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It was the slap heard around the world. Well, around the Web, anyway.  Whose jaws didn’t clank to the floor when they learned of 61-year-old Roger Stephens repeatedly slapping a two-year-old- (the defenseless child of a complete stranger!) in a Georgia Wal-Mart after curtly warning her mother that “If you don’t shut that baby up, I will shut her up for you.”

Okay, how disturbed and deviant can a man be? It seems like such behavior would only take place in the movies, but unbelieveably, it’s happened again.  A 44-year-old woman is facing an assault charge for allegedly spanking a stranger’s son inside a store in Cincinnati.

Later, after the shock and indignation wore off, people dissecting the hows and the whys fell into two distinct camps: those who felt that Mr. Stephens was as wrong as two left feet (and possibly insane) and deserving of his own severe slapping at least, and others who felt a twisted sense of vindication, since he’d finally carried out what many have felt tempted to accomplish when publicly confronted with an unruly child.

Like the pre-meltdown Whitney Houston once sang, “it’s not right, but it’s okay.” Not the out-of-nowhere -beat down part, of course, because this writer would have certainly caught a case if some random jack@$$ had the nerve to step to me in that manner (I don’t even want to detail in print what would happen if said individual put even a finger to my three kids).  But the annoyance at parents who seem to have no interest in teaching their little darlings how to behave in public.

It’s not a social condition limited to Georgia’s Gwinnett County, obviously, and I’m not insinuating that the aforementioned toddler even qualifies as such. We are talking Wal-Mart here, and the last time I checked, two-year-olds do have occasional, unexplained fits of crying. There is a major difference between young children who are still learning how to act and children old enough to know better, but don’t even bother thanks to mothers and fathers who fail to understand that the word ‘parent’ is both a noun and a verb.

We’ve all been there: dodging the brother and sister as they run squealing through the store aisles, fighting to concentrate on your crossword puzzle because the obnoxious preteen behind you is gabbing loudly on her cell phone, or gritting your teeth as you endure that chatty preschooler fifteenth question in a row while their parent offers nothing but an indulgent smile as if to say, “isn’t he just precious?”

Um…no. Because no matter how adorable the little tykes are and how patient one’s parents may be, society doesn’t work as well as it should when each new generation seems farther and farther removed from the concept of “home training.” There’s a cruel, cruel world beyond the confines of the family abode, and those who can’t speak in a normal tone of voice, defer to authority figures or control their emotions will have a hard time functioning within it. No one expects perfect behavior from adults or children, but what is required amounts to consistently displaying traits like courtesy, restraint, and respect for themselves and other people.

As the mother of three reasonably-behaved children (okay, one’s an infant, but she’s still pretty good for her age), I know from experience that kids need parents, not another set of peers. Teach them to clean up after themselves and help their younger siblings dress in the morning. Explain the virtues of honesty and empathy, while you show approval for the good things they do and discipline fairly when they fall short of the ideal.

Because if these lessons aren’t taught, these now-adorable children grow into arrogant, impulsive adults who have no qualms about being rude, intolerant of others and sometimes,  physically striking out to exact the results they feel entitled to achieve. Usually, we just avoid these people and call them “jerks”, but in other cases, they earn a new moniker: “criminals.” And if anyone doesn’t believe it can happen to their little angels, they’re mistaken. Just ask Roger Stephens.

Lorrie Irby Jackson is a freelance journalist who’s based in Dallas and has covered entertainment professionally for several years, writing many for The Dallas Morning News. Her e-mail address is lorrie.irby@gmail.com.

Edited by R. Ferguson and Shawn Williams