Celebrity yummy mummies make the rest feel like failures

When you add in looking immaculate at all times, serving up home-cooked family feasts and making romantic time for a partner, the schedule looks even more daunting.

But then Madonna seems to manage it. So do Victoria Beckham and Angelina Jolie.

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Faced with such examples of domestic goddesses, the average mother can feel a little less than perfect.

In fact, more than two-thirds believe the likes of Madonna and Co are putting mothers under pressure to live up to an unrealistic ideal, a survey has found.

Four in five say they feel pressure to look good and feel sexy for their partner and more than a third say they feel the need to be a successful career woman as well.

Almost half of those polled regarded Victoria Beckham as an unrealistic role model (42 per cent) followed by Angelina Jolie (11 per cent) and Madonna (9 per cent).

They, of course, run their seemingly perfect lives with help from an army of staff, minders and gofers.

The survey, carried out for a cosmetics firm, found mothers are feeling under pressure on a variety of fronts.

Becoming more aware of the environment is the most pressing domestic concern for many.

Recycling and looking for local produce worry 50 per cent of mothers, while celebrity chefs such as Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson have left more than 75 per cent concerned about what they are feeding their children.

Many mothers feel like second-rate citizens, with 67 per cent of the 8,500 questioned believing that when out and about they are seen as a mother first and woman second.

Just over 32 per cent believe that men no longer notice them since they've had a child.

Psychologist David Moxon said: "When an ideal like 'yummy mummy' is forced on society, particularly when it's spearheaded with unrealistic celebrity role models, it alters expectations and attitudes towards motherhood.

"When society starts to place idealistic views of how mums should appear it not only leaves them feeling disillusioned with their own lives it can also lead to partners, family members and friends being dismissive when mums in their own life don't live up to these unrealistic expectations."

It appears that many families are oblivious to the pressure the mothers in their lives are under, with 87 per cent of adults believing they had plenty of time to concentrate on themselves.

Mothers, however, begged to differ. Those polled said they had little time to devote to their own interests, with 89 per cent claiming they didn't even have the time to carry out a beauty regime.

Almost 70 per cent felt their partner didn't appreciate them.

And a sorry one in ten claimed their pets were the ones who made them feel most valued.