New figures from the Office for National Statistics reveal that Gen Z women are delaying or opting out of having children at significantly higher rates than previous generations.The average Gen Z woman – born between 1997 and 2012, so currently aged between 14 and 29 – won’t have her first child until she’s 35 and is much less likely than Gen Z men to want a family in the first place.There are many social and economic factors for this, but before everyone starts weeping into their matcha lattes about not having a lovely wee bay-bee to cuddle, can I just say something?Which is this. Well done, girls. Congratulations. Give yourself a massive pat on the back for being the first generation to properly understand that women have been sold a pup, told a lie, fed a dream that was never ours.And that is the ridiculous propaganda that we can and should and could have it all: the baby, the family, the supportive and loving partner, the fulfilling career, the shattered glass ceiling, the roses around the door, the happy ever after. We never could. We never would. We never did.Show me an ordinary woman who thinks she has achieved such domestic and professional nirvana and I will show you an exhausted husk hollowed out by equal parts of maternal guilt and corporate envy; a husk who is still obsessing over missed bedtime stories and being overlooked for promotion.For it is different for girls, it really is. It may be 2026, but the double standard is alive and well in a world where men can still forge ahead at home and the workplace, but women are still expected to perform at work as if they have no children, and to raise their kids as if they had no careers.In this post-Covid world of oil shortages, financial crisis, global wars and international insecurity, I look around at many of my female colleagues and young friends and see far too many of them stretching themselves to breaking point. The average Gen Z woman – born between 1997 and 2012, so currently aged between 14 and 29 – won’t have her first child until she’s 35The household needs two incomes to survive, so Mum has to go out to work to bring home her share of the bacon while keeping her place nicely sizzling on the career ladder. Even if this means that most of her salary is going towards childcare, which is ridiculous when you think about it.Babies are shunted into nurseries at six months old and collected at the end of the day. What is the point, where is the joy? It’s financially and emotionally crazy.No wonder that fertility rates in England and Wales are at their lowest since 1938 – currently around 1.39 children per woman.And I hardly need remind anyone that was back when our trepidatious country was on the brink of World War II, with young men enlisting, children about to be evacuated, blackouts being planned and a general air of doom. Babies were the last thing on anyone’s mind then – and now.Perhaps we should applaud these clear-eyed women for having the courage to opt out of this traditional pipe dream, this hormonal mirage. Demographic research indicates that only one in ten Gen Z women has had a baby by 23, and up to a quarter of them may remain childless by 45 – thereby sailing onwards to join me in the baby-free sea of happy cronedom. And as an older woman who is childless by choice, can I please welcome them into this wonderful, underrated club.Today, there is so much emphasis on sainted motherhood that the positives of being childless are overlooked. Listen. I never had children and never regretted it. In fact, most days I positively celebrate it. Here in JanLand my fabulous life is all about fabulous me, and that is how I fabulously want it to be.I’m not worrying my slacker son is spending too much time in his room smoking dope. I’m not fretting my dim daughter’s new boyfriend is possibly an organised crime lord. And I’m not crawling home after an eight-hour shift to batch-cook dishes for the freezer.Not me! Instead I’m planning a work trip to California, I’m ordering a case of champagne (never prosecco, I didn’t save on all those school uniforms and Invisalign braces for nothing) and I’m living a rich and fulfilling life.You might think me shallow – undoubtedly, I am. But what the heck is so great about being a parent anyway? Given the amount of moaning they do, most parents don’t seem to enjoy it much.And motherhood never looked like fun to me; the toys, the teething, the waft of eau de nappy, the fact you have to go through an adolescence even worse than your own as your children grow up.Girlfriends with children inexorably faded into the mumsphere for years. Only to briefly and vividly reappear in your life before fading away again – this time into nansphere where they must provide free childcare for their grandchildren on demand. What a racket. No thanks to any of that.In my 30s, I was lucky enough to fall in love with a man who didn’t want children either. We’re still happily together in our for ever-empty nest and we adore it.Sometimes when I look at him, sitting there in his shorts eating too much ice cream, it crosses my mind that, one way or another, you end up looking after a great big baby anyway. But that’s the way the rusk crumbles.Of course, I have sympathy for women who desperately want but cannot have children. Their agony is terrible to behold, but behold it we must, for they are always going on about it in books and films and magazines and Substacks and chatrooms and posts. I’m sad that non-moms cannot get what they want in life, but pragmatic enough to accept that few of us do.Worryingly, their loss is fetishised to a degree which promotes the notion that life is not worth living if you cannot be a mother – and I’d hate for any young woman to be persuaded by this nihilism.Having a child is a privilege and a lifestyle choice, not a right. And not having a child is a pleasure, not a persecution by the fertility gods.The rate of lifelong childlessness – it sounds so bleak! – has steadily risen for British women for 50 years, currently standing at about 18 per cent. I bet few of us are truly unhappy about our situation.And Gen Z women will make that figure rise even higher as they choose the quiet, selfish joy of cronedom over the hurly-burly of baby. Join us in the infinity pool, not the birthing pool, ladies.Come on in, the water’s lovely.Can I be a bit Cheeky, Emily? Actress Emily Blunt attends the New York premiere of her film Disclosure DayWhat a gal. Emily Blunt always looks like an old-school Hollywood great. Knockout dress and flawless grooming – the latter usually supplied by make-up artist Jenn Streicher.For this week’s look Jenn claimed the ‘real winner was the Cheeky Clean Cream Blush’, by the brand Counter, in shade Chai. Is that all it takes? I wonder.Emily, 43, has recently had the kind of intense Hollywood glow-up that makes her look like a different version of herself. Still fabulous, just not quite the same. Is that a little bit Cheeky?As trouble rages on in Belfast and everyone is accusing everyone else of being racist, I have one question. Why is it that the human rights of asylum seekers are prioritised over public safety in this country? Hard to imagine that happening anywhere else in the world. SNP's greasy message of redemption Scotland fans at their team's international friendly against Curacao, which Scotland won 4-1Scotland are off to the World Cup this week, hurrah! And the Tartan Army are on the march to the States to see their team take their place in the finals – the first time they’ve qualified since 1998.Thousands have arrived in Boston for the opening game against Haiti – and expect to be there for a good time, not a long time.Meanwhile, First Minister John Swinney announced he’s making an official government donation of £400,000 to a high-profile campaign by a Scottish football fan. Craig Ferguson is walking 3,000 miles across the US to raise funds for the Scottish Action for Mental Health charity (SAMH). An honourable cause, but is it the business of governments to allocate spending based on the most media-friendly stunts?And £400,000 is provocative, being the amount former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell was originally accused of embezzling from party funds. The government is already one of the main sources of funding for SAMH. Why not simply increase that funding? I suppose they’d miss out on the publicity – and what is a very greasy message of redemption (or something!) that they are trying to put across.On Wednesday I went to the Albert Hall in London to see Rufus Does Judy, the singer Rufus Wainwright’s acclaimed show in which he recreates Judy Garland’s legendary 1961 comeback concert at Carnegie Hall in New York. It was wonderful, right down to the ruby slippers Rufus wore in the first half as he performed this show for the last time ever. ‘I don’t want to be hollering show tunes into my 60s,’ he said in a recent interview. I know how he feels.But can I just mention the ridiculous price of the drinks