Church training your infant

[FundieFarmer]

It's absolutely appalling for all the rhetoric about babies being everything that they don't support mothers in church of all places. But hypocrisy. 
Like you, I've seen plenty of support for families with small children, nursing mothers, etc. at churches. Especially fundie-lite ones. Babysitting, nursing rooms, designated pews with toys and books, cry rooms. I'm guessing something like a separate room where women might have to take care of their children by nursing, changing diapers, etc. is too defrauding by their standards to implement, or something? 

I think a lot of times it comes down to the money the church has (again...no excuse! Just my thought why they're not provided) and whether they provide childcare. Our church has very conservative theology, as I've shared before, but we allow babies in our services and we built our sanctuary new so we planned for the cry rooms for both moms and dads to go in with kids of all ages. When I was originally typing, I was thinking of churches that might be more of the older one-room build, or a large mega-church situation where they couldn't add that in. I would think it would be easy to do- some beams, sound proofing, drywall, and a one-way window, but it could be a sizable expense for other churches.

It was also new to me that churches didn't have nursery and childcare programs until I joined a more conservative denomination and discovered smaller churches like these. It wouldn't have ever crossed my mind in the church where we grew up, where the childcare programs were almost always huge and thriving and you never had babies in the service.

Also...fundies take the idea of original sin waaaaay further than I've seen it applied before. I went to a reformed college and the idea was you were born sinful, but not to the point that annoying behavior of babies was a manifestation of sin. The original sin doctrine would apply when you're old enough to be cognizant of your sin within the natural developmental stages.

[Toothfairy]

Why not stay home then?

[HarryPotterFan]

Fundie assholes make me super appreciative of my synagogue, where sometimes little kids escape their parents and run around the sanctuary and people just smile at the adorableness. Services last hours, an adorable child breaking up the monotony is much appreciated. At least I appreciate it . 

There is also a cry/playroom attached to the sanctuary, and the synagogue recently started providing bags with toys for kids to play with if parents would rather stay in the sanctuary and keep their kids with them. I wish they had such things when I was little. 

On November 5, 2016 at 9:33 AM, nastyhobbitses said:

Then you have the "anyone who doesn't think and act like me is evil" line of thinking that fuels people like John Schrader and Derick Dillard -- a baby doesn't know about God/Jesus/Bill Gothard yet, and is therefore evil and must be "trained" or taught to know God before they can be "good".

I suddenly have an image of Derick singing that song from Pocohantus, "They're different from us, which means they can't be trusted!" And then he and Jill break out into the chorus, "They're savages! Savages!"

But I doubt Jill has ever seen that movie (defrauding clothes, kissing outside of marriage) and the message of the movie would go over her head.

Spoiler

 

[BlackberryGirl]

the Church of Christ I attended when my kids were babies had a lovely cry room.   3 small port a cribs, a couple of high chairs, pews and rocking chairs,  2 changing tables and a cabinet with all kinds of supplies.. Diapers, wipes, little blankets, even jars of food. It was glassed off and upstairs and the service was piped in.  We didn't have a nursery, your kids came with you and were passed around  to all the grammas and older girls. it  was actually very sweet. If one started to fuss more than could be handled by a change of scenery we would go upstairs. Most of the young mothers there breastfed, at least for a few months so the cry room was pretty much ladies only.. But we saw lots and lots of young dads and grandpas carrying  wee ones around.

[hoipolloi]

But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.

I donʻt see anything in any of those translations about children or babies having to keep still.

[Mercer]

1 hour ago, FundieFarmer said:

I think a lot of times it comes down to the money the church has (again...no excuse! Just my thought why they're not provided) and whether they provide childcare. Our church has very conservative theology, as I've shared before, but we allow babies in our services and we built our sanctuary new so we planned for the cry rooms for both moms and dads to go in with kids of all ages. When I was originally typing, I was thinking of churches that might be more of the older one-room build, or a large mega-church situation where they couldn't add that in. I would think it would be easy to do- some beams, sound proofing, drywall, and a one-way window, but it could be a sizable expense for other churches.

My church just uses a baby monitor. It's not the best sound quality and there's no visual, but you can hear what the priest is saying if you have to take your child to the other room.

[Grimalkin]

I just gave my kids my phone with headphones and then smiled when people glared at me. 

[PopRox]

Jeez, it's like these people think that babies and young children aren't fully-formed adults or something!

I like the system my church has in place-- children from pre-school up to second grade go to children's chapel for all the readings and sermon, then come back for the birthday announcements and Eucharist. For children above second grade, they provide binders of coloring/craft stuff to keep the kiddos occupied during the service (they look pretty fun, too!). Mothers keep their babies with them... if the babies cry, everyone's just kind of like "yeah, that's what babies do" and we don't give the Mom a hard time about it.

