just that in this one moment, they did something good for their kid
We don’t even know that. For all we know, the kid hates Pokemon but the parents thought their costume idea was too cute to skip. To your point, this photo shows exactly what the viewer projects into it, and that is not necessarily good parenting.
(Also, that’s not how most photos exist. Context is supremely important to most photography, because otherwise that photo of Thích Quảng Đức is just an album cover that goes hard.)
Yeah, that’s the assumption everyone else has piled onto, but we have no context except that they’re all wearing costumes. Nothing in this photo inherently shows “good” parenting, unless the baseline for good is making sure your child isn’t completely nude in public.
Is this doing patenting right, or is this forcing a child to dress how you want them to because you’re a weird adult with a specific idea of how you want your child to be?
There’s photos of my wife dressed up in little sailor outfits as a toddler. She found the outfits itchy, uncomfortable, and stupid, but her mother thought they were adorable and didn’t care for another opinion.
I’m not saying people can’t think it’s cute. Parents dress their kids up as all sorts of shit because they think it’s cute. I’m saying that dressing your kid up is not objectively good parenting. That kid didn’t buy those outfits. The parents made them dress up. Maybe the kid wanted to and was excited about it, maybe not. But nothing about this image is inherently “doing parenting right.”
Take away that text and I cease having an opinion on this photo, but the comments piling on that this is what parenting should look like without context or explanation are reinforcing the idea that children are dolls to be dressed and shown off like toys. Denying children autonomy because you want a cute Christmas card isn’t necessarily a good thing.