If you feel pressure to have kids, read this

And show it to anyone nosy enough to ask about your procreation plans

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

One of the reasons I write this newsletter is in the hope of helping people at a time of life that can be tricky: your mid-ish 30s, when you might be acutely aware of time and whether you have enough of it to try to have a baby, or whether, in fact, you want to have children at all.

Figures out last week show that fertility among women is at its lowest on record in England and Wales, a headline that I would have probably panicked about if I’d read it when I was 35.

But if you’re reading this and worrying, I am here to tell you that if you possibly can, to please take a deep breath and try to see beyond the headlines.

If you’re new to The Honesty Box a quick intro: I’m Lucy, 47, and I write about lots of things, especially life as a woman without kids.

First of all, news organisations write headlines in a way that makes you want to click on them. I am a journalist and it is my job to make things interesting. So I get this rationale.

‘Fertility rate in England and Wales drops to new low,’ was the BBC’s headline on Monday, and it is accurate, as you’d expect.

But it could have read: ‘Slightly fewer babies were born last year than the year before,’ which is much less attention-grabbing.

Births went down by around 14,000 to 591,072 in 2023 - a decrease of about 2.4%, according to my calculations.

It’s correct that fertility declines with age, but the reason I point out the nuance of the story is because headlines like these only serve to add to the pressure people feel.

Second, the figures focus only on women’s fertility, which automatically – and unfairly - pushes the focus on to women when it comes to efforts around trying to start a family. As there is no ‘childbearing years’ definition for men, their fertility is not measured.

(There is an assumption that men are able to have kids until they are much older, but that is simply not the case.)

Third, we have an ageing population and a declining birth rate, which means politicians fret about how we’ll have enough young people to earn money to support old people through taxes in future. But it is not your job to have kids to solve that.

And these figures are not a surprise. As Sarah Harper, professor of gerontology at the University of Oxford told the BBC earlier this year: “I do not think there is a demographic timebomb, it is part of the demographic transition. We knew this was going to happen, and happen across the 21st Century. So, it is not unexpected, and we should have been preparing for this for some time.”

In some countries, the focus is on helping people be healthy and productive for as long as they can be, rather than on flapping about birth rates.

Fourth, as contributors to the BBC programme Question Time pointed out on Thursday, there needs to be systemic change: women still do the majority of childcare, nursery costs are high, and there is a gender pay gap and a housing crisis to deal with, which do not create a positive environment for raising children (the conversation about falling birth rates starts around 41 minutes in).

If someone is nosying around asking questions about your procreation plans, point these things out.

Fifth, there needs to be cultural change around how we talk about trying for kids, having kids, or not having kids, and what people think are acceptable things to say to those of childbearing age. One of the Question Time panellists had recently become a grandparent and encouraged people to “have more children, it’s brilliant.”

I don’t doubt it is joyful to have grandkids, but comments like these can contribute to the sometimes enormous pressure put on people to have kids - when there are myriad reasons why they don’t, won’t or can’t. These reasons are nobody’s business.

Sixth, and for me most important: you can have a brilliant, fulfilling and purposeful life without having kids. I didn’t choose not to have children - I always thought I would (read more about that here). But, while it felt like the be-all and end-all in my 30s, I now wax lyrical about what the positives are for me: more freedom, more time, and more space to be whoever I want to be.

Thank you so much for reading this. If anything resonated, hit ‘reply’ if you’re reading via email, or comment below.

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