Children in church

You will find that in America there is no uniform way of dealing with children in Church. That said, there are a few main classes of treatment ("The Geneva Convention on Child Care and Faith Formation" aka the "Proverbs 22:6 Commission").

• Bunker mentality - We go to our service and the children go to theirs. The children's service often involves more VeggieTales than the order of the mass or leiturgikon calls for, but that can't be helped. The children can go to church when they are "old enough."
  
• Suffer the little children - That's not a dig at the little blighters (see Luke 18:16). Other churches choose to have a cry room where the rowdy can be "corrected" and the infants can be... no idea what women do here; dread of variously disrobed, nursing mothers striking me with frying pans and diaper bags for entering sacred domain keeps me away.
  
• The surgery seems to be going well - Some churches have a glass wall to the rear of the church where parishioners can watch a quadruple bypass ... erm... participate in the service from afar. Depending on the church I feel like either a clutch of lepers or magnanimous and virtuous parents who don't want to spoil the movie for everyone else.
  
• Full contact parenting - Because the church is too small, the priest likes it that way, or the family wishes it so some churches provide two options: outside or inside. These parishes are either filled with kids crawling under chairs/pews, screaming, biting, hitting, etc. or there is one family that has chosen to interlope on the sanctity of a church not so desirous of little ones. I've been to both.

Enter my experience. Two angelic elder children. One middle child who takes this opportunity to lay down on the seats with thumb firmly ensconced in his mouth. The demonically possessed fourth child. Finally, the alternately sleepy or wide-eyed infant.
Child four screams, hits, runs away gleefully at inopportune times, crawls under the chairs and touches other peoples' stuff. Occasionally she sits primly holding a book. If it is a "church book" I keep an eye ranged so that peripheral vision will allow me to see before I hear (hearing meaning I am already too late) the rending of the tome. Luckily I am told she is cute. Cuteness seems to heal all wounds (literal or figurative) where our older parishioners or other child encumbered families are concerned.

So what to do?

Because of the number of children and configuration of our previous parish I took two children and the wife took two. We sat separately. I never actually sat. Instead I stood with child #3 in a child sling on my back while child #1 dutifully stood next to me. I don't really know where the wife went. A lot of my time was spent not getting too close to anything #3 could kick off from (including his brother, #1), use as a projectile, or wield as a melee weapon so I didn't keep tabs. I imagine her sitting amongst friends, uncreated light shining from her brow while child #2 sat in rapt attention or assisted with then infant #4.
This doesn't work at the new church. It's too small for one thing. For another the child sling is just a more convenient way for child #4 to get a few good licks in on daddy's head and shoulders - places usually reserved only for swiping at for brief moments during diaper changes. When outnumbered and the aggressors have the high ground, do not expect to triumph.

Angelic #2

Wife / Infant #5

Unruly #4

Angelic #1

Me / Child #3

Imagine an airplane 5 seats wide. Child #2 sits in seat A - safely placed away from the fray. Mother and child #5 sit on seat B acting as a more successful New Orleans levee. Child #4 (homeland security threat level "red" severe) sits in C. Child #1 sits in D. Father and #3 sit in E. I protect the stained glass windows to my right and the "Run, Forrest... Run!" moments where #4 tries to make a run for it. We are also aided by rows 3 and 5 who enjoy holding #5 when #3 or #4 reenact the more memorable moments of the Hulk movie.
Amazingly, this works. As long as we get to church early enough to get contiguous seating all is well. Failing that, some parishioners are prescient enough to make room or we sit separately.