Pushy parents are an unpleasant and unavoidable fact of modern life, but some experts say that the phenomenon is spiralling out of control, and kids are caught in the crossfire of adult one-upsmanship. “Where your three-and-a-half-year-old attends nursery school determines the rest of his life… from this school, he gets into the top primary, the top prep, the top public school and then, of course, Oxford and a brilliant career.”