The Matt Walsh Show - You Think Your Loud Kid Isn’t Disrupting Everyone？ Let’s Talk.

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00:00:15.180 This week we talked about the issue of loud children in public.

00:00:19.980 We talked about a church in York, Pennsylvania, that was getting a lot of, getting some good press

00:00:26.480 because they posted a loud children policy where they were inviting families to bring their loud children to church

00:00:34.880 and saying that all children are welcome and all this sort of thing.

00:00:37.600 This is supposed to be heartwarming. I said I'm actually against it.

00:00:40.780 I talked about it on the show. I'll show you what I posted on X.

00:00:45.960 I said, I don't love it. I'm actually considerably less tolerant of loud kids in public now than I was before.

00:00:49.900 I had my own. Your children should not be allowed to disrupt a church service or any other public gathering

00:00:54.160 if they're being unruly, remove them. If they're old enough to know better, take them out and discipline them.

00:00:59.420 If they're too young to control themselves, then again, remove them.

00:01:02.080 I've had to do this many times in many situations. It blows my mind when parents just sit there

00:01:06.000 and let their kids totally disrupt and irritate an entire room full of strangers.

00:01:10.160 A lot of comments, a lot of conversation around this point, and I'll read some of the comments now.

00:01:16.380 This comes from Matthew Cordes, who says,

00:01:21.300 Oof, you've already lost me, Matthew.

00:01:24.160 You've already lost me as a grown man typing the word oof.

00:01:28.420 Think about what you're doing.

00:01:29.660 You're a grown man typing the word, not even oof, but O-O-O-F.

00:01:34.040 So, oof.

00:01:36.700 You're typing the word oof as a grown man.

00:01:39.720 That's problem number one.

00:01:43.760 Problem number two is the rest of this.

00:01:45.540 Should your children be obedient and well-behaved?

00:01:47.600 Yes, as much as possible.

00:01:49.280 There's a difference between being unruly and making a little noise.

00:01:52.540 If you have children, you know that under a certain age, different for each child,

00:01:57.960 they do not have any recognition of appropriate noise level.

00:02:01.180 There are two unmistakable sounds that signify a healthy church.

00:02:04.800 One, crying babies as they represent new life and families.

00:02:08.920 Two, singing men as they represent joyful and loving leadership and not stodgy piety.

00:02:14.320 Bring your sometimes noisy kids to church.

00:02:16.660 Help them learn to participate in the service appropriately,

00:02:18.860 but don't be ashamed when they act like kids.

00:02:22.760 This is one of those things people do where I say something and then they react like they totally disagree,

00:02:28.580 but then you read what they're saying or you listen to it and they're basically agreeing with you.

00:02:36.180 Should your children be obedient and well-behaved?

00:02:38.720 Yes, as much as possible.

00:02:39.720 That's kind of what I'm saying.

00:02:40.700 You want a church that is young and vibrant, young families.

00:02:50.760 Young families in a church are what you want to see.

00:02:53.720 That's a very good thing.

00:02:55.720 That's a beautiful thing.

00:02:57.100 I have a young family.

00:02:58.360 I have a young, big family.

00:03:00.600 I bring my family to church and that's what you want to see.

00:03:04.380 When I walk into a church and the average age of the congregant is 70, I know that this is a church that is in every sense dying.

00:03:14.220 This is not a vibrant church community and that's not what you want.

00:03:19.040 But this is a lot of the responses I'm getting to my points.

00:03:25.420 It's kind of this.

00:03:25.960 You set up this false dilemma, this false dichotomy where either we have old, dying, quiet churches

00:03:34.000 or churches that are loud and boisterous and the kids are constantly crying and making noise.

00:03:41.540 I'm saying that you can actually have the best of both worlds.

00:03:44.880 It's like there's a, there's another, there's a third option where it's a church that is young and vibrant and energetic,

00:03:51.080 but also during the church service, during the mass, kids are quiet and well-behaved.

00:04:01.480 And if they're not, you take them out.

00:04:03.260 Like the crying, the crying baby thing in particular.

00:04:09.520 Like when I, when I hear babies crying in church, that's what blows my mind the most.

