Replies to '09/14 More Brats'

I'll be perfectly honest, I cannot stand children and I never want to have them.  HOWEVER, some people's children are perfectly well behaved and those children don't really bother me. I'll have you know that my parents were taking me to very expensive restaurants when I was 9 months old, and movie theaters by the age of 2 and people constantly approached my mother to commend what a "well behaved baby" I was. And I know a few other children that are perfectly well behaved in public too. Upbringing is the key.

Conversely, I know plenty of spoiled little brats that I'd take it upon myself to smack if it weren't so frowned upon (I'm sorry to say that one of them is my own Godson).  That again falls on the parents. I agree that it isn't "cute" just because they're knee-high to a snowman, and I don't believe everyone else should have to look out for people's children because they're too preoccupied to watch them theirselves, but that doesn't mean you should get pissed off at every parent and child in America. There ARE still responsible parents out there.

Furthermore, I'd like to point out that your comment on mental illness is completely ignorant. I've suffered from serious eating disorders and major depression for almost exactly 50% of my life (in about 2 months it'll be dead on 10 years -I'll be 20 in 1 month) and I'm sure everybody would agree that those are mental illnesses. Still, I'm a functioning member of society staying on the Dean's List at my University, working almost full-time to put myself through school, raising my younger sister on my own, financially supporting a show horse, volunteering for several Democratic campaigns, and I'm a 4-H leader. So I take it very PERSONALLY when you belittle those with mental illness. I know people who are 20+ with ADD who are perfectly normal aside from the fact that they have a little more trouble absorbing information. Mental illness isn't fun. It's not something that people aspire to. And it's beyond an individual's control. You really shouldn't speak about topics you know nothing about. Appearantly people don't posess a lot of social graces in perfect Atlanta now, do they?