Tennessee state Rep. Antonio Parkinson recently explained how a meme circulating online evolved into legislation he’s crafting to get parents to clean up their act when they visit their child’s school.

“(It) said something to the effect of ‘Breaking news: Due to the expected low temperatures, school leaders are telling parents to put on two pairs of pajamas when they pick their kids up,’” Parkinson told Today.

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“That meme led to a conversation with one of my constituents during which I learned about some of her concerns about the way that parents dressed at school,” he said. “That opened up a conversation, and I then got on the phone with some of the leaders in my district and learned how big of a problem it really was.”

Parkinson offered up several “horror stories” and said a bill in now in the works to encourage schools to develop policies about how they expect parents and other adults to dress and act in public.

“People wearing next to nothing. People wearing shirts or tattoos with expletives. People coming onto a school campus and cursing the principal or the teacher out. These things happen regularly,” he told Today.

“A principal I talked to told me a lady came into the office with her sleepwear on with some of her body parts hanging out,” Parkinson said. “You got children coming down the hall in a line and they can possibly see this.”

Aside from offensive and revealing clothing, parents have also engaged in fights with students or visited campuses under the influence, he told WMC.

Parkinson said the dress code would fit into a broader code of conduct for adults designed by local school districts, legislation that under development in committee with the goal of a vote this summer, AL.com reports.

“What I am doing is simply telling the school districts is to post a minimal acceptable code of conduct for anyone that comes on our school campuses,” Parkinson told WJHL.

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Parkinson said the issue boils down to teaching children and preparing them for the future by setting a positive example, regardless of their personal circumstances.

“I hear from employers all the time who say that they have trouble finding people with soft skills,” he told the Memphis Commercial Appeal. “Well, dressing appropriately is one of those soft skills.”

“What we’re doing is creating a standard of awareness,” he said.

Tamara Cranford, a mother of two kids in Memphis Schools, told Today when she heard about a Florida school proposing a parent dress code several years ago she was concerned it could disproportionately impact low-income families who “don’t have the means to dress a certain way.”

Her time at her children’s schools and working as a substitute changed that perspective.

“Things have gotten out of hand,” she said. “Men don’t pull their pants up. They’re wearing shirts with inappropriate lingo on it. Things you don’t want a child seeing.”

“It’s not about parents having to wear a suit or a dress or having to look corporate and ‘work ready.’ It’s just about civil decency,” she said.

“If you’re going to wear jeans and a t-shirt to your child’s school, make sure your t-shirt doesn’t say anything off-color,” Cranford said. “Or if it does, throw a jacket over it. … It only takes a few extra seconds to cover yourself.”

Grandparent Percy Richmond agreed.

“It’s so much happening now,” Richmond told WMC. “People coming up saying they’re the parents and picking up their kids like that. I prefer them to be dressed neatly.”

Some parents, however, seem to think the effort is a waste of time.

Cecilia Batson, parent of a first-grader in Alcoa, wants lawmakers to focus more on academics and less on what parents are wearing.

“Luckily, my daughter goes to a very good school, but Tennessee ranks so low in education in this country. Are we really going to get on parents for their clothes?” she told Today. “We can’t even give our kids a decent education, but we’re going to tell parents what they can and can’t wear?”

“If the kids is fed and cared for and loved and taken care of, who cares how their parents dress?” Batson said.

State Rep. Ryan Williams, a father of two in Cookeville, also expressed concerns.

“In a day and age when teachers, administrators and principals are begging for parental involvement, my fear is it would be an impediment to that,” he told WJHL.