Boys will be boys... or so they say

I foolishly went to Wal-Mart this weekend, the weekend before school starts and holy crow never again will I make that mistake!!! Children were running amok and having absolutely ridiculous temper fits and parents were either rolling over or screaming at their children... neither way was actually effective. That got me thinking about my least favorite saying... Boys will be boys... having a boy does not mean that you as a parent get to excuse asshole behavior just because your child has a penis. Let's get this straight... you are RAISING a person, and not just any person, you are (or should be) raising someone's husband and father, you should be raising a gentleman! Having a boy is fun, it's messy and it is work. The work begins, well at the beginning. I have 4 children and a home daycare and people continuously ask me how in the world they are so well behaved and I simply respond that it is an amazing thing to have expectations of children, that if you expect good behavior from young children (and teens) and you enforce your expectations then it shouldn't be surprising when they listen and are well behaved!  I can not stress this enough to mothers of boys if you don't start them off right and have high expectations of good behavior you need to prepare yourself for the teenage years... keep in mind that these little boys who have fits or cuss or have temper fits will only get bigger and most likely bigger than you and if they don't learn respect when they are young they won't respect you when they are older.
Ok thank you for listening while I raged away for a moment... the combination of unruly children and Wal-Mart just set me right over the edge!!