00:04:14.880 Because that, you just, you, you take the, I don't blame a baby for crying.

00:04:21.540 We've had six babies.

00:04:22.920 Okay.

00:04:23.360 At different times.

00:04:24.620 Well, twice we had two at the same time.

00:04:26.540 Uh, no one gets, I don't get mad at a baby for crying.

00:04:29.820 That's what babies do. 1.00

00:04:30.540 They don't have any other way to communicate.

00:04:32.580 Take them out.

00:04:33.800 Take them out while they're crying.

00:04:36.500 I've done this so many times.

00:04:38.280 I'm not asking anyone to do anything I haven't done.

00:04:40.360 Your baby's crying in church.

00:04:43.100 Take them out, calm them down where other people can't hear it.

00:04:47.720 And then bring them in.

00:04:49.420 Your baby's crying in a restaurant.

00:04:51.740 Again, I don't like the first couple of moments of the baby crying.

00:04:55.960 I don't, I don't hold that against you.

00:04:57.620 That's not your fault.

00:04:58.800 It's not the baby's fault.

00:04:59.520 It's not your fault.

00:05:02.000 But you're just sitting there and letting the baby cry and disrupting everyone else's time.

00:05:08.760 What you're saying is, okay, um, yeah, the baby's crying and guess what?

00:05:12.300 This is going to be all of your problems now.

00:05:14.720 So now I can't enjoy the church service or I can't enjoy my meal and sound.

00:05:19.240 So now none of you will, I'm going to make it so that none of you can enjoy it.

00:05:24.720 That's what I don't get.

00:05:26.400 We were in a restaurant the other day, just a couple, a couple of weeks ago.

00:05:29.600 I was with my wife and, um, there was a, a family that came in and they had a baby

00:05:35.400 and the baby starts crying.

00:05:37.720 And like I said, for the first, I don't know, minute or something, I'm not getting annoyed

00:05:42.240 because I get it.

00:05:43.660 Like, I don't, I don't blame you for bringing, you want to go out to eat.

00:05:46.360 You have a baby.

00:05:46.800 There's no reason why you can't do that in theory, but the minutes drag on and they're

00:05:52.500 not taking the baby out.

00:05:53.600 Like they're just sitting there and letting the baby cry so that the rest of us have to

00:05:57.420 hear it, take them out, leave the, the, go back into the lobby.

00:06:01.960 There are things you can do here.

00:06:03.840 There are solutions.

00:06:05.080 There are at least solutions that will make this only annoying for you and not for the

00:06:10.720 rest of us.

00:06:11.240 That's the point.

00:06:13.400 If your kid's going to be annoying in public, uh, it's understandable.

00:06:18.880 I get it, but you should make it so that it's only annoying for you and not for anybody

00:06:24.280 else.

00:06:24.740 I don't know why it's so hard.

00:06:27.740 I don't know why it's so hard.

00:06:28.900 I really don't.

00:06:31.420 Uh, Mr.

00:06:32.280 Yano says, I agree in all situations where it's possible to remove them somewhere like

00:06:35.840 a plane, I think is different.

00:06:37.780 Now, obviously me and my spouse would try every possible thing to keep the child quiet.

00:06:42.680 Uh, fortunately I'm past that phase by sympathizing with young parents, especially on planes.

00:06:46.060 Yeah.

00:06:46.180 On planes.

00:06:46.520 I do on planes.

00:06:49.020 I do sympathize with the, uh, I mean, it is annoying to hear a baby crying on a plane,

00:06:53.380 but I don't get mad at the parent.

00:06:55.440 I actually feel, I feel really bad for the parent in that situation.

00:06:57.600 Cause yeah, in that case, there's nothing you can do.

00:07:00.400 That's just the way it is.

00:07:01.140 You can't obviously leave the plane while it's in the sky.

00:07:04.420 And I'm not going to sit here and say that families with kids under a certain age just

00:07:09.460 should never fly anywhere.

00:07:10.860 I'm not going to say that.

00:07:11.580 I think that's unreasonable.

00:07:13.320 I'm talking about just being reasonable.

