穿睡衣出门是否该被禁止?

Everyone knows that attitudes toward work attire have relaxed. Ten years ago I never would have worn jeans to the office, and now they creep in about once a week, albeit with a blazer and heels, and occasionally a teeny banana handprint. But has anyone noticed the 'pajama trend'?

A Tesco supermarket in the U.K. has, and has instituted a dress code in response: 'Footwear must be worn at all times and no nightwear is permitted,' reports Salon.

Too silly a rule to enforce? Not so. A 24-year-old mom wearing pajamas under her coat was recently escorted, by security, out of the store.

Tesco says the code was put in place after many young women had come to do their shopping in slippers and pajamas after dropping their children off at school. And at least one school in the U.K., is following Tesco's lead, as the NY Times parenting blog discussed, and scolding parents for showing up at drop-off in their flannels and slippers.) Also, with the 2010 World Expo being held in Shanghai, which apparently is known for public pajama wearing, city officials have launched a public clampdown on PJs.

Evidently, these institutions aren't that sensitive to the needs of time-crunched parents, but maybe I'm not either on this point. Is it too much to expect that people put clothes on before leaving the house?

Back in the U.S., it seems every time I'm out running errands in my suburban New Jersey town I spot at least one person wearing pajamas. Usually it's younger women, but my husband saw a man in flannel pajama pants at the liquor store a few weeks ago buying a six-pack.

Personally, even in my deepest, darkest days of post-partum depression I threw on clothes to leave the house (though if they matched or were even remotely fashionable in my PPD haze is anyone's guess). For others, though, maybe the pajama trend is born of allowing some aspects of our lives to fall by the wayside in favor of other, more important things, than our appearance.

Readers, are you guilty of running errands in pajamas? Or do you, but don't feel guilty at all? What do you think of the Tesco store's policy of removing people from the premises who are dressed in PJs?