My child, my religion
by Gina Jacobson, a wife, a mom, a leo. She works for a non-profit organisation, is a procrastinator, loves sci-fi, sushi, good books and Scrabble. Her blog is made up of A Bit of This a Bit of That.
We have recently had a few weeks of major Jewish Holydays and this has made me think more about how active we are as a family in our religion.
I deeply admire the women who bring their two or three month old babies to service every week as personally, I just couldn’t do it. Taking Aaron out at that age freaked me out too much and I was also too anxious that he would cry and disturb everyone else.
We got into the habit of not attending regular services and now I wonder if I made a mistake. We took Aaron to the Rosh Hashanah (New Year) service this year and he was mostly ok, he wanted to be with his daddy and after a while got a bit bored and they landed up playing in the playground. 
Aaron did get a kick out of the chocolate the Rabbi handed out to all the kids at the end though. The next day we took him again and I spent most of the service playing outside with him.
I feel on the one hand that perhaps we should have exposed him earlier on to the concept of going to shul but on the other hand I feel confident that the more we go from now on the more he will come to enjoy going with us.
I think this is the biggest change I will make this year, I will endeavor to take my whole family to the Friday night service at least two or three times a month. It can only benefit all of us and hopefully my little boy will grow up loving his religion and seeing it as something to be enjoyed with the whole family.
How do other families, of any religion, involve their little ones in religious practices? I would love to hear about your experiences or your views on the matter.
I am very bad with the attending church with children – I just dont do it – the disapproval and expectation to be well behaved by others expectations and standards is always too much for me. I find attending church with the children stressful, I generally end up outside with them and miss the entire sermon and leave feeling frustrated and angry so really there is no point attending, standing outside a church does not make me a better person than staying at home.
Thats exactly it, I hate the disapproving looks I get when he makes noise. Its so embarrassing. And its not his fault, he is just a kid. Im gonna keep trying but Im not gonna force it…
I regularly take my children to Synagogue but almost never actually go inside – I feel that it is unfair to people trying to pray to make a noise and unfair to my children to expect them to keep quiet as they are just little kids after all. I also generally end up at the playground with them but I don’t feel bad about it – Until they are old enough to sit inside, I hope that the experience of going to Synagogue with their parents is a positive, fun-filled one, even if all they get out of it is some chocolate and some playground time! But I do hope they are learning something about our culture and community and in time will be able to sit inside with me. One last thing, our Synagogue has recently introduced a sermon for moms after services where kids are welcome (and are given snacks and games) and no one minds how much noise they make – this is a great way for me to gain something from the experience and not feel guilty that my kids are making a noise or that I have had to leave them at home.