@trowland87 - You have described what I think is one of the greatest crosses of life as a full time parish musician. I have worked for parishes full time for about fifteen years, and am the mother of six children, ranging from 3-14. My husband has taken the kids to Mass on his own for basically their entire lives. It is not easy. You said your children are ages 6, 3, and 2, which is incredibly difficult. It does get easier! Now that my kids are older, I have one who serves every Mass and three who sing in the choir with me every week, which is a huge blessing. My husband has the 5 and 3 yr old in the pew with him. Occasionally I have the 5 year old in the loft with me.

My best advice would be to find a friend or parishioner, preferably the grandma type, who is willing to sit with your wife and kids during Mass. I had one baby (#5) who was particularly difficult, and I would bring him to work with me on Saturday nights. A friend of mine would show up early to Mass and hold him in the pew.

We have one spoken Mass at my parish on Sundays, and my husband will sometimes go to this one on his own and I will take the older 5 kids to the sung Mass right after (but we live 2 minutes from church, which makes this possible).

"I say that devotion must be practiced in different ways by the nobleman and by the working man, by the servant and by the prince, by the widow, by the unmarried girl and by the married woman. But even this distinction is not sufficient; for the practice of devotion must be adapted to the strength, to the occupation and to the duties of each one in particular.

Tell me, please, my Philothea, whether it is proper for a bishop to want to lead a solitary life like a Carthusian; or for married people to be no more concerned than a Capuchin about increasing their income; or for a working man to spend his whole day in church like a religious; or on the other hand for a religious to be constantly exposed like a bishop to all the events and circumstances that bear on the needs of our neighbor. Is not this sort of devotion ridiculous, unorganized and intolerable? Yet this absurd error occurs very frequently, but in no way does true devotion, my Philothea, destroy anything at all. On the contrary, it perfects and fulfills all things. In fact if it ever works against, or is inimical to, anyone’s legitimate station and calling, then it is very definitely false devotion...the type of devotion which is purely contemplative, monastic and religious can certainly not be exercised in these sorts of stations and occupations, but besides this threefold type of devotion, there are many others fit for perfecting those who live in a secular state.

Therefore, in whatever situations we happen to be, we can and we must aspire to the life of perfection."

Saint Francis de Sales

All I can say is - thank God I'm not alone in this!

Actually, I can say a bit more. :)

Networking with your church friends, especially your choir friends, can be a good idea. A substantial amount of our TLM choir comprises of young parents; a lot of times, both the moms AND the dads are up in the loft singing. If we have parents that need to nip down to tag out their significant other in caring for a child, it's understood and we're ready to fill in for them until such time they can make it back up. It takes a village. And it's really a growth for grace and charity.

From the toddler aspect, try to give your little one enough space to wiggle - while at the same time starting to plant seeds of reverence. That's our case, because we have a one-hour trip each way and church usually happens during ideal nap time for us. Our little two-year-old Hobgoblin loves the cry room, but it can get crowded and stifling in there at times, and she has a habit of terrorizing or being a bad influence on the young lads in there. So, we take her up to the loft for a spell, so she can sing with Mommy and Daddy, and sometimes she wanders a bit and picks up the choir-books and spills her Cheerios all over the kneelers. A nuisance? Perhaps. But she also gets to interact with the musicians, and she gets a taste of what we're doing and why we're doing it. Sort of an early musical apprenticeship, if only for a few minutes at a time.

Finally - and I'm sure you're doing this, but you can never do it enough - tell your husband/wife that you love them and appreciate what they do. Be a shoulder for them to cry on, if necessary.

Recent anecdote somewhat summing all of these ideas up: We are eating sandwiches out of the back of our car after Mass. Wife, who is a saintly Wesleyan, is upset and I can tell. I ask her what is wrong and give her free rein to vent. Tearfully, she recounts how our Little Toad was testing the acoustics of the cry room at the most recent Mass with her fortissimo 'rendition' of the Queen of the Night aria, and pestering a young man with grapes until the boy's mother took him out of the room, and how she felt judged. I told her that most parents at a Latin Mass can sympathize about dealing with unruly kids, and if not, then to Hell with them. My Alto Section leader and her Bass husband walk by after this, and comment on what a good idea our lunch was; Mr. Bass recommends we all have a picnic at the local park next week so we can socialize and our littles can run off some energy. That was a good day.