Cry Room Rules

On Sundays, I admit I prefer for all of us to go to mass together, whereras my husband correctly points out if we do shifts, both of us might actually get to hear the homily. It remains a source of healthy discussion, as I counter that how can we be a witness as a family if we aren’t all there? My husband points out, how can we be a witness if people observing us see essentially, a pack of crazed pious squirrels scurrying about the back of the church with two adults attempting to round them up?

Cry rooms aren’t a solution, though we go to them occasionally with the delusion that being in a sound proof room full of other understanding parents who are wrestling with their own maggoty and wormity children who decide at pristinely quiet moments in the mass to scream, will garner sympathy. They don’t because cry rooms are really made-for-tv-reality-show contests wherein the winners are those parents who find that there are other families with noisier and more wiggly children than they have. (If you stay after mass and look back in the cry room, you’ll see the winners high fiving after everyone else has cleared out).

There are however, rules to this real life scenario.

1)Those folks who bring toddlers in tow with a lifetime supply of cheerios, coloring books and their entire hotwheel collection are summarily disqualified for 1) being unctuous –yes the rest of us are jealous and mad we didn’t think of it and 2) now we look like meanies for having forbidden the naked Barbie, the turquoise plastic recorder and the superman with glowing eyes that talks and the pack of mini snickers bars from being taken out of the car.

2) Bathroom breaks are of course expected, but points are deducted if the toddler in question begins a long discussion about bodily functions prior to or following the break, double negative points if the usher is coming through at the time with the collection basket, though I suspect it improves the take for the church on those occasions.

Please note that bathroom breaks to discuss potential birthday party themes, what one wants for lunch, or to scout out the number of Boston Crème donuts left downstairs for purchase after mass, is a mandatory major point deduction.

3) Mom rules. Dad disciplines. Most adults responsible for more than one child opt for the divide and conquer method of maintaining a minimum level of good behavior.

If you use the two most likely to fight as book ends of the pew, with the boring parents actually trying to pay attention to mass in the middle, odds of being able to follow along in the missilette increase by 30%. If you use the adults as bookends to curtail spontaneous bolting down the aisle (and it’s been known to happen), fights increase as a possibility by a factor of ten.

Once you have more than three, some combination of children will have to sit together and finding the right combo is a matter of luck and dependent upon many as of yet undiscernable factors. It is for this reason, we encourage as many of our children as possible to serve at the mass, meaning their behavior will be much more public display and limiting our personal liability.

On non serving days, Mom will try to bring order by glaring and whispering sharply, “Be good, we’re in church.” Dad will squeeze the hand of the offending child and say “No donuts.” Please note, the second strategy opted for by fathers everywhere does not work for vigil or the 5:00 Sunday evening slacker mass.

4) Virtue boy and Prayer girl are fighting. If you ever want to witness the true hostility that comes naturally to brothers and sisters of similar age, take them to mass. When they kneel next to each other, check the elbows. Chances are, they’ll be boring into each other’s with such intensity that one could create diamonds out of coal if a suitable sample were placed in between the siblings two opposing joints and allowed to endure simply the Apostle’s Creed.

There will be an unspoken battle to see who can sing better…louder…softer…with fewer mistakes. There will be a race to see who can stand, sit and kneel on cue. One will sit with his hands folded, eyes fixed on the priest while the other follows along in the book. Sure, it looks like both are into the mass, but both are petitioning parents and God to smite the other less reverent, less responsive, less worthy sibling down for his/her sloppy execution of appointed physical gestures.

Parental correction to a singular person equals victory. Admittedly, as long as the war remains a cold one, most adults are willing to allow this sort of muted spy vs. spy battle go unchecked.

So if you were ever wondering why the Catholic Church in its infinite and timely wisdom has the kiss of peace, the “Lord I am not worthy to receive you,” or the “Go In Peace.” Sections of the liturgy, now you know.

These are not just reminders of our unworthiness or need to express love to one another or the words of Christ himself, these are the Church’s way of helping out the frazzled Mom and Dad in the back of the building, reminding the offspring that are the faith’s future to “knock it off.” “Play nice.” And “Be good.” ….or no donuts.

To which we, the strung out grown-ups of the clan say, “Thanks be to God.”

Growing Pains

Every parent has spent a lifetime of nagging children to eat their vegetables, to brush teeth, to read, to do homework, to watch less TV and exercise more. Every parent has hoped their children would be more manageable than they were as kids. Every kid as presumed they were more knowledgible about the world than their parents could ever be, and every parent has fretted that the current age is so very different and more difficult than all the ages past, that the world is much more oppressive and dangerous than they remember. Time is the great equalizer of all perceptions. Once you get to the later age, you have the authority of past experience to recognize those without that perspective; will not recognize your authority.

So I get the pain and awkwardness of teenagerhood. No one ever says “Man, if only I were 12 again.”

Having two teens and one tween and one perspective tween, I am having bad flashbacks.

Yesterday was a free dress day at school and I remembered. One of the biggest arguments I ever had with my Mom and I LOVED my Mom, (she was a safe haven and a refuge in those ugly high school years), was over a bathrobe sash.

I thought it looked great tied around my head.

