We're not perfect at all ... we're just parents.

(From Irish Independent)

Unrealistic expectations of motherhood have been created by TV and books - but now the backlash has begun, writes Sue Leonard

Are you fed up with the deluge of books urging you to be a better parent? Does the sight of yet another skinny celebrity pushing her baby in a Bugaboo Frog stroller make you reach for the biscuit barrel?

If so, you are not alone. The latest drama to come out of America,Weeds, features Nancy Botwin. On the surface she is a paragon of motherhood - but to make ends meet she deals in pot. She's struck many a maternal chord - and not with derision either.

She's been welcomed as a role model by mums fed up with living up to an unachievable ideal. Motherhood has never been easy but recently it seems to have become an art form. Now that women delay having a baby until their 30s, they tend to be harder on themselves and expect to manage their baby as effortlessly as they ran their business. They want perfection. And that's not easy to achieve.

And that's not all we want. We want a perfect designer home too. We also strive to look gorgeously young and thin. No wonder so many women are heading out for botox and resorting to the knife.

But the cracks are beginning to show. It's one thing seeing a Hollywood star back as a size 8 just weeks after birth, but it's harder still when an icon is close to home. When Miriam O'Callaghan announced recently that she was pregnant with number eight, instead of all-round congratulations.