00:07:15.600 It's unreasonable to say that if your baby cries on a plane, you should like jump out

00:07:20.620 of the plane.

00:07:21.340 Uh, it's unreasonable to say that you should never fly if you have a baby.

00:07:24.440 I think that's unreasonable too.

00:07:27.620 So I think, I think you should come prepared.

00:07:30.000 You should be as prepared as possible.

00:07:31.040 If you're going on a plane, you should have everything ready to try to keep your children

00:07:34.960 entertained and satiated so that they don't cry.

00:07:38.320 But if it happens, it happens.

00:07:39.360 Um, but in situations where you can remove the child, then that's what you should do.

00:07:45.240 I mean, that's it.

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00:08:14.900 UK All Day says, of course, Matt, run off people in the church with families and kids.

00:08:20.080 Churches are shutting down the doors because they can't keep, get people to come anymore.

00:08:24.760 Now I have a four-year-old and I don't let her disrupt church. 0.59

00:08:27.540 And I do remove her if she gets carried away or starts talking loudly during prayer, then

00:08:32.240 why are you disagreeing with me?

00:08:33.720 That's all I'm saying.

00:08:36.640 This happens all the time where I say something and people disagree, even though they agree.

00:08:43.880 All I'm saying is, if your kid's being loud, remove them.

00:08:46.280 And you're saying, yeah, Matt, you're running them off.

00:08:48.320 I mean, if my kid's being loud, I remove them.

00:08:50.000 Okay.

00:08:51.220 Then what are we talking about?

00:08:52.380 Sounds like we're on the same page.

00:08:53.780 What's the debate here?

00:08:58.400 Yet if I go to a church and they make a comment about my child being loud, when I obviously

00:09:02.180 try, then I won't feel welcome.

00:09:05.120 To me, a sanctuary is exactly that.

00:09:07.100 It should be treated as such.

00:09:08.460 But don't forget that children being brought up in church is our future and the only way

00:09:12.040 Christianity survives.

00:09:14.840 I don't know.

00:09:16.320 Like I said, as I said, we talked about this earlier in the week.

00:09:18.900 Like, I actually weirdly have become less sympathetic to these complaints by parents now that I am

00:09:29.380 a parent.

00:09:30.600 And the longer that I am a parent, the less sympathetic I become to it.

00:09:33.940 It's sort of, so it's maybe the inverse of what you would expect.

00:09:38.520 But when you have parents that say, I felt so unwelcome because people said my children

00:09:42.280 were being loud.

00:09:43.260 You know, the first thing I think now is like, yeah, well, they were probably being loud.

00:09:46.420 I mean, it's, look, I, I, there have been a few times in my life when we had kids out

00:09:57.840 in public, maybe at church, maybe somewhere else.

00:10:01.840 And I think that they were legitimately being like really well behaved and not loud at all.

00:10:07.640 And somebody made a comment and I felt that like, actually, that's unfair.

00:10:12.740 You know, it seems like you just have a problem with kids being around you at all.

00:10:15.680 So that, that's happened a few times, but it's pretty rare.

00:10:22.020 I mean, my, my actual experience as someone who's has a lot of kids, as a big family, um,

00:10:28.500 my experience in actuality is that when you're out with a lot of kids and they're, and they're

00:10:35.380 really being well behaved, you're much more likely to hear people praising you for it.

00:10:39.240 I mean, you're much more, if anything, the annoying thing is the patronizing praise you'll

00:10:42.660 get from other people.

00:10:43.600 And I don't think they mean it as patronizing.

00:10:46.060 Uh, so I don't, I don't get mad about it, but yeah, I think you're more likely to hear

00:10:50.240 people remarking on how well behaved your kids are.

00:10:54.420 And if you never hear that in public, but instead you hear unfair comments about how your kids

00:11:00.060 are loud, probably your kids are loud.

00:11:02.260 That's probably what they're doing.

00:11:03.820 Um, and so maybe you should just listen to the feedback.

00:11:07.880 You ever consider that?

00:11:08.660 I mean, if you go to a church and, you know, afterwards you, someone talks to you about

00:11:14.980 how the fact that your kid's kid was disruptive, rather than saying, I feel unwelcome.