It had a long flowing tapered end and it was fuchsia pink and made of terry cloth. It could not, could not have been more stylin’. I had on a mini skirt, tights, a flash dance cut sweat shirt, leg warmers and to complete the screaming 80’s fame wantabe ensemble, the fuchsia terry cloth bathrobe sash head band. Mom said no. I protested. Mom still said no. Somehow, the words “It’s a bathrobe sash.” Refused to sink into my adolescent brain. She tried mightily to convince me but undaunted, I marched to school, headband a swaying, euphoric.

That today, there is no physical evidence that I ever wore the thing to school is proof, not that anyone needed any, that Mom loves me.

Some kid at school, I forget the name, said, “Hey Sherry? Why are you wearing a bathrobe sash on your head?” The sash was off instantly and I was cured.

My daughter came up to show me her outfit for school. She had been in a great funk about what to wear but now joyfully modeled blue sports shorts, a striped pink and white top, a purple jacket and light blue ughs. Her hair was in deep curls and she twirled around with a twinkle in her eyes that mirrored her mother’s of 28 years ago.

“How do I look?” she'd asked.

I struggled. I knew she loved this, I knew I hated it but I knew she loved this. “You look happy.” I replied.

Off she bounced, her heart light.

Hopefully, no one took any pictures.

Notre Dame Our Mother, Pray for US..We are ND

When Mario Cuomo came to speak at Notre Dame, "official" people and political fans of the man went into logistical moral pretzels to assuage critics who felt the university was betraying its Catholic identity in the process. The University opted to host him, saying a university must be open to all ideas and that it was important to hear dissenting views of prominent Catholics. His arguments that one could “not impose” one’s morality on others allowed countless Catholics to check themselves out of the abortion issue entirely. They “washed their hands” of this moral issue. He set the stage for John Kerry and others on how to parse the abortion question such that if no one paid too close attention, they could have their virtuous Catholic faith and the endorsement of NARAL too. They felt Solomon like, but in actual reality, they split the baby.

Our current President used the votes of those who embraced the Cuomo argument, to help him to get elected. People who were Catholics for Obama argued that we can’t be one issue voters and thus the public good offered to the poor of the world in health care and social programs outweighed any good that might be gained for the unborn, as abortion would still continue. This type of thinking drove me nuts before the election, because it wasn’t like poverty and sickness and suffering for the living would vanish because this guy became president! But the election happened, and for those who think all souls have meaning and specifically for those who hold Catholicism to be authentically true, it’s hard not to be fighting mad with how things have thus far turned out. Eight weeks in, we have embryonic stem cell research, funded abortions overseas, talk of FOCA being signed, and a repeal of the Mexico City policy that banned federal funding to all organizations that either promoted or provided abortions.

Based on all these policies and using statistics the way the global warming crowd does, the unborn of our nation are the most endangered life form on earth; for all practical purposes, it is open season on all stages of neonatal development. 50 million and counting have been served by Planned Parenthood and similar minded institutions, and there is no sign that the fiendish beast that loves abortion desire’s to devour those not yet born is in any way abated. Shouldn’t we be jumping up and down or something? Holding a concert? The devil salivates at all the souls scarred and potentially lost through this procedure: the mother, the father, the nurses, the advocates, the doctors and the politicians and the duped.

Over and over again this past year, we have seen Catholic public officials and Catholic citizen alike, check their moral compass at the Election booth or behind the policy making door. Those who advocated for President Obama amongst the Catholic community, specifically, Biden, Pelosi, Sebelius, Douglas Kmiec and all who joined Catholics for Obama, who felt that one could vote for the most pro-abortion candidate in the United States history in good conscience, have now found a strange and to my thinking, terribly sad ally in the University of Notre Dame.

Now it is a big deal to have a sitting President come and speak at a University. Having the sitting president speak at commencement is many things, heady, impressive, and publically good for the institution as whole. It is a draw to future applicants of the school. We’re important; we get the President of the United States. It will look good for both the President and the University.

What it won’t be, is Catholic, because it is also the obligation of every Catholic to speak out and provide correction when people of good character go wrong, and to refuse those who knowingly engage in wrong moral behavior, the cover of tacit approval by association. Here was the opportunity to speak truth to power as was once popular, to be a clear moral voice in the world of relativism that seeks to dismiss all debate as partisan and symbolic rather than necessary and substantive. To my thinking, the University failed in its core mission, again.

One hopes when the cock finally crows and the University has denied Christ in disguise a third time, that those in positions of leadership will weep and become the rocks they always could be. I love this place. I met my husband here. My father and mother began their great romance story here. My sister and her husband went here. My grandfather went here. My Aunt, my Uncle, cousins I care about deeply, people I call and write and love went to this place or just across the street at Saint Mary’s. I know the University of Notre Dame is still Catholic and that perhaps those in positions of authority see the situation differently. But they should know that we don’t just want the Irish to win on the football field, we want them to be scholars and gentlemen. We want them to be good sports and kind souls. We want the whole package, undefeated, perfect in all things, shining like the Dome itself, humble, virtuous, good. We’re THAT Catholic, we want all.

And so we worry that Notre Dame will become like Georgetown, which once took down the crucifixes in its classrooms rather than offend those who did not know Christ crucified, or Boston College, which considered back 1989, selling condoms in the bookstore might somehow not a betrayal of Catholic values. If Notre Dame wants to return to its once former glory which did not rest on the football field, but on the steeped Faith and Beating Catholic heart of the University and its people, it needs to reassert its Catholic identity.

I’d say, it’s time for the sacrament of Reconciliation….and maybe it’s sister school, Saint Mary’s College should invite Sarah Palin.