I Spent Years Misreading the Man Who Turned Around in Our Pew

For most of the years we've been in this ward I believed Brother Haddock was glaring at me. He sits two rows ahead on the left, and any time one of my children made a sound he'd turn all the way around in the pew. I'd have the noisy one up and out of the chapel before he finished turning, my face hot to the hairline.

Last winter Ben dropped a board book and started winding up. Brother Haddock turned around and I was halfway into the aisle before I saw what his face was doing. Smiling. In the foyer afterward he told me his grandchildren live in Boise and he doesn't hear that sound much anymore. I'd been apologizing to him for years, and he'd been enjoying the show.

Ben is two years and eight months now and my fourth, and nearly everything I know about toddlers in sacrament meeting I learned by being wrong first.

Where to sit when you might have to leave fast

Everybody says the back and I mostly agree, since a back pew means fewer eyes on you and a shorter walk to the door. I'd still put the aisle ahead of the back, because the aisle is what lets you leave in four seconds without climbing over anybody's knees and a diaper bag.

Take the end seat and put the child on the wall side. A two-year-old who has run out of room will go under the bench, and from the aisle you can reach him without a scene. Sitting near a grandmother type helps more than any toy I've ever packed, and if one offers to take a turn holding him, say yes. Some stretches you're doing this on your own, which I wrote about in When Your Husband Comes Home With a New Calling.

What's in Ben's bag now

Three board books, one box of eight crayons (never the box of twenty-four) and a little pad of paper. A cup with a lid and dry cereal in it, and a pipe cleaner or two, though I rethink even that every few months.

The longer list is what I stopped bringing. Anything that makes a sound went first, including the toy that "only makes a quiet sound," because a quiet sound in a hushed chapel carries to row nine. Markers went because they go through paper onto the pew. Stickers ended up on the hymnbook and in my hair. Goldfish crackers leave orange on everything and get ground into the carpet where the deacons will find them later, and juice has never once survived to the end of the meeting, since the cup always lands during the sacrament prayer.

The bag stays closed through the opening hymn and the sacrament, and the first book comes out when the first speaker stands. A bag only works on novelty, so it lives at church and nowhere else, and anything he's tired of goes back in for a few weeks. The books are the same three for a month at a time because he'd rather hear a familiar one again than meet a new one in the quiet. If you empty it onto the bench before the meeting starts you've used up your one trick by the second hymn.

The five minutes that matter most

If I could only get one thing right it would be the sacrament itself, which is about five minutes of quiet and a stretch a two-year-old can sometimes manage. He sits on my lap facing forward and I fold his arms for him when the bread comes by. He unfolds them and I fold them again.

In the April 2009 general conference Sister Margaret Lifferth said that "reverent behavior is not a natural tendency for most children." She went on to say it's something taught and nurtured line upon line and precept upon precept. Elder Boyd K. Packer put it more gently in October 1991:

"The reverence we speak of does not equate with absolute silence."
(Elder Boyd K. Packer, "Reverence Invites Revelation")

When I give up and walk him out

Sooner than I used to.

A toddler who is loud and shoving against you for the third time won't settle because you dug in, and everyone nearby is straining to listen over him while you're hearing none of the meeting yourself.

Where you go matters more than I knew. A foyer with a drinking fountain and somebody's older brother to wave at teaches a toddler in about two Sundays that screaming is the way to get there. Go to the quiet room or the far corner by the coat rack, hold him on your lap and say "We're going to sit here until you're calm and then we'll go back." Nothing comes out of the bag and nobody walks the hall. It's dull on purpose, and it works about as well as anything does at two. Some Sundays you won't go back in at all.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I give my toddler a phone or tablet?

I save it for a real emergency, like a talk that has run twenty minutes over. Used every week it teaches him that sitting still means being entertained, and I haven't found a way to undo that once it's learned.

What if he cries the whole meeting?

Then you were in the quiet room for most of it and you did fine. Hold him until he's done and go back in if he's calm or go home if he's not. Either one is a fine Sunday.

How old before I can expect him to sit?

Until somewhere past eighteen months it's mostly tolerance on everybody's part. After that you'll get ten minutes here and there, more if the bag is good, and I'd hedge on anything firmer because children vary so much. It won't come in a straight line, and a bad month at three doesn't undo a good one at two.

What do I do about a person who glares?

Smile at them. Odds are they're remembering their own, and if they really are glaring you'll never find out why.

Tonight I'm tipping Ben's bag out on the bed and putting back only the board books, the eight crayons and the cup. It rides up to Bear Lake with us on Saturday, and in whatever chapel we find ourselves Sunday I'll take the aisle and keep it shut until the first speaker stands.

with love, Melissa