00:11:18.740 This is not fair.

00:11:19.840 Everyone's being unfair to me.

00:11:22.180 Maybe instead of that, maybe take the feedback, maybe consider that actually your pay, maybe your

00:11:29.540 behavior needs to change.

00:11:32.160 You ever thought about that?

00:11:34.940 I mean, I don't know.

00:11:35.840 It's something to consider. 1.00

00:11:37.660 Tici says, bad take, awful take, stupid take. 1.00

00:11:42.080 Wow. 1.00

00:11:43.500 Remember my take that just said, if your kid's being loud, remove them.

00:11:46.380 And, and then when they quiet down, come back in the most reasonable thing on the planet.

00:11:51.980 And this is how it works on the internet.

00:11:54.040 You could say the most reasonable thing ever.

00:11:56.580 It gets not controversial.

00:11:58.400 I'm not taking an extreme position here.

00:12:02.420 Bring your kids to church.

00:12:03.620 If they're being loud, take them out, calm them down, bring them back in.

00:12:08.100 And I can say that.

00:12:09.320 And the response is terrible.

00:12:10.800 Oh, that's the worst take I've ever heard.

00:12:12.860 What?

00:12:13.400 This is, this is shocking.

00:12:14.720 I can't even believe anyone would say that.

00:12:17.380 Really?

00:12:18.340 What?

00:12:19.820 What's even the other option?

00:12:21.280 Like what's the other take aside from the one that I expressed?

00:12:24.860 Nearly two hours in a quiet service is a long time for very small kids.

00:12:28.400 And you have to train them to be quieter and reverent when they're older.

00:12:31.440 We started that for all five of our kids when they were about one or two.

00:12:34.880 And by about four, they're perfect angels for the entire service.

00:12:38.100 We've always gotten a lot of good compliments out of on them, but it was only because we

00:12:42.260 were allowed to keep them in the service for the first few years of their life.

00:12:44.920 And they were very noisy.

00:12:47.320 Well, I'm sorry.

00:12:49.640 That's just unacceptable.

00:12:51.180 Very noisy.

00:12:52.420 So you let your kids be very noisy in church for years?

00:12:56.100 Yeah.

00:12:58.980 So then it's, then it's just everybody else's problem is what you're saying.

00:13:02.740 You just expect everyone else to put up with it.

00:13:07.380 Sorry.

00:13:07.960 I don't like, it doesn't work.

00:13:10.960 It doesn't work for me.

00:13:11.840 Uh, if your kid's being noisy, then you take, and this is an important point, part of it

00:13:17.420 too, though.

00:13:18.860 Uh, if your kid's being disruptive in public, not just, we keep just talking about church.

00:13:22.060 It's not just church.

00:13:22.720 It's anywhere, grocery store, restaurant, movie theater, anywhere in public where you can

00:13:30.000 take them out.

00:13:30.600 So it's pretty much anywhere, but a plane, um, if they're being noisy, you remove them.

00:13:36.900 But an important part of that is that it can't be a reward because in some cases, like they're

00:13:43.520 bored in church.

00:13:44.180 And so if you take them out, you're rewarding them.

00:13:45.980 Um, and so you just have to make sure that it's not a reward and that that's where consequences

00:13:50.960 come in.

00:13:51.840 That's where punishments come in depending on the, the age of the child.

00:13:55.740 I mean, I got to punish a baby, but as the kids get a little bit older, there's punishments,

00:13:59.940 there's consequences.

00:14:01.140 So we, what we have done with church and the way that we've gotten it so that now we're,

00:14:07.860 our youngest kids are three and, uh, they can both almost make it through an entire

00:14:15.740 church service.

00:14:16.440 We usually have to take them each out like once.

00:14:19.260 Um, and I think by the time they're four, you know, by the time they're four, all of

00:14:23.640 our, we'll be good to go.

00:14:24.440 We'll be past all this and all of our kids will be fine and we don't have to worry about

00:14:27.520 it anymore.

00:14:27.780 But the way that we do it is that if I got to take you out and I got to take you back

00:14:32.600 into the lobby or something, you're not going to go back in the lobby and like run around

00:14:36.980 like it's a playground.

