I think so, from what I've seen. I have seen so many bratty kids with parents who do absolutely nothing to try to control them. One time, I was in a doctors office. You typically expect doctors offices to be somewhat quiet. Well, this one was full of kids. This mom was there with her son. Well, her son was a little jerk. This father brought his son in, and the two boys were around the same age. Well, the one who came in last brought a toy with him. Without even asking, Boy #1 grabbed Boy #2's toy! He grabbed it, and started playing with it; pretty much refusing to let the actual owner get it back. The mother, what was she doing? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The father of Boy #2 told his son to let Boy #1 play with it. Boy #1 totally took over, the actual owner didn't get to play with his toy until the first one (who had hijacked it) went in to see the doctor.

That same boy also stole somebody's seat, and one of the OTHER patients in the office had to tell him to behave. The mother didn't! That boy was around the age of 7, probably. You'd think she'd be keeping an eye on him. Actually, when someone tried to tell him to be nice, she glared at them.

Okay, second example. My cousin has two sons. (Yes, one side of my family is horrible at parenting. Pretty much the entire side!) One of them just turned three, the other just turned one. Well, the oldest one used to like throwing things in peoples faces. Hard objects only. He threw a hard ball into someones face. That woman wears glasses, which he almost broke. Everyones response? (minus mine, my moms, etc) They giggled, saying it was cute. CUTE. Cute that he threw something into somebodys face. Luckily that somebody was family.

Not to mention a ten year old I saw running around into everyone while his mom ignored him.

I could go on, and on, and on, but it would take all day.

Yup, I totally see where you're coming from with this post. My brain is too tire at the moment to come up with any example that I've seen of late, but I can't help but notice: the number of rude, bratty, undisciplined children goes up as the number of parents who spank as a form of real discipline goes down. Maybe our parents and grandparents (and all those before them) were onto something...

*and when I say spank I mean when it is done by loving, but firm parents as a form of discipline and punishment, NOT as way to take anger out on a child as an abusive parent would do.

Unfortunately, that's the run of the mill parent today because they have been taught that if they do anything contrary to the child's wish then they are horrible parents!  What most parents don't realize is that children NEED boundaries otherwise they are absolutely miserable and make everyone else around them miserable!  As was said in the post, it's not the child's fault but the parents' fault!  I would have to say that it will be getting worse pretty soon because Obama and those that are in his cabinet want to get international law in here that states that if a child wants to do something then parents could be in trouble if they don't do exactly what the children want!  It's been happening in Europe and expect it to happen here if they pass that law.  If it happens then there will be major complaints about children because NO ONE will be able to do anything about them!

My FAVORITE parents are the ones who let their children run amok in the animal shelter where I work. Seriously, I had my dog at work one day, and I was at my desk, and this four year old girl charged up to her and tackled her. She's LUCKY AS HELL that my dog loves kids - many of our adoptable dogs DON'T, and she would have been severely hurt, and that dog would have been euthanized. I finally found her parents and admonished them - it puts a LOAD of liability on our facility, not to mention it puts our dogs and THEIR CHILDREN in jeopardy. It's bad enough to be a bad parent in a grocery store or something, but to completely ignore your children while they run wild around strange animals? Sure, what a wonderful idea. Jeeeeez.

At my job, children often play with the ropes that we have set up for queues. this wouldn't be a problem if many of them weren't broken and when messed with, the automatic retraction makes the hard end fly up and hit people in the face (it's right at eight year old eye level), or can actually knock heavy stanchions over when there's no more cord to be pulled out. If I do tell children to stop playing with them, their parents then yell at them and I feel bad, I mean, I just told them to stop, they already feel ashamed. I wish parents would just ask them quietly in the first place, so they would have a chance not to get yelled at, but the parents are embarrassed for not paying attention, so they take it out on their kids.

Oh boy.  I work at a daycare so I see things that make me want to scream and/or slap the parents on a daily basis!  My biggest annoyance is the ones that let their two year old control them when it is time to leave and the child doesn't want to.  Sure, give a warning or two... and then stick to it, pick up the kid and leave!  She is TWO for goodness sake.  I am really scared of whats going to happen when this group of kids hits about 15.

