I dunno about you but I grew up Irish Catholic, had parents who very much lived by "GTFO and come back at dinner", and I never made any real friendships or relationships via church. It was a wholly useless avenue for anything - and this was in several different church communities over the years, too.
IME while church might be a community, it's really a very stifled one.
Right, this is what I am wondering, is the reason people were comfortable doing this the fact that there was a weekly touchpoint with the community? The church visits might be stifled but if they establish a relationship with that large group of people then that might enable more free roaming at other times.
Ha! Probably more than fair for a lot of folks. It also was not uncommon for this to be when parents were cleaning the house. Doing that with a kid around is unreasonably difficult.
IME while church might be a community, it's really a very stifled one.