While I agree with Joanna Moorhead (18 January) that the Pope is right to welcome mothers breastfeeding in church, there is a little more to the issue than that. I don’t think most people object to noise caused by young children, but there is a growing problem of inappropriate behaviour from older, school-age youths, and frankly some adults are not setting the right example. I’ve been to some services where there was so much disorder that there was a danger of the focus being entirely lost.I think this comes from adults believing that they cannot expect much from children in church; that they can’t be expected to listen and participate, or even keep quiet. It’s thought to be enough just to carry out the clocking-in exercise of bringing them. Actually children
30 January 2014, The Tablet
Too much noise
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