Jun 18, 2026 · 38 min · 13 segments
Vanessa Feltz chats to her child therapist daughter about why parents feel they are in constant competition and what parents can do to address this feeling. Saskia also answers a very funny listener…
Saskia JossHost
Vanessa FeltzHost
Francine LewisGuest
One of the things that parents talk to us about the most is this feeling that the second you give birth, you're in a competition.
In the old days, you used to look at your sister's kids, your cousin's kids and your next door neighbor's kids.
That was pretty much it and hope that yours would sort of on a par and doing the right thing at the right time.
And parents say that that feeling that they're sort of somehow their children are not doing what other people's children are doing and that they're failing and that they're not kind of covering them in glory in the way that they ought to be.
I think the big thing is exactly as you said, the world people could compare to before, before social media changed.
You could only look at your siblings, your close cousins, your close friends, and now you can see families literally all over the world.
Right now, in Egypt, the heat of real time and in last week's time, going on expensive holidays, putting their children in expensive classes, teaching their children to read, doing Montessori things, outdoor school, homeschooling.
There are so many different ways to look after children that you probably wouldn't even have known about if you weren't on the internet.
And I feel like the thing that we're talking about today is this feeling of anxiety that parents can feel when they think they're just not giving their children enough.
With the fact that there are so many things you can offer your children, the feeling of enough, the feeling that you might be missing something that your child won't achieve, the things you hope they will achieve, or they just don't have the same things as their friends, is putting a huge amount of pressure on parents and increasing their anxiety exponentially.
One of the things that parents talk to us about the most is this feeling that the second you give birth, you're in a competition.
In the old days, you used to look at your sister's kids, your cousin's kids and your next door neighbor's kids.
That was pretty much it and hope that yours would sort of on a par and doing the right thing at the right time.
And parents say that that feeling that they're sort of somehow their children are not doing what other people's children are doing and that they're failing and that they're not kind of covering them in glory in the way that they ought to be.
I think the big thing is exactly as you said, the world people could compare to before, before social media changed.
You could only look at your siblings, your close cousins, your close friends, and now you can see families literally all over the world.
Right now, in Egypt, the heat of real time and in last week's time, going on expensive holidays, putting their children in expensive classes, teaching their children to read, doing Montessori things, outdoor school, homeschooling.
There are so many different ways to look after children that you probably wouldn't even have known about if you weren't on the internet.
And I feel like the thing that we're talking about today is this feeling of anxiety that parents can feel when they think they're just not giving their children enough.
With the fact that there are so many things you can offer your children, the feeling of enough, the feeling that you might be missing something that your child won't achieve, the things you hope they will achieve, or they just don't have the same things as their friends, is putting a huge amount of pressure on parents and increasing their anxiety exponentially.
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