Turnip-Led Weaning is Supernanny on acid: a handbag-sized, laugh-out-loud parody of mainstream parenting advice. Angelica Fustain is a spoof nanny who covers all the crucial topics of preschooler care – from crying to sleeping and clothing to discipline – but all from a deliciously outrageous viewpoint. Angelica’s motivation is to protect society from the terrible effects of poor parenting. She is neither a parent nor a childcare professional, but her cluelessness doesn’t stop her being outrageously prescriptive and forceful: She champions the rights of innocent bystanders: “It’s your moral duty to invest in adequate sound proofing so baby’s screaming won’t interfere with your neighbours’ bedtime reading.” She believes that hard work always pays off: “By all means use a tumble dryer… but you can enhance the parent-child bond quite magically by singing your children’s clothes dry with your warm breath.” She never misses an opportunity to promote her wide range of merchandise: “You can buy a range of Trudy Truelove ready-made clothes from my website, all reassuringly priced at more than £85 to make sure you never see a child emerge from Aldi wearing the same outfit as your treasured offspring.” Turnip-Led Weaning puts the modern obsession with ‘perfect parenting’ into perspective and helps parents relax about their own efforts.
