Gina Davidson: There's no escaping from the parent trap

APPARENTLY it was Jean-Paul Sartre who said that hell was other people, but in this day and age when it's trendy to pretend to hate everything about kids, especially if you don't have any, such a statement has been adulterated to suggest that hell is other people's children.

Four weeks into the summer holidays I'd like to agree.

Not because I've spent time in an airport blocking out the sound as fizzy-drink-fuelled toddlers are pulled from the ceiling tiles, or having the back of my seat on the plane kicked all the way from Edinburgh to Eriskay. Nor is it because my children's friends are rude, demanding, badly behaved or tantrum-throwing brats. Quite the opposite.

That is where the problem lies.

Yes, it's never a good idea to compare kids. You're told that by health visitors right from the start. So what if Baby A is already enjoying broiled organic broccoli and sea bass and tinkling the ivories before their first birthday – they all go at their own pace. All very well and good, but blatant nonsense to most women who've been brought up on a diet of compare and contrast.

As a girl, you spend years pitting your weak points against your nearest competitor, be that in the classroom or on the No 11 bus. Are they thinner (always), fatter (never), spottier (rarely), trendier (went without saying) cleverer . . . it's a terrible teenage affliction. Of course these days as a grown women I know there's no point in comparing myself to say, Elle Macpherson. I've accepted that she'll always do a better Australian accent.

But that innate desire to measure yourself against others doesn't just disappear because you're aware of how easy it is to have physical looks conjured with by photo trickery. Instead its scary focus becomes the kids – and those of other people.

No doubt every parent feels that it's always theirs who are the cheekiest; the least likely to do as their told; the fastest on the draw to hit the ground and scream when a tiny plastic Toy Story 3 product remains unpurchased.

However, it's the wide open space of the summer holidays which brings it all into sharp focus. The angst first starts with the question of if and where to go on holiday. While my broods' pals have been living it up in France, Mexico and Centre Parcs, returning home with fantastic tales, mine have had days out to the Gyle for new uniforms and trips to Corstorphine to see the grandparents. Not much you can say about buying new grey socks when your pal is talking about chasing geckos.

While term times mean you make do with snatched playground conversations and the waterfall of slips of paper pouring from schoolbags to discover what's been going on, the holidays bring even closer contact with other people's children.

For instance, when a throwaway comment reveals that there are two kids in my son's year group working to a higher level of educational attainment, the process of elimination as to just who these child prodigies could be is so fast that Hercule Poirot would be left trailing. The underlying question is, of course, why isn't my child reaching such giddy heights?

Then there's the question of whether you should be keeping up some kind of homework regime; should you let them stay up late like their friends "because it's the holidays", should you have a freezer packed with Scooby Do ice poles like they do across the road, and why are your kids not out on their bikes as much as others . . .

Thankfully, my three are oblivious to such a desperate parental mindset. There's always the ray of light when they do for a moment appear like the little angels you've always known existed under the dirt-encrusted surface. Mind you, too much of that could leave you with that other insidious parental emotion: smugness.

I basked in this feeling for a while after my eldest had an in-depth chat with a Deep Sea World employee about the terrors of the deep, leaving the chap quite astounded by my son's knowledge of the many nasty ways you could die at sea.

Hell is not really other people's children, or even your own, but just another hideous form of parental angst.

One thing I do know for sure though is that there isn't a child to compare to my daughter, who in the early hours of this morning crawled into her parents' bed, fell asleep and decided to loosen her grip on her bladder. Admittedly she's only three, but no-one – not even the most doting of mothers – wants to be woken quite so soddenly. Anyone want to up the ante on that one?