Then again, I go to an ebil libural Episcopal church, so we're probably Doing It Wrong according to fundies. :-\

[danvillebelle]

One more Orthodox jab at this topic - "A church whose walls do not bear the crying of children is not a church." - St. John Maximovitch of Shanghai and San Francisco

[slickcat79]

I was about to ask if they'd started bringing their Implement of Correction yet (a la Vitafam), but I see she's edited her post about how to make her kids behave in church.

Oh well, here it is again.

http://www.vitafamiliae.com/this-is-how-we-do-it-nursing-and-keeping-the-peace/

[imokit]

People like this family. That post is pearl bad with its stress on the rod of correction and need to keep it in reach at all times! And teaching kids not to touch things is done by putting dangerous stuff out of reach and then moving hands away as needed. Studies have shown that the rod of correction (spanking in the research) does not reduce the amount of repetitions needed for a toddler to learn something.

[hoipolloi]

Well, well, well. Micaela Serven, or someone she knows, reads here. Her Instagram is private now. 

I hope that she has dropped this bullshit about "training" an eight-month-old baby.

[JemimaPuddle-Duck]

4 hours ago, hoipolloi said:

Well, well, well. Micaela Serven, or someone she knows, reads here. Her Instagram is private now. 

I hope that she has dropped this bullshit about "training" an eight-month-old baby.

I can't go back and read it again, but I was pretty sure all she said was that baby is starting to get louder and more wiggly in church and they need to start practicing sitting during the week. Am I mistaken? I am NOT for "blanket-training" or "baby-training" in the Pearl way, but I see nothing wrong with....let's call it "training"...a little one to sit contentedly for longer periods of time. I'm working on this right now with my littlest. All it means is having her sit in my lap with a quiet toy, whispering for her to be still or quiet when needed and encouraging her when she's being content, each week making her wait an extra five minutes before I release her to get down and play quietly. I'm using story time for this. Perhaps the Serven gal is doing it the scary way, but I didn't think anything in her IG post implied that.  

[teachergirl]

no she didn't but it is the idea that an eight month old baby SHOULD be quiet, not wiggle or move..That is developmentally inappropriate expectations for an infant. period. It doesnt matter how you do it, it is the expectation of the behavior.

[acheronbeach]

I didn't see the IG post.  Did she actually say how she was "training" the baby? 

[JemimaPuddle-Duck]

3 hours ago, teachergirl said:

no she didn't but it is the idea that an eight month old baby SHOULD be quiet, not wiggle or move..That is developmentally inappropriate expectations for an infant. period. It doesnt matter how you do it, it is the expectation of the behavior.

I agree with you. I also think if you start sitting baby in your lap with a crinkle book and just sit there without excitable play for five minutes, they'll catch on. Practicing that kind of thing regularly might mean that when you have a 12- 18-month-old, they're able to sit relatively contentedly in your lap for an hour church service. It doesn't mean you never expect them to fuss and it doesn't mean you never expect them to make a sound, or that you think they are "bad" when they do. 

2 hours ago, acheronbeach said:

I didn't see the IG post.  Did she actually say how she was "training" the baby? 

No, and she didn't use the word training. 

[hoipolloi]

17 minutes ago, JemimaPuddle-Duck said:

No, and she didn't use the word training. 

IIRC, she did because the post was edited after it had been up for a while.

You know, YOU may want to sit in a church service for 1-2 hours but why on earth would you expect that an infant or toddler could or should do so? Do you somehow believe that religious teaching is going to be absorbed by osmosis? Or are you claiming that the child actually understands all that is being said & done at the service? I don't mean to be rude here but I am genuinely baffled at anyone who expects such things of an infant or small child.

Again, people, when you have a child you need to be the adult and that means understanding human growth and development as well as age appropriate behavior.

[teachergirl]

They do though...read up on any FIC church doctrine and they truly believe that infants and small children can be trained to sit and listen during hours of church.  They think church nurseries are wrong and that Sunday School is fluff. The Servens were raised on those thoughts even though it appears they attend a Baptist church.  Clearly those doctrined have stayed with them..like I said, it wouldnt matter to me how she trained her, it matters to me that she even thinks it can and should be done.

[FundieFarmer]

From what I saw from a quick google search, even non-church going moms are teaching this starting in the toddler months (12-18 months). The Severn girl is starting early, but she's not the only one doing it overall. This has far greater application than just a church service, anyway.

Besides, learning to sit still for church isn't the worst thing that can happen to a child. I have very pleasant memories of attending when I was younger. And in the right church, you get a community that cares deeply for you. I don't think Jemima has bad intentions at all. It just depends on reasonable execution.

