Few statements irritate me more than ‘Wait till you have children of your own, then you’ll understand.’

True, I’ve never had to get up for a 3am feed (except for myself of course) and I can’t really empathise with the concerns of a mother whose child is running a temperature, that’s fair enough. But that does not mean that I can’t have an opinion on the €200 trainers that parents are forking out to keep up with the ‘little Joneses’.

I recently had a chat with a mother who said her children refuse to wear clothes from Dunnes Stores and Penney’s. And she said it like it was her children’s fault that she hardly had enough to pay the bills. The bigger the presents get, the more convinced I am that this whole spending lark is more to do with the giant ego of parents.

Take Holy Communion– or the mini-bride’s day out as I like to call it. When I made my communion, we were like dirty little angels running around playing ‘stuck in the mud’ in our short white dresses and black patent shoes.

Nowadays, children are forced to sit like little white statues in case they chip their French polished nails or streak their St. Tropez tan. It’s ridiculous. I passed a little communion girl in a white horse-drawn carriage last week and you know what? I didn’t think, ‘Look, isn’t she gorgeous?’ I thought ‘spoilt brat!’

I wondered what she was thinking behind those starched curls. Was she looking at her other communion mates and thinking her hand-beaded dress was nicer, or not as good as theirs? When she was wrestling with the ‘holy bread’ on her tongue was she counting her communion money in her head?

Granted, we all got money on our communion day but I don’t remember being able to afford a trip to Disney World with mine. And I never had time to lie about how much money I got, because one quick visit to the sweet shop and it was gone.

The Catholic Church occasionally expresses concern that the sacrament of communion is being overshadowed by the materialism of it all, which is true. Thankfully I was able to meet one mother who refused to let her daughter be a dedicated follower of communion fashion.

“I want my child to know what’s important in life, I don’t want her feeling she looks better or worse than anybody else,” says Jennifer Byrne from Ballyfermot. This year, Jennifer’s daughter Jade (pictured on left with Jennifer) made her communion and from the very beginning this young mother decided her child would be simply clad on her special day.

Jennifer is well aware of the pressures that parents are under when it comes to spending money on children but she is unwavering in her belief that a child’s confidence stems from love and quality time spent with them.

If French polish, St. Tropez or California Cake Bake are designed (albeit unsuccessfully) to brighten up us big Irish milk bottles– well and good. But just leave the kids alone. They don’t need any extra colour.