It is Sunday morning and Sally and Tom are preparing to take their three children - six year old Abby, three-year old Matthew, and one-year old Joey – to Mass.

The children are dressed and doing the pre-church bathroom visit while Sally fills the survival bag: sandwich bags filled with Cheerios, three mini-boxes of raisins, Matthew’s teddy bear, Joey’s blanket, diapers, an emergency bottle, and a few children’s books. Tom buckles the children in the car. Remembering that Joey is teething, Sally runs into the house to get a teething ring - just in case. She hopes she has everything she needs to keep the children content and the Mass undisturbed.

On arriving at church the couple has several options. They can be seated in the assembly. Given the ages of their children, Sally and Tom might feel less anxious if they sat in the rear of the church in case they needed an easy exit with an unhappy child. Or, if theirs is a church with a separate space often called a “cry room,” they can opt for the place away from the congregation.

Cry rooms, places meant to help parents soothe or quiet upset or misbehaving infants and young children, may seem like an obvious solution to a challenging problem. Yet, opinions are mixed on the effectiveness of cry rooms, and the ways that they impact the community.

Many parishes do their best to welcome everyone at Sunday liturgy and to serve the needs of families like Sally and Tom’s while pre-serving a positive worship experience for all.

Mercy Sister Eleanor McCann, associate director of the diocesan Office of Worship said, “The main concern of Church leadership is that all those present have the right to participate in the action of the liturgy.” Some might like to add the words, “provided they behave themselves,” meaning, to stand, sit, kneel, and respond when appropriate and not making extra sound or motion to distract others, high expectations for parents of babies and toddlers whose needs and behaviors are often unpredictable.

“Neither the ‘Constitution of the Sacred Liturgy’ of the Second Vatican Council nor ‘Built of Living Stones’ from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, (which are among the Church’s leading documents relating to liturgy and church construction), make any stipulation about removing a child from the Mass,” said Sister Eleanor. Even so, sensitivity to other worshipers warrants that sometimes parents need to remove a child from the assembly.

In the traditional rectangular churches of the pre-Vatican II era, time-out usually meant an embarrassingly long walk to the foyer where heavy wood doors and the absence of high-tech speaker systems meant that the parent and recovering child were truly apart from the assembly and the liturgy itself.

Evolution of the ‘cry room’ In the late 1960s, the changes of the Second Vatican Council introduced a new kind of church building: semicircular, with shorter aisles and more than two sections of pews allowing greater visibility of the altar and participation in the liturgy. The architectural design included a new feature: the cry room. Set adjacent to the congregation, it provided a convenient place for parents to calm an unhappy or misbehaving child. A window replaced part of the wall bordering the main part of the church and the speakers piped in sound, letting parents see and hear the liturgy. The cry room was even incorporated in new church construction that adopted more traditional architecture.

It seemed to be a solution for all attending the Mass. Parents could tend to their children’s physical and their own spiritual needs; the priest could celebrate the liturgy and the assembly could focus upon it undisturbed.

Having the cry room alternative eased the anxiety of parents concerned that a child might make it harder for other members of the assembly to worship and pray. Rooms were outfitted with chairs and sometimes lavatories, comforts unavailable in older-style churches.

The cry room in St. George Church, Titusville, is used well, according to pastoral associate Sister Dorothy Jancola, who said, “The people are grateful it is there. Parents of small children will spend the entire Mass there.”

“It provides a pressure valve release,” said Marge McGinley, pastoral administrator at Sacred Heart Parish, Mount Holly. “It takes pressure off the parent and the child without excluding them from the liturgy.”

McGinley stressed, “We call it the ‘quieting room,’ where parents can hear and participate at Mass without making others feel uncomfortable. But we do not consider it a permanent place for families with small children.”

“The room is not that large, accommodating five children and their parents. We impress people to bring children into the church. But they go to the cry room if their child is having a bad day.”

“The parents have taught us how to best welcome them and meet their needs,” said McGinley. Now the parish stocks the cry room with children’s books devoted to religious values and beliefs.