[teachergirl]

Well and I would say as a child development person, there is a huge difference between an 8 month old and an 18 month old.  You could expect them to reasonably understand being quiet for short amounts of time.

[hoipolloi]

@teachergirl & @FundieFarmer -- I completely agree.

What I am trying to understand is what the proponents of this practice actually think they're doing and why, particularly with infants.

As I said, I don't mean to be rude, but I'd like to hear from @JemimaPuddle-Duck what she thinks is being accomplished and why she would attempt to "train" a baby or toddler out of age-appropriate behavior. 

I could maybe see it for toddlers if church services lasted 10 or 15 minutes. But an hour? Two hours? That's completely unreasonable, IMO, and I can't understand what good comes from it.

 

[teachergirl]

And for my last post on this, these are the same people who believe in flicking cheeks when breastfeeding ( lori Alexander), spanking infants/toddlers if they wiggle during a diaper change ( Susan Bradrick) and spanking young children if they do not say hello ( Voddie Baucham). So, yes, in my opinion it DOES all start there with infants and goes downhill from there.

[JemimaPuddle-Duck]

@hoipolloi What I'm trying to accomplish is making times when quiet sitting is necessary (church, dinner at a restaurant, community meetings, etc.) a more pleasant experience for my children, my husband and I, and those around us. Would you encourage babies to be loud, to throw things, and get down and crawl while at a restaurant? Those are all perfectly normal things for a baby to do, but as they get older we teach them when they aren't appropriate. I don't expect even my 18-month-old (or even older) to sit stock still in my lap for an hour. Some of that time is spent nursing, some hopefully sleeping :-), some just snuggling and stroking hair, some playing with quiet toys or books, some with a snack. And sometimes we get up and go to the bathroom just to give them a break from the sitting. If I never had them sit quietly in other places and suddenly expected silence and stillness for an hour every Sunday, and punished them otherwise, that would be horribly cruel and unfair. As it is, getting some of that practice in while I do family read-alouds, or school reading, or even in a waiting room somewhere (I think waiting  rooms anywhere are absolutely disgusting and I don't like my kids getting down in them) makes it feel like a normal part of life. It seems too that the babies I know who have grown up sitting in church every Sunday get the hang of it pretty quickly. I know lots of people who leave babies to play alone in playpens or bouncers for 30-60 minutes while they do chores. That seems less fun than snuggling with Mama or Daddy to me. We "train kids out of age appropriate behavior" rather regularly don't we?

I do not AT ALL agree with the things that @teachergirl listed, that is not what I mean about training little ones to sit (not saying she implied I do). I think because we've read so much of those types of evil training methods, we sometimes apply that to everyone. 

Also, I looked at the IG post as soon as you posted here, and I only saw the short thing she said about practice. So if she edited training out of it, I was not aware. 

I hope explained myself clearly, I'm notoriously bad at being clear online, sigh. 

[PopRox]

I think I understand what you are saying, @JemimaPuddle-Duck. To me, that sounds like a loving and developmentally-appropriate way to teach children about not being rowdy in certain situations. I don't see anything wrong with gently keeping your TODDLER on your lap while you read to them/nurse them or while they nap.

On the other hand, this blogger is talking about her eight-month-old BABY being quiet in church. An infant doesn't even understand what church IS, let alone why they need to be still and quiet for it. That's what most of us are objecting to.

I have a problem with what this blogger/instagrammer is doing; not with what you are doing.

(Hope this makes sense-- I am also notoriously bad about being clear online)

[dairyfreelife]

Agreed PopRox, 8-month-olds often babble, which they should. They babble to prep for talking. Some 8-month-olds are saying basic words even like da-da, ma-ma, hi, bye, etc. One-syllable words if any, though 12 months is normal for 1st words. Moving around is normal. You cannot really force an infant to stop making noise or move at all. They cannot understand or comprehend such a thing, so it's a waste at that young age. 8-month-olds are not capable of doing "wrong" or understanding any idea of what that means. Once babies are around a year they can begin some "troubling" behaviors of biting, hitting, and such, however, they don't like being told no and usually they bite or hi because the lack the ability to communicate their needs and wants properly. It's not a case of being mean to be mean. Beating them won't help. Often biting is caused from teething. However, it can be they want a toy or item and they use their only means of biting and hitting to state "I want". Sharing is not really a thing toddlers get. Removal and distraction is the only way to really stop problems like these. If your toddler is throwing things, like in a restaurant, it may be to get attention or maybe out of boredom. A hungry tot will eat their food, but babies and toddlers are naturally messy eaters. Table manners come later. Many things are common sense, but so many fundies seem to create battles where there's not one with their children. I don't really understand why they want to create all the unnecessary power struggles.