I see shit like this all the time.  

"Or a woman who feeds her child to make her be quiet.  That little girl is going to have weight issues in the future."

Um, really? You haven't considered that gee, maybe the child is HUNGRY. So we should starve our children, then? We shouldn't meet their needs? Hmmm.... interesting.

Overall, I think people lack parenting skills, but the above comment was just ridiculous.

I know my siblings and I would have gotten more than just "the look" if we behaved like that.  We got to go to very few movies when I was a kid, so if we misbehaved my parents would have been extremely upset with it because going to a movie was a treat for us.  You'd better believe we were on our very best behavior. 

I think that a lot of parents are lax with their children's behavior because for some stupid reason people believe any kind of structure will ruin their children's individuality and creativity.  I don't know who came out with that crock of an idea, but hello....we're parents.  We are the adults.  We have to be responsible for our children and teach them. 

Your exampe, plus the countless examples you see in restaurants and grocery stores show that a lot of parents have no idea what they're doing. 

@victoriataylor0@xanga - Bravo!  essentially you are saying what i am thinking but so much more !!!

while i agree with the idea of tolerance for children and thier usual behavior i do think there are boundaries that ALL people need to learn to respect and we all need to teach children those boundaries.  Why- i ask the poster- couldnt you have said something to the girls or the parent?  What these girls needed at that point was to understand respect for others around them and in my opinion it would be respectful for anyone to kindly ask them to be quiet.  In fact, Thats what all children need.  Not a spank because they must know 'whos boss' .  It's interesting that the question is asked " Are parenting skills diminishing more as time goes by?"  and many people say "yes."  Yet if you really look at the big picture, historically, we have many options and choices open to us as parents through a plethora of information that wasnt available to parents decades ago.  In my opinion, some have taken bits of that info or whatever they could handle and tried to apply it. Maybe that info did translate into less structure, less discipline - sure.  Put that together with parents who are over-worked, less in-touch with kids, less in-touch with themselves and their partners, throw in Media and school and what you have, is indeed, indulged and neglected children behaving as if the world revolves around them and yet they dont give a hoot about it.

Amazing that so many of the responses here include violence of some sort either to the children or to the "awful" parent who allows such children to act in these manners that disrupt others lives.

Whats missing here is respect and human value.  The age-old issue of how to parent Has not been remedied by the "spare the Rod" theory in the past and those who propose that it still works may be fooling themselves.  .... For the child who is spanked in order to be controlled will be the one working in daycare one day wanting to slap the parent for having a 'mis-behaving child or the stranger in the grocery store who wants to slap your little ones hands.

I totally agree that parents should be forced to take an ongoing parenting class.  Children these days are SO out of control!  But mostly, it is the parents' fault!  My husband's sister-in-law (I refuse to acknowledge that she is mine) has a 5.5 year old boy who has a speech/language delay.  She thinks he is autistic.  So, she decided that he should not be "forced" to be potty trained or stop using the binkie. 

She also decided that since he eats his ice cream too fast, it should be NUKED for 5 seconds before given to him. 

And for some unknown reason, she thinks that if he eats a whole banana, he will get constipated, so she would only let him have half of a banana a day, but will let him eat jumbo bags of Lays potato chips by the box.

At the doctor's office, he routinely shoves other children out of the way to hog the sand box.  When her husband comes back to tell her (and us) what the son did at the doctor's office, her response is, "NO!  My SON?  Never,... he would NEVER do that."  Yeah, so your husband is lying?

She said to me, "I waited so long to have children, I will never let him cry."

I dread to think what that child will become.  I REFUSE to let my child near him for fear of my son being bullied!

I have noticed it in my generation all the time. This obnoxious self-entitlement persona that prevades and parent's do not stop.  For example, I have seen a 17 year old girl throw a hissy fit because her parents making her drive the escalade after she crashed her little BMW instead of replacing her car.
If I crashed my car, I'd be lucky to drive at all for the next couple of months and be expected to offer to cover the portion of the damage... I hate it.
Another thing, is people lack common sense. 
Cars = bad.
Or, coffee = hot....
COME ON PEOPLE