00:14:38.380 You're not going to get to go have fun.

00:14:40.300 We're not going to, you know, we're, we're not bringing toys for you to calm you down because

00:14:46.440 then we're rewarding because then you've learned that, okay, if I want to get a toy, I just have

00:14:51.300 to be loud and disruptive.

00:14:52.240 So there's no toys.

00:14:53.840 Okay.

00:14:54.300 There's no snacks.

00:14:55.260 You see parents, they bring snacks and toys for their kids.

00:14:57.780 And if they want to keep them quiet, terrible move, bringing a tablet or something even

00:15:03.800 worse because not only are you forming in that case, the tablet habit, but also you're

00:15:09.020 training your kid that if they want to get a fun treat, all they have to do is be disruptive.

00:15:15.080 So it's got to be the opposite.

00:15:18.640 It's like, no, if you're disruptive now, now you're going to, you weren't having fun before.

00:15:26.380 Now you're going to have less fun.

00:15:28.040 You were bored before.

00:15:29.580 Now you're going to be even more bored.

00:15:31.580 And so what I've done when it comes to church, I take them back and, uh, and we go to the

00:15:38.460 back of the lobby.

00:15:39.200 I say, okay, you see that little square right there, that little tile stand right there.

00:15:44.100 You're going to stand right there in that spot.

00:15:46.220 You're not running around.

00:15:47.440 You're not talking.

00:15:49.220 You're not having a fun time.

00:15:50.720 You're going to stand right there.

00:15:51.840 And, uh, and that's it.

00:15:54.820 And if there's got to be consequences when we get home, then there's gonna be consequences

00:15:57.480 there too.

00:15:59.440 The problem is that parents don't want to do this because it's annoying for them.

00:16:04.700 That's what so much of this is about.

00:16:07.460 Parents bring their, their noisy kids.

00:16:09.640 They don't take them out.

00:16:10.640 They don't have punishments.

00:16:11.600 They don't have consequences.

00:16:13.740 Uh, because for the parent, it's annoying.

00:16:17.040 It's cumbersome.

00:16:19.040 The parent doesn't want to miss out.

00:16:20.800 When we were listening to the crying baby in the restaurant, well, it's because those

00:16:24.740 parents, they wanted to eat their meal and they didn't want to have to miss out on their

00:16:27.980 meal.

00:16:28.320 If one of them has to get up and take the baby out, then their food's going to get cold.

00:16:31.740 And now they got to miss out on the food that they paid for.

00:16:34.600 And they don't want to do that.

00:16:35.760 And so they stay there and make everyone else deal with it.

00:16:37.900 Well, that's just not acceptable.

00:16:40.260 Like it's your kid.

00:16:41.180 Sorry.

00:16:41.480 You're going to have to miss your meal.

00:16:42.500 Yep.

00:16:42.700 Guess what?

00:16:43.060 You paid for the meal.

00:16:43.720 It's going to be cold.

00:16:44.460 Sorry.

00:16:45.100 Sorry.

00:16:45.380 I guess your night is ruined.

00:16:46.820 That's the way it goes.

00:16:48.500 That's the way it goes.

00:16:49.240 That's the, that's the, um,

00:16:50.800 that's the deal we make.

00:16:52.120 You know, that's the sacrifice you're supposed to make so that you can raise kids who will

00:16:56.940 be, uh, you know, eventually productive members of society.

00:17:00.400 That that's, that's the sacrifice you were expected to make.

00:17:03.060 So in conclusion, get your kid under control.

00:17:07.980 Don't, don't force the rest of us to deal with your parenting inadequacies.

00:17:12.540 Stop acting entitled.

00:17:15.600 And, um, have a nice day.

00:17:20.800 And, um, have a nice day.

00:17:38.500 I, uh.

00:17:39.060 Yeah.

00:17:39.600 Yeah.

00:17:40.280 Sorry.

00:17:41.740 I.

The Matt Walsh Show - March 07, 2026

You Think Your Loud Kid Isn’t Disrupting Everyone？ Let’s Talk.

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