So the true difficulty is making time and space amidst ‘household’ responsibility. If you look at the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus (250 A.D), you discover that the ‘hours of prayer’ made famous by the monastic tradition, actually began in the church among ‘ordinary’ Christians. So, the early Christians rose at midnight and prayed, and prayed several times during the day (7 times total), both corporately (before work the community would gather daily) and privately, presumably with the children around and the chaos that accompanies little ones.
Folks get their knickers in a knot when kids are present at worship fidgeting and doing things kids do, but I wonder if that’s not the beauty of it. Should we not all learn to pray, worship and receive the sacraments as soon as possible? Should we not all learn to be silent, even when the world around us is buzzing. Should we not ‘take our cells’ into the world?