Please Keep your Dog (and/or child?) on a Leash

Troy and I were flying home from Washington D.C. last week and we had a two hour layover in Milwaukee. We parked ourselves in some chairs close to the window and were enjoying our dinner from the airport's Chili's To Go when we were interrupted by an obnoxious woman with three equally obnoxious children. The oldest was a boy, whom I was lucky enough to sit next to, who couldn't have been older than 6. The next child was a girl, maybe 4 or 5 and the youngest, who seemed to the most difficult for this woman to control was about 3. This was a woman who clearly needed a parenting class. She "controlled" her children through bribery, making deals, and my personal favorite, leashing her youngest.

Now, I do not have any children myself, but I do have two cats that Troy and I consider part of the family and I have to admit that we did at one time put a leash on Olivia. I should preface this by saying I am super embarrassed about this because she is a cat and regardless of the cat lovers out there who leash their cats, it is a completely ridiculous act. However, Olivia loves to be outside. The only problem is when she gets out, she immediately runs up the tree in our back yard and then can't get down, so we need to climb up after her. We thought we would get a harness to allow her out, and also keep her from running away. She hated it. When we would put it on her, Olivia would look at us like we were nuts (valid assessment) and then roll over on her side as an effort to wriggle out of the harness. Not only that, she didn't understand the concept of "being walked" and we would either have to follow her or drag her (which we didn't do, so don't call PETA on us.) Finally, we realized this is stupid --Duh-- and this brings me to my point. Leashes are not a one-size-fits-all accessory. And just because we add a friendly looking monkey or backpack to the harness, does not mean we should then strap it to a child and drag him/her all over kingdom come.

I feel like this woman should have just tattooed to her forehead, "I don't feel like controlling my children so I am going to let this safety tether do my job." Well, she would probably have to use really small print to fit all that on her forehead. It does seem like the parents who opt to use the leashes tend to have little-to-no control. I guess there is a small (extremely small) part of me that see how these would be beneficial. Obviously if you are in a crowded area you don't want your child getting snatched up, but what happened to using strollers or holding hands? **Side Note: Don't you wish they made strollers for adults? I would love to be pushed around like that all day. Just take a little snoozer when you get pooped, wake up and have a snack on your little tray. It would be awesome.**

Moral of the story, if you are leashing your child like a golden retriever, stop. You look ridiculous and yes, we are laughing at you. I mean, the leashes are worse than the "Baby on Board" sign that you posted in your car window. Thanks for putting that up, because I was going to crash into your car so that I could possibly injure myself and have to fix my car--BUT since I saw your plastic, sun-worn sign, I won't.