideways glances. Rightfully so if your kids disrupt each and every time because they are simply to young to be able to sit still, and you don't have the foresight to sit near an exit and spare everyone extended cry time because it just takes longer to get to an exit from the front than from the back.

No one is asking that martyr to not come with her family. They are hoping she will be considerate. Big difference.

[rollmeover]

I have never witnessed anyone get hysterical if a phone rings or a quick "I need to get the baby out" conversation needs to happen, because we are all human. However, if the same person always has to both sit in the front and has a toddler that cannot tolerate sitting still for that long, that is just plain inconsiderate of other people. Just like if it's always the same person who can't remember to mute the ringer on his/her phone. There is a difference between "things come up scenarios" and "repeat offenders".

Abigail sounds like she is a repeat offender. When you have a baby and a toddler, you just don't belong in the front. You DO NOT. The reason is you cannot expect a baby or a toddler to be quiet for almost an hour (Catholic Mass) or almost three (a full Greek Orthodox litrugy, which is the perspective I usually write from). They need to eat. They need to stretch. They get bored. That is why most parents who have them voluntarily sit near the back, so that they can make a discreet exit when they have to and limit the cry and whine time. Abigail sitting at the front with 5 children we know she cannot handle on the best of days is being an inconsiderate, pompous, holy bore. She does not report any hysterical people, just some sideways glances. Rightfully so if your kids disrupt each and every time because they are simply to young to be able to sit still, and you don't have the foresight to sit near an exit and spare everyone extended cry time because it just takes longer to get to an exit from the front than from the back.

No one is asking that martyr to not come with her family. They are hoping she will be considerate. Big difference.

I guess it depends on whether Abigail's family is the circus she/we are describing. In my experience, more traditional Catholics seem obsessed with monitoring other people's dress and behaviour and speculating on why so and so only has one child, so maybe with all the walk of shame stuff Abigail is just projecting her own judgements of others back on herself? Personally I think she has bigger worries - Jesus seems to be personally involved in her daily life in a way you don't usually hear of with bona fide saints - yet she still needs to take up the cello do she can be normal around her kids which you think Jesus could have helped her fix more cheaply when he was telling her to quit as a re teacher etc.

[rollmeover]

Another thread prompted me to read chaoticlife's blog - and her post about returning to work to allow her to give her children opportunities was such a contrast to Abigail of the almost-sockless baby who is so happy to embrace "poverty"

[patsymae]

My mother was a lot like this woman--really got off on poverty--also pain, psychic pain, illness (especially other people's, Etc.) I've since diagnosed her with NPD.

Even when my mother remarried (solid blue collar was a step up for us) she insisted on living poor. My stepdad sent the boys to a barber once and that was it, my (very incompetent) mother cut their hair, and I never had a professional haircut until I was old enough to pay for it myself. Stepdad liked Irish spring soap, but she insisted on generic. We had the cheapest possible clothes and the cheapest, shittiest possible food.

Forty years later and I still had to work really, really hard to force myself to buy decent food and otherwise pay for self care. It was just so ingrained in me that it's greedy ('gimme, gimme, gimme") and evil to want anything decent for yourself, much less think that you deserve it.

I feel for her kids.

[moodygirl86]

Sorry you had to grow up like that, Patsymae. My mum wasn't well off by any stretch but she did at least make sure my brothers and me were decently fed and clothed. Stuff like this makes me think of that episode of Blackadder where his puritan uncle and aunt visit. Auntie Whiteadder slaps him every 5 minutes saying things like, "WICKED BOY! You have CHAIRS in your house?!" But that was a sitcom, and it's not so funny in real life. It's one thing choosing to deprive yourself, although it's insane, but to do that to kids is unforgivable. If somebody chooses to have children, it's their parental responsibility to provide them with a decent standard of living. And anyone who can't provide this shouldn't be a parent.

[desertvixen]

Abigail sounds like she is a repeat offender. When you have a baby and a toddler, you just don't belong in the front. You DO NOT. The reason is you cannot expect a baby or a toddler to be quiet for almost an hour (Catholic Mass) or almost three (a full Greek Orthodox litrugy, which is the perspective I usually write from).

This. That, and preparation. It's like when people fly with small children and don't plan or bring things for the kids to do, snack on, whatever - kids gets bored. We all have bad moments, but when it's every time you need to relook what you're doing.

Abigail sitting at the front with 5 children we know she cannot handle on the best of days is being an inconsiderate, pompous, holy bore.

What else is new, though?

[Phoebe]

Personally, I remember sitting towards the back with Mom and my sibs when we were younger. As we kids got older and older, we gradually moved to the middle pews, further away from the cry rooms. I don't remember anyone glaring at us or huffing and puffing if my brother started getting antsy (he was the youngest); Mom just hustled all of us into the nearest cry room. That's it. No martyrdom, no "walk of shame" (seriously what the hell). Abigail just sounds like she's into feeling persecuted.

:violin:

[Carla Bruni]

Not to play "whose family has worse poverty stories", but my grandma lived through the siege of Leningrad (on rations of 125 grams of bread per person per day) and was evacuated behind front lines with her family along the "Road of Life" - across frozen lakes in giant trucks in the dead of Russian winter. Whilst being bombed by the Germans. So! As far as poverty goes, she knew what she was talking about. She inherited a terrific slogan from her mother, my namesake: "we're not rich enough to be able to afford cheap things".

I would love to see this woman go to a women's shelter or the projects and see what REAL poverty looks like right here in America. Trying to earn saint points by faking asceticism with a fucking cello and swim camp is disgusting when there are so many families that are actually struggling right now.

ETA: Aw jesus fucking christ, I scrolled down to read the actual blog.

Every time I read about a tragic situation in Eastern Europe, where a disabled kid is left in a cold metal crib for hours each day, I have to give this coda "but things are even worse here in America." What are we up to now in abortion of special needs kids? 90 percent for Down Syndrome kids?

Fuck you, Abigail, for even daring to compare child abuse to abortion.