This post is part of Unfiled — intentional field notes that don’t fit the columns but still inform the work. More Unfiled posts HERE>>>
Shout out to the parents attending Mass from the church lobby this Sunday.
The ones who make it fifteen minutes into the pew before someone loudly announces their personal rebellion.
The ones who exit somewhere between the second reading and the homily, child tucked under one arm like a wriggling football, whisper-hissing apologies as they sidestep knees and purses.
We’re still at church. We’ve just migrated twenty feet to the rear where the flooring is tile and the acoustics are unforgiving.
I have twin one-year-olds. This is a very specific age. They do not sit. They do not whisper. They do not contemplate eternity. They run. They wobble. They trip over their own enthusiasm. They say hi to strangers. They attempt to scale furniture that was never meant to be scaled. They put things in their mouths with missionary zeal.
We start every Sunday with optimism.
We arrive (mostly) on time. We slide into a pew. We distribute snacks like communion. We whisper, “Okay, boys, we’re going to sit with Mommy and Daddy.”
And it works.
For approximately ten to fifteen minutes.
Then one of them stiffens like a tiny revolutionary and loudly declares a toddler-translated version of “Unhand me, wench,” and that’s our cue.
We gather our dignity, step over ankles, and retreat to the lobby.
The church lobby is about a thousand square feet of entryway hallway. There’s a bathroom. The church office. A folding table where the Knights of Columbus sell raffle tickets. In winter and Lent there’s usually some seasonal display. Sometimes a bake sale. It smells faintly like coffee and old hymnals.
This is where the real action is.
There are always a few of us.
The Lobby Parents.
This morning there was another mom with a one-and-a-half-year-old boy. We are in the same club. You recognize each other immediately. We exchanged the standard pleasantries over the sound of tiny sneakers slapping tile.
“How old is yours?”
“Wow, he’s fast.”
“What school does your older one go to?”
Surface-level conversation layered over shared chaos. We’re not here to debate theology. We’re here to prevent someone from pulling the Giving Tree over sideways.
We follow our children at that perfect distance. Close enough to intercept. Far enough not to trip them. We pick them up when they tumble. We redirect them away from doors they shouldn’t open. We apologize when they get too close to someone’s coat.
We’re fully engaged in the church service, just doing it while intercepting a toddler headed straight for the raffle ticket table.
We can hear the Mass through the speakers.
We catch the homily in fragments. We say the Apostles’ Creed out loud. We pray the Our Father while someone is trying to climb a folding chair.
Having your mind wander while you people-watch in the pew has the same spiritual productivity as chasing a toddler in the lobby and half listening along. Attention drifts in both locations. Reverence looks different depending on your season.
Most of the parishioners love it. The older folks make googly eyes at the boys. They smile. They wave. They say, “Oh, he’s so sweet,” even as he attempts to taste the hem of their coat.
There is warmth.
But today there was also a moment.
We were in a cramped stretch of hallway when an older woman tried to pass. I shuffled my toddler to the side, smiled, said, “Excuse us.”
She did not smile back.
No softening. No “Oh, you’re fine.”
Just a tight expression and a small huff. The exact face I make when I am annoyed but choosing not to escalate.
And I felt it.
Not shame.
Defiance.
What exactly would you like me to do?
Stay home until my children are compliant and silent? Wait until they can fold their hands neatly and whisper scripted responses?
This is my life right now. My faith practice looks like herding toddlers in a thousand square feet of thinly carpeted hallway. And I am doing my best.
I understand that toddlers are loud. They are inconvenient. They are unpredictable. This space was not architected with one-year-olds in mind. Maybe she white-knuckled her way through motherhood decades ago. Maybe she had girls who sat quietly in pews. Maybe she is blissfully child-free. Maybe she was just having a bad morning.
Our interaction lasted twenty seconds.
Twenty seconds can still carry weight.
That kind of energy is what quietly convinces young families to disappear.
And here’s what I want to say gently but firmly:
If churches want young families, they have to be prepared for young families.
Young families come with noise. With motion. With interruptions. With exits and re-entries and snack wrappers and sticky fingers.
You do not get the vibrancy of children without the reality of children.
This lobby phase is normal.
Every parent who consistently brings their kids to church has done this walk of humble retreat down the aisle. Every parent has stood in a lobby whisper-praying while blocking access to the church bathroom. Every parent has weighed the tension between reverence and survival.
It can feel like being benched from the “real” Mass, but what’s actually happening is training. We’re learning how to bring small humans into something sacred without demanding they act forty years older than they are.
We begin in the pew.
We make it fifteen minutes.
We retreat.
Over time, we’ll make it twenty. Then thirty. Then most of the Mass. One day, they’ll sit beside us and follow along in the missal and whisper too loud but mostly stay put.
Nothing about this feels polished, but it is absolutely formative. This is how patience gets built. This is how reverence gets layered in slowly, one chaotic Sunday at a time.
And in five years?
When I am sitting in the pew and I see a mom bolt past me with a red-faced toddler, I hope I smile.
I hope I make space.
I hope I am the older woman who says, “You’re doing great.”
I hope I am the one who offers to hold the baby for five minutes so she can pee in peace.
I hope I am the opposite of the huff.
Because solidarity matters.
There is something sacred about parents choosing to show up when it would be easier to stay home. It would be simpler to stream a service. To skip it entirely. To tell ourselves, “We’ll come back when they’re older.”
But formation doesn’t happen in absence. It happens in repetition. It happens in showing up with Goldfish crumbs in your purse and tension in your shoulders and a toddler trying to lick the baptismal font.
The volume doesn’t dilute the faith. If anything, it makes it tangible. It forces you to practice devotion while someone is trying to climb a folding chair.
Right now, my spiritual practice includes redirecting small humans away from the church office door while whispering the Creed.
And that counts.
To the parents in the lobby: I see you.
To the ones doing math on how many minutes you made it today: it’s okay.
To the ones who feel the flicker of embarrassment when someone sighs: don’t let that flicker turn into absence.
To the parishes wondering why young families drift away, consider how your space feels to them in their most chaotic season.
We are not asking for silence.
We are asking for room.
Room to raise believers. Room to teach our kids what sacred space feels like, even if they experience it in motion first. Room to be fully human inside holy walls.
Because someday these lobby kids will be altar servers. Choir members. Readers. Volunteers. The ones shaking hands at the sign of peace with reverence instead of sticky fingers.
But right now, they are one.
And one-year-olds run.
So shout out to the Lobby Parents.
The hallway saints.
The Creed-reciting, raffle-dodging, toddler-wrangling faithful.
We’re still part of Mass, even if our version involves pacing the hallway and whisper-praying between sprints. Worship just happens to have a step counter right now.
And it still counts