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I can understand why people get angry with celebrity chef Pete Evans. In fact, I encourage it. If there's anything the world needs more of, it's people calling Pete Evans names.
Yet I can't help but feel ambivalent about the latest way in which everyone's favourite shiny leather zealot has hit the news: an Instagram post of his daughter's breakfast.
In the photo — according to the caption, as from looking at it I haven't the faintest idea what it is — are "organic eggs, broccolini, bacon, lettuce, avocado, fish eggs, kraut and the eggs are topped with chimichurri".
Obviously this raises a lot of questions, like "organic eggs as opposed to what, robot eggs?" and "isn't kraut a racial slur?"
But the biggest one is: "Should parents be publicly shamed for what they feed their children?"
Melinda Tankard Reist raised this conundrum recently when her friend was scolded by her child's kindergarten for sending her to school with a chocolate slice.
The cases are different, of course: Tankard Reist's friend was made to feel ashamed for not providing nutritious food for her kid, while Pete Evans should feel ashamed for trying to make his offspring as pretentious as he is.
But the issue is the same: society shaming parents for their feeding habits.
Which is great, obviously: the vast majority of parents should be made to feel bad about themselves as much as possible, and we can all agree that the biggest problem with the average parent is an excess of self-confidence.
But really, food is a comparatively minor issue: there are so many other things we should be shaming parents for. Including...
1. Leashes
You see them everywhere. At the shops, at the park, wandering the streets like legions of the damned.
Parents dragging their kids around on leashes.
As in, what you use to walk a dog.
It's the perfect way to ensure your child never goes out of your sight, or bothers other people, or hurts themselves, or feels like a human being, or develops a healthy sense of self.
If your idea of parenthood is just a more bipedal version of obedience training, then the kid-leash is for you.
The leash-yankers provide a wonderful service to parents like me: whenever we doubt that we're bringing up our children right, we can always fall back on "at least I don't consider my child to be a pet".
2. Haircuts
Look, each to their own and all that. I myself had a succession of terrible hairdos as a child, mainly as a result of the hell I would put all adults in the vicinity through every time I went to the barber.
My protestations led to infrequent tonsorial activity, and thus to an unseemly haystack atop my dome.
So I know getting your child's head in a completely kempt state is no easy job. But there has to be a limit.
You don't need your spawn to be a fashion plate, but at a bare minimum you can prevent them going around looking like they lost a bet.
History provided a very narrow window for children to sport mullets without attracting the attention of child services, and that window closed 30 years ago.
An adult with a mullet looks like he thinks he's at a sportsman's night in 1985: a little boy with one looks like he's being trained for an underground human dogfighting ring.
And even they look stylish next to the kids with rat's tails: what are you hoping to tell the world by allowing your child to sport a rat's tail? If it's not "I am a doomsday prepper", reconsider your choices.
3. Viewing habits
A responsible parent always keeps close watch on their children's television choices.
Nudity, coarse language, violence: these are all things frequently found in the best TV shows, and it's up to you as a parent to make sure your child grows up with good taste.
I'm not saying every parent has to force the littlies to sit through Game of Thrones.
But if you're letting their brains become petrified by Peppa Pig and Nicky, Ricky, Dicky and Dawn (don't even ASK), while not permitting them the educational advantages of Breaking Bad and Daredevil, you're sacrificing intellectual development on the altar of archaic faux-morality.
Trust me: as they grow up, sex scenes and f-bombs will scar them a lot less than the Disney Channel.
4. Politics
Perhaps the most shameful parents you'll ever see in public are politicians who drag their kids up on stage with them, or pose with them for the covers of women's magazines to soften their image.
It's bad enough the poor little sods have to live with you: don't publicly humiliate them by involving them in your sordid lifestyle.
They're never going to live this down, and may well get beaten up — which, if it causes their parents to stop staging photo-ops with them, is probably worth it.
Politicians who use their family for publicity purposes just come off as creepy anyway, rather than values-oriented.
As for ordinary citizens involving their kids in politics, I'll simply say this: if your child can't write their own placard for the protest march, leave them at home.
5. Sport
We're all familiar with the phenomenon of the nightmarish tennis parent: Damir Dokic, Stefano Capriati and Jim Pierce all became infamous for the intolerable pressure they placed on their children to succeed.
We consider men like that to be monsters, but at least they were making a fuss over games that mattered.
Your kid's weekend football couldn't matter less, so stop acting like every mistake they make is a hammer-blow to your eternal legacy.
The sight of a parent berating their child for dropping a ball or spraying a kick is nauseating and tells onlookers far more about how the parent's life and career are going than they intended.
You won't make your kid a better athlete through abuse: all you'll make them do is hate you.
6. Movies
The choice of what movies to take your kids to see should always involve the principles invoked regarding TV above.
But the act of going to the movies involves some serious parental responsibility, to wit: shut your kids up.
If they start to make noise, stop them. If they won't stop, take them out of the theatre. I don't care if you'll miss the rest of the movie; you are ruining it for everyone.
Ideally you will have instilled a sense of social responsibility and respect for others in your youngsters before you head to the cinema.
But if you haven't got around to that yet, you have got to at least be ready to threaten violence. In the end, I don't care how you do it, just shut. Your. Kids. Up.
7. Zoos
A zoo is a wonderful place to teach children about the animal kingdom. A good parent will allow this teaching process to take place without shoving their ignorant fatheaded oar in.
I once stood next to a man at the zoo who told his son that the lions were "panthers".
Before you take your child to the zoo, you need to know two things: each animal's enclosure has a sign beside it containing interesting facts about the animal and — crucially — what the animal is called; and monkeys and apes are not the same thing.
If I had my way, anyone caught in a zoo telling their children that gorillas are monkeys would be banned for life and forced to do a course in zoology before they're allowed custody again.
As long as this law is not enacted, I simply implore all parents: if there's any chance you're a hopeless ignoramus, keep your mouth shut.
Topics: popular-culture, parenting, offbeat, internet-culture, social-media, australia
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