Tuckervill, I am not buying into that "your kid is better than mine," thing, although I know exactly what you speak of. As far as catching up, this is a woman I have no relationship with, except our kids went to Hebrew School together. My kids are fine, in my book... in fact they are pretty emotionally sane and as we always say "no one's in jail." I guess I would have liked it more if she had asked me what I was doing! You know, went back to school, switching careers, etc. She didn't even ask me if I was still teaching, although I did ask her about her job.
I live in an extremely competitive area in terms of academics and this stuff is commonplace. Mostly I shrug it off, but it gets old. It's more the "living through the kids" thing, which irks me. I didn't do it when my kids were little and I certainly don't do it now. I love them and we have a great relationship, but I don't get my identity from them.