The parishes where cry rooms are used successfully often regard them as a place to introduce very young children to the experience of Mass with the expectation that they will sit with the congregation as soon as possible.

“Our cry room is used by families with children age three and younger,” said Father Timothy Capewell, pastor of St. David the King Parish, West Windsor. The weekday Mass chapel is converted into a cry room for the weekend Masses, resulting in spacious accommodations.

“We thank God for it,” remarked Father Capewell, “People who use the room form friendships and bond because they have children of the same age and share a lot of common experience.”

Father Capewell said that some young families prefer sitting in the church but will go to the room when a child is having a bad day. He noted that the best use of the room is for parents to teach their children the appropriate way to behave in church. Thus the presence of toy boxes sends the wrong message to the room’s occupants.

Problems have arisen in some parishes when the community – especially where young families are the minority – treat the cry room as the only place for young families to be. As soon as parents with children age five and under entered the church, ushers automatically opened the door to the cry room and directed them inside. Sitting in the congregation was not offered as an option, and the young parents felt second-class and unwelcome.

Another snag occurred when adults without children began to occupy the room and then complain when parents came in with small children. Father John Bambrick of St. Joseph Parish, Toms River, often reminded people in a previous parishes where he served that the room was dedicated to the needs of young families. Sister Dorothy noticed that adult parishioners tend to use the room when they do not wish to disturb the church with their late arrival or their anticipated early departure.

Cry room etiquette

The greatest problem facing parents who use the cry room is that etiquette might not be outlined or enforced. Not every parent has the same expectations for children’s behavior, faith formation or the cry room’s purpose.

The only time some use it is when they must take their children from the assembly because their behavior would disrupt the liturgical experience for everyone else. Yet others feel more comfortable limiting their children to the cry room until they are older and start to understand what Mass is about.

But concerns arise when parents think it is a place where the children’s behavior does not need any limits.

As a result, young parents complained that sitting in the cry room disconnects them from the liturgy.

Msgr. Ronald Bacovin, pastor of St. James Parish, Pennington, told how his parishioners would not consider including one in the plans for the church’s renovation.

“Cry rooms are not only noisy but none of the parents had time to focus on the liturgy or could hear or even see what was going on at the Mass,” he said. “When one child starts to cry or talk to another, the others pick it up.”

“They became playrooms,” answered Father Sam Sirianni, director of the diocesan Office of Worship and pastor of St. Robert Bellarmine Parish, Freehold. “There was no training happening for how to go to Mass. Some parents refused to take their children to the cry room because they could not train them to behave appropriately at Mass. Children must be trained to sit still and pay attention at Mass. It must be instilled.”

Father Kenard Tuzeneu, pastor of St. Mary Parish, Barnegat, agreed, “I remember being in one parish with a cry room and a friend of mine came to me, saying, ‘It’s a zoo in there; the children are not participating in Mass. They’re all over the place.’ In a cry room people are shielded from the congregation. Can you have full, active participation at Mass in there?”

Father Sirianni is concerned that confining children to the cry room short-circuits the role of the assembly in a child’s learning about the faith.

“It is the job of the parents and the assembly to show children how to act in church. Kids will learn from watching their parents and grandparents in prayer,” he said. He also suggested that children might follow the Mass better if parents brought them to the front pews for a closer view of the liturgical action.

Father Edwin Mathias of St. Ann Parish, Browns Mills, agreed, Sometimes adults become angry when children misbehave, but a child comes to learn and become part of the congregation. Let others see and encourage parents that are raising a child to come to church.

Father Mathias suggested that new churches be designed with cry rooms in the front of the church, from which children could see the altar. When cry rooms are situated at the back of a church, children can see only the backs of the congregation and not the action of the liturgy.

The latest construction of churches – with the narthex that might contain as much as a third of the church’s total square footage - may not include a cry room. But the narthex, or foyer, is appointed with benches and is often separated from the assembly with glass. The sound system also services the area. There people can take care of emergencies of children and adults - and still participate at Mass.