Dress your children!!!

I am a bit of a bitch when it comes to some things.  One of my BIGGEST pet peeves is seeing people in public wearing their jammies.  Yes this also means dressing your kids, even if they don't want to.  You are the parent aren't you?  This is coming from my trip to the store this morning, and it wasn't even Walmart(we all expect this kind of thing there lol).  I had to run out this morning and as I was pulling into the parking lot I see this woman and her daughter walking across the street into the store, the woman was dressed in designer clothes and had her hair and makeup done perfectly....her daughter on the other hand was wearing FOOTIE JAMMIES!!! If you can take all that time to make sure YOU look good, at least dress your child.  It reflects badly on you.  I will say that I am guilty of taking a sick child with me to the pharmacy to pick up their medicine wearing their pajamas, but that's the ONLY exception, and that's only because, one, the kid is sick and when we get home s/he is going back to bed anyway, and two, its easier not to have to fight with a knee high monster who is ill tempered about changing only to have to do it again 20mins later when we get back home.  Now before anyone says anything about "well maybe the little girl was sick" she was literally running and jumping around and being a "normal" kid.  Even if she was sick, if she was behaving that way, she could have changed her clothes.  This my friends is where being a PARENT comes in.  See, I know how much it can suck to fight a child on something that they don't want to do, I have been doing it for 8 years now(not as long as some but long enough to know how hard it is).  Kids can be absolute TERRORS when they don't want to do something and they can make even the toughest person want to run screaming from the house and never return.  This is where discipline comes into play.  Yes, I said it, DISCIPLINE *gasp*.  If they want to act like that then there needs to be some sort of consequences for their behavior period.  Most parents let the kids call the shots, they get away with pretty much anything they do because parents are AFRAID to do anything about it.  Time to take back control people.  We have kids robbing and killing people and I firmly believe that if they had consequences for their actions their entire life they might just stop and think before they did something that horrible.  Today's kids are, for the most part, disrespectful, mean, and don't care about anyone but themselves.  Time outs don't always work, talking to them doesn't always work, and letting them do what they want in hopes that they make the right decision rarely ever works.  All this crap about don't fuss at kids because it messes with their self esteem, or don't punish them because then they will think they are bad and it will make things worse, or don't spank your kids because it jut teaches them to hit....its all BULL SHIT!!!  Lemme tell ya, I grew up getting my ass busted if I did something that warranted it, I got grounded to my room for doing stupid shit I KNEW I wasn't supposed to do, I got my mouth washed out with soap for cussing or talking back to my elders.  Guess what, I survived, I had and still have respect for other people and myself, I know right from wrong, I know that if I do something that there are consequences for my actions.  So did like 95% of my generation, and my generation was the last one that had this kind of discipline because about the time I was becoming a teenager is when you were hearing all this hippy dippy crap about how parents have been raising their kids wrong for the past...um....forever.  I will be the first to say that my kids get time out, they get grounded to their rooms, yes even spanked.  I will also tell you that my kids RESPECT their elders and other children, they help people when they see that they need help, their teachers are constantly telling me how well behaved they are and that its a refreshing change.  Granted they can push my buttons and will push limits at home, and I am by no means saying that they are perfect, but for the most part my kids are very well behaved. Because I discipline them.  Go ahead and blast me if you want to but I will stand by every word I have written here...ok....my little rant about dressing your kid before going out in public is over lol.