‘We get 18 delicious summers with our children. This is one of your 18. If that’s not perspective, I don’t know what is.’

Every year at about this time this once-viral quote does the rounds again.

As parents are limping to the end of term, project managing the final flurry of activities, the thank you gifts and the not insignificant issue of how to juggle the six long weeks ahead, one wistful corner of the internet fires a social media bullet through the heart.

Whether you also work outside the home – or whether you don’t – the summer break is one of the greatest tests of parenting endurance.

From the sheer cost of having the kids home for six weeks, to persuading them into holiday clubs with strangers they often don’t want to go to, to the guilt of beg, borrowing and stealing childcare help – the ‘enjoy every moment’ parenting mantra at times needs muting until September.

Yes, we can shoo them outside to make dens on a shoe string or head for the beach with a packed lunch foraged from the cupboards.

But there comes a point where the sand is in the sandwiches, the den just collapsed (or in my house was unpegged by a sibling on the windup just for giggles) and it's all off.

I love my children with every fibre of my being and as we hover just past the halfway point of said 18 summers, they’re now great company.

And while it is glorious to sack-off the school run for a few weeks, throw caution to the wind with bedtime and not have the Sunday night dread when you discover you didn’t wash PE kits, there’s other stresses and strains when entertaining kids with Kardashian-like aspirations who can’t yet afford to buy their own toothpaste.

And while there might be a subliminal message in there about seizing the day and not sweating the small stuff. The suggestion that you should be focused on making every miniscule moment of their 42 days off memorable and special is the kind of parenting pressure no one needs.

And lets be honest - if the mortgage crisis deepens they’ll be wanting that den when they’re 30 anyway.