Nowadays, it starts in the womb. "The scan! It was just amazing! There he was, waving his arms and legs, it was almost as if he was saying hello."

Upwardly mobile pregnant young couples meet at a dinner party, and already it's started. One is raving about the wonder-child to be. The other is thinking "What? It looked like a peanut. It looked like a scrambled image from a space satellite." But not wishing to let the side down, she plays the game and coos back: "Oh yes, amazing. I have a feeling she'll have her father's eyes."

And so it goes. Parent-upmanship is a game that can last forever. Start like this, and in 17 years time it'll be: "We're a little worried - he only got 550 points in the mocks and he'll need over 600 to get into space medicine."

And 50 years on, as you creep around your nursing home, it'll be "My daughter would visit more often, but she has a desperately busy job - did I tell you she's the first consultant on Mars?"

Oh yes, you surely have. Once a proud parent, forever a proud parent. And what's wrong with a little parental boastfulness, I hear you mutter defensively.

Let's be straight about this: all first-time parents carry on about their babies to some degree or another. Older couples with fewer, very precious babies are even more likely to do so. In our increasingly competitive, success-oriented society, young Irish couples are shrugging off decades of cultural conditioning that used to make us modest and self-deprecating about ourselves and our offspring.

And so we boast. The more competitive among us subtly score points. Is this good, a sign that we are just as wrapped up in our children as our parents were, despite the distraction of busy dual careers? Or is it bad, a sign that what we really want is trophy children? Damaging to the children, because of unrealistic expectations? Or just a trifle boring for the audience?

As always, the answer lies somewhere in the middle. As senior psychologist Andrew Conway says, babies are our pride and joy, across all social classes, and we are all ambitious for our children, even though the ambitions may differ. Talking about them is the most natural thing in the world - and can help parents-to-be prepare for life as full-fledged parent.

First-time parents are, and always have been, the most child-obsessed, as one mother of an 18-month-old discovered over the past year. "The most bizarre thing some parents go on about is height. `D'you know,' they'll say, 'she's not even two and I have to buy age 3 to 4 clothes for her already.' So? The kid's big, so what?"

This mother meets parents who know exactly when all their friends' children passed the basic milestones - first word, first step, sleeping through the night, potty training - and where their child rates on that yardstick. Subtle digs are aimed: "Oh, he's not walking yet, is he not?" She restrains herself, a little. "Okay, I know he sits on his little fat arse all day, but he talks his head off, okay?"

With a bit of imagination, problems are redefined. In North America, for example, a child who still wakes up every hour on the hour at night at the age of a year doesn't have a sleep problem - he's now a "high needs" child. (Is there any other kind?)

The competitiveness wears off a little by the time our children hit primary school (all walking, all talking) and life provides a few reality checks against our perception of their brilliance. Often, it resurfaces in their mid-teens - unsurprisingly, with our points-obsessed education system.

Here, parents are more likely to "mock complain" as a way of boasting. "She's soooo tall and skinny, she'll probably want to be a supermodel - wouldn't that be ridiculous?" Or "I can't afford it, she just reads too much, three books a day. Of course, it's all rubbish."

"I think the competition is coloured by people's own fears," the mother-of-one suggests, generously and no doubt accurately. "The flipside of making all these comparisons is the support you get from talking to other parents, the useful information you swap."

On balance, parents are more likely to help each other out by talking about their children; at worst, parent-upmanship is a bit of a drag socially.

Where it might be damaging is if you take it too seriously, or within families, where Granny, for example, may start comparing one cousin to another, dredging up half-forgotten sibling rivalries in the process. (Never forget, of course, that Granny is still trying to find something to boast about in her adult children.)

The more important question is, can it be damaging for your child? Do you boost their confidence by believing that all your ducks are swans, and telling the world so, even if the world doesn't always want to hear? Or are you setting them unreachable goals? If you're over-modest, do you squash their self-belief?

Again, the answer is a common-sense one. Of course it's right to encourage children, says Conway "but you have to be careful not to over-emphasise material things too much. If your child thinks, or knows that what you want is a bright, good-looking student who will represent you well in society, you're setting the kid up for failure if he or she can't meet those expectations."

In other words, you can't live through your child; you have to love your child for what he or she is, even while encouraging achievement. "Schools tend to temper parents' expectations, put you back in your place; they can be helpful in keeping parents' feet on the ground."

The competitive Ireland of the 1990s is good up to a point, but it is one of parents' tasks "to teach their children to be realistic", Conway says, so they can find their niche in it. With all our hype about points, with schools boasting about how many of their students achieve high points in the Leaving Cert, we're in danger "of forgetting about the children who are constantly compared to the top stream".

Boast if you like, but remember that only a small percentage of children are super-bright. And your brilliant baby may not, after all, be one of them.