If so, then there’s a good chance that you are also an ass hole. Let’s be quite clear about what a modern parent actually is. If you fit any of these descriptions, then, in my not-so-humble opinion, you are indeed an ass hole.

• You feel that the rest of us should be as euphoric about the arrival of your child as you are.
• You do not think there should be any restrictions on where you can take your child.
• You think it’s our problem if we don’t like your whining, screaming child.
• You think it’s wrong to discipline your child. (And that punishment is tantamount to abuse.)
• Saying “No” to your child causes you great mental anguish.
• You think table manners are outdated and unnecessary.
• You think children should be free to express themselves, anywhere, anytime.
• You allow your child to interrupt adult conversation and see no problem with it.
• You protect your child from the trials of life, like failure and hard work and daily chores.
• You make every decision for your child, on the asssumption that if they should make “wrong” decisions, their life will be irreperably damaged.
• You have told your child that they can have anything, if they want it badly enough. (You meant to say “work hard enough for it”).
• You didn’t take time to educate your child in fiscal responsibility because that is the role of school, after all.
• You never potty trained your child because it is an outdated right wing fascist practise, that suppresses your child’s right to express his free will.
• You refuse to inculcate in your child the practice of speaking softly, again believing that to do so is a gross and unnecessary interdiction.
• You think “bed-time” is cruel and that your child should be allowed to stay up as long as she wants.

If you answered “yes” to just a couple of the examples above, you may have unwittingly contributed to the sad demise of society by producing an entitled, self centered, bad mannered little shite who will grow up into an entitled, self centered, bad mannered big shite who thinks the world owes her a living and for whom hard work and endeavour are dirty things that other people do.

You and your child are, regretably, everywhere: cinemas, supermarkets, aircraft, swimming pools, restaurants and gyms, (yes, some of you even take your spawn to the gym, FFS), and you happilly plop them down to have their tantrums and shouting fits for the delectation of one and all. You ignore them and indulge them in equal measure, neither of which has an outcome that would benefit society.

Instead you shove an iPad or iPhone in their little hands and inflict mindless games upon them, games that shrink their ability to learn in the time honoured, traditional way by interacting with other, real, humans.

Who knows why you pursue this strangely destructive course with what is, after all, a wonderful biological entity, born with latent skills, empathy, an enormous capacity to love and a thirst for knowledge that if adequately quenched has the potential to achieve great things.

Perhaps you have missed the point about being a parent: it is not your responsibility to indulge, cosset, and protect your child from every eventuality, to destroy their powerful inate sense of discovery. Rather it is, as well as the obvious duty to love your child and protect her from obvious mortal danger, to prepare her for life as an adult.

If you have failed to do this, you are a Modern Parent. And an ass hole.