Big banks are going belly up, hedge funds are going under, and Gordon Brown and George Bush are having to play down the panic in financial circles. But without indulging in too much Schadenfreude, I see an upside to this debacle. The annual holiday race, which pits family against family, will lose its merciless momentum.

The middle class has long papered over the yawning cracks of income inequality within their ranks. We skimp, save and remortgage our homes to scrape together the money for school fees, allowing our cherubs to attend the same school as the progeny of the Masters of the Universe. We fork out for extracurricular activities, so that our children, whether state or privately educated, can have the same exposure to ballet, music and fine art as the offspring of the financial-class elite. We do a good job of pretending to be what we're not - or at least, of pretending to earn what we don't.

Then come the holidays, and we stand exposed as losers in the lifestyle race. As Easter looms, talk at the school gates turns to a safari in Kenya, or skiing in Verbier. Boasts about scuba diving and jet skis alternate with predictions of a Caribbean tornado or an Alpine snowstorm. Whether among state or private school parents, holidays pitilessly sort the real thing from the wannabes.

The ultimate fear, for parents like us, is “The Invitation”. The children jump at it. We accept, warily, knowing that our noses, and our children's, will be rubbed in exotic extravagance. Our offspring will sample first-hand the joys of being suntanned in March or staying in a chalet in St Moritz. They'll be seduced by the glamour and glitz, their palate forever spoilt for our rustic retreats and modest entertainments.

Sending them on these expensive jaunts inevitably means forking out pocket money, and sometimes clothes and equipment, all of which saps our own holiday budget. Worse, we feel obliged to offer a return match, a humiliating affair where a rocky beach is supposed to rival Mustique, or long walks to be just as much fun as water skiing.

My husband and I can't compete. We operate on a tight budget already strained by bills, taxes and school fees. Easter will be spent with relatives in the countryside. We're trying to present our stay there as a Great Adventure, replete with lamping and lambing; we explain that our holiday won't burn a hole in the ozone layer. Our claims fall on deaf ears. The same children who remained indifferent to the ballet and music and Kandinskys of the super-rich are bowled over by the extravagant trips the wealthy take for granted. They look on us with disdain: surely we can come up with something better than Thorpe Park?

Friendship across the income divide may be desirable. But holidays remind us that, even in the era of easyJet and Ryanair, such friendships are as solid as a vapour trail.

Cristina Odone is author of The Dilemmas of Harriet Carew

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