Parenting is one of the areas where keeping up with the Joneses tends to be rather important from a social standpoint. Our competitive society fosters competition in child-rearing, even among Christian parents who shouldn't let the "world's" standards of success or achievement rule their actions.
Because our generation understands that we live in a time where you need a lot of things on your resume just to make a middle class living, and signs of status and success are harder to come by, we use our children as the measure of our own worth and success as persons. It is taking the maxim that the children are a reflection of the parents too seriously. Christians are especially guilty of using their children as symbols of success because from a social standpoint you really can't love lots of possessions or be prideful about your academic degrees. But you can sneak your child's astronomical SAT score and command of six languages, including sign languages as a notch on your proverbial acheivement belt.
However, just as modern competitive society is exhausting its adults, we are in danger of exhausting our children, creating them into little neurotic over-achievers (I am one of these, but it is not my parents' fault). What happened to just plain being?
Folks are starting to wise up to this, and thus we have the book Confessions of a Slacker Mom. And while I think some use these ideas as an excuse not to spend a lot of time with their kids or justify their careers, there is a lot of truth in the idea that you don't always have to be inundating your kids with creative activities and learning aids. Your kid won't be a serial killer if you don't use baby-wipe warmers.
Trust me.