A 25-year-old woman grapples with her desire for motherhood amid declining birth rates, societal expectations, and the fear of losing her freedom and friendships.
Last week I saw a screaming, red-faced baby on the bus. Its eyes were screwed shut, tiny fingers clenched into fists, thumping the cushions of its pram, kicking at its knitted blanket, determined to make its frustration known.
An exhausted woman in her early 30s pushed the stroller back and forth, hushing the baby and apologising to the bus at large. Looking down at the Very Angry Baby, I was surprised to feel a longing tug in my chest. Oh God, I thought, as the screeching got louder. I want one.
It was a fleeting moment, over before it had really begun. But it shocked me. Broody feelings like these increasingly catch me off guard the further I creep through my 20s. Now 25, every time it happens babysitting my eight-year-old cousin, repeat-watching a video of a baby laughing on Instagram I am left confused and a little sad because, in this day and age, a baby at my age is out of the question.
Last week, it was reported that the number of babies being born in the UK has dropped to the lowest level in more than half a century, as more and more couples in their 20s put off having children. The estimated number of babies born per woman fell to just under 1.4 for England and Wales in 2025, down from 1.9 in 2010 and well under the 2.1 needed to replace the existing population.
It is a trend replicated in every developed country on the planet. In Japan and South Korea, the decline in birthrate has been so rapid and so sharp that governments are looking at the entire collapse of their current populations. Europe is not far behind. Here the average age of first-time mothers has risen too, to 29.6.
Soon it will be into the 30s. At 25, I am at the peak of my fertility, it is a slippery slope from here, and I am also in a happy, long-term relationship with a kind, funny, handsome man who would be an amazing father. He wants children and I would happily have a child tomorrow, except for one huge problem: not one of my friends wants to start a family yet.
And realistically why would I want to become the outlier? Why would I want to isolate myself by becoming the only mum in my circle? How much of this fabulous, communal twenty-something life I currently live would I have to give up? We live in an age of extended adolescence.
My friends and I are living with friends and parents, rather than partners, moving every couple of years and still living on top of one another. No one is getting engaged until their late 20s or early 30s. Everyone is waiting to get married, waiting to have children. Emotionally speaking, the notion of motherhood, although instinctively ever present as the Very Angry Baby demonstrated, feels years away.
If I got pregnant tomorrow, my friends would not say congratulations. They would ask me, very gently, what I was going to do. If I needed someone to come with me to a clinic. What my boyfriend thought.
And for good reason. Now I am financially independent, there is a freedom in my life that I am just beginning to grasp. It is sitting in the office at 7pm, computer glowing, working to make my mark career-wise. It is scrolling on Skyscanner to find the cheapest flights abroad for the weekend and bundling five friends into a hostel room so we can see one glimpse of the sun in January.
It is Thursday night pub plans pinging into a group chat before the workday has finished. Or lungs aching at five-a-side girls football late after work and laughing about missed penalties on the cycle home. It is sleepovers at your best friend flat, getting sunburned in the park on a gloriously empty Sunday afternoon, time stretching ahead of us. Everything feels open and exciting and fun, and it all belongs entirely to me.
I am not stupid. No one my age is. I have been raised with my eyes wide open about the realities of motherhood. Pregnancy, childbirth and the responsibilities of childcare and domestic labour still overwhelmingly fall to women.
It all comes at a huge personal cost. To have a baby would not just be a massive, life-defining decision for me and my boyfriend, it would be, socially speaking, akin to appearing on 16 and Pregnant, the US reality show we all watched as teenagers, appalled at the thought those girls lives had been sacrificed to motherhood so young.
Whereas my partner life might change a little if we were to have a baby, we might move in together for instance, he would get less sleep, my life would be turned on its head. Instead, it would become something very different, perhaps no less exciting but undoubtedly less free. No more quiet reading time, no more football training, the end of living my life solely on my terms.
And that is the heart of the dilemma for so many women my age. We are caught between a primal desire for children and a hard-won sense of autonomy that we are not ready to surrender. The Very Angry Baby on the bus may have ignited a spark, but the fire of my current life burns too brightly to let it catch
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