On Thursday, I wrote about a note I received from my son's school inviting us to join our children for the Stations of the Cross, and reminding us not to take pictures during the service. I said that I was a little surprised that parents would need to be reminded not to shoot photos during a religious service.

Yesterday, I went to church; the service was really nice, and very appropriate for small kids. In order to help the younger kids understand the story, a group of first graders acted out the various stations (each "station" tells one part of the narrative and offers a meditation on that part of the story). Other first graders took turns reading the descriptions and prayers. I was impressed by what a terrific job the kids did.

BUT! Imagine my surprise when parents started snapping pictures during the Stations of the Cross! At least one parent was using the "red eye" function on her camera (which adds two extra flashes), while another had a camera that beeped every time she took a picture. A dad in front of me was leaning over a group of kids to shoot video. It was noisy and distracting and frankly, it made me mad.

The note from the school was polite and specific: no photographs. These parents decided that this did not apply to them, that it was fine for them to take pictures. I wasn't aggravated because these people were taking pictures in a church; I've been to weddings and christenings where photographs have been taken without disrupting the ceremony. At Christmas, Charlie's class sang carols in the church and we all took pictures. But we were told that photography was fine for that occasion; on this occasion, we were specifically asked not to use our cameras.

The thing is this: when parents ignore the laws of polite society, they teach their children that they don't need to follow the rules either. To decide that the no photographs during the religious service request doesn't apply to you shows your child that other requests--no yelling in the library, no running in in the coffee shop, no cell phones in class--don't apply to him. I'm not one to advocate blindly following every rule, but I think that we have lost our sense of civility and politeness, and it makes it hard for us to expect our children to be civil and polite.