Date: 04 February 2007 21:35:22
I appreciate that children are the future of the Church. I also appreciate that expecting them to sit still and quietly through an hour-long service where they can't see anything because they're sat at the back is a little unreasonable. I also appreciate that brothers and sisters don't always get along, and that I am a miserable, curmudgeonly old bat whose inner child is aged about 45. That said:
There are more appropriate things to bring to Church to keep your child amused than Nintendo Gameboys (loaded with SpongeBob Squarepants games, no less) and Tonka trucks (to be rattled up and down the pews at great length, and every so often noisily disgorged of cargo). If your children do not get on, it might be an idea to sit them so the boy can't pull the girl's hair, thus minimising the chance of them having a loud and noisy fight during the Liturgy of the Word (I still have no idea what the readings were. Must look them up). The Nintendo will be a massive distraction to every child sat within line of sight, and those not quite within line of sight, resulting in much scrambling around, craning of necks and kicking of innocent fellow-worshippers who for their sins (which are legion, and currently number "bearing hatred in my heart towards pre-teen children" as chief of them), just happen to be sat next to you.
Sitting still is a useful skill, and should be cultivated and encouraged. Suddenly lurching backwards with no warning at the Consecration will likely result in the back of your head making violent (and painful) contact with the forehead of the woman kneeling behind you, and she will give you a filthy look, one of the many in her arsenal of filthy looks.
And I still have absolutely no idea what the parade of Rainbows, Brownies, Guides, Beavers, Cubs and Scouts was all about, or, indeed, what the sermon was about, except it involved the priest asking the audience congregation questions about journeys they have been on. Despite the enormous microphone, the sermon was drowned out by the children having a fight behind me. I think I'm glad. "All-Age sermons" are rarely anything like.
And yes, I deliberately went for the earlier Mass of the two on offer, because I know that it's the later Mass which is the Parish or Family Mass. Unfortunately, this church appears to break that hitherto inviolate rule.