Parent engagement is framed in Australian schooling as central to school improvement. Yet in affluent, high-choice contexts, such engagement is increasingly shaped by consumerist expectations that recast parents as clients and reposition partnership as oversight. This study examines how consumerism is experienced as reshaping the practice and emotional demands of school leadership. Drawing on Gadamerian hermeneutic phenomenology, it explores the lived experiences of two primary school leaders in an affluent school community, interpreting how parental scrutiny, escalation, and entitlement are understood as disrupting relational leadership and challenging professional legitimacy. Behaviour management was a particular flashpoint, generating conflict and reputational risk, while constant demands for accessibility intensified emotional strain. The study contributes to critical educational leadership and policy scholarship, arguing that neoliberal consumerism reconfigures leadership practice, trust, and wellbeing in schools, positions parental consumerism as a significant yet under-theorised source of emotional exhaustion, and prompts a rethinking of parent engagement.