There are 101 things to do when you’re preparing to relocate, and not enough time in which to do them. Are you putting yourself under additional pressure by trying to be the perfect mother and homemaker?

A survey from market research company MumPoll has found that 39% of mothers admit to bragging about their offspring’s achievements. Those with younger children boast of their potty-training prowess or early walking or talking skills, while those with older ones emphasise their attainments at school. A fifth admit to boasting about their wonderful husbands.

Even though 78% of those surveyed consider their own competitive behaviour ‘ridiculous’, they are unable to control it.

Said a spokesman for Mum Poll, “By nature, women are generally more competitive than men, and judge themselves against other women. So it stands to reason that when women become mums, they raise their game and strive to be the absolute best at everything to do with motherhood

“Mums put an awful lot of pressure on themselves to be the best at everything. But it is impossible to have a perfect house, an attentive husband and make the greatest sponge cakes the town has ever seen all the time.

''I'm sure that, to most mums, it would be a massive relief to go round another's house and find it is just as messy as theirs, to find the children haven't done their GCSEs at age seven, and to find the husband is working late for the fourth night in a row.''

A thought worth bearing in mind, perhaps, for relocating mums who are caught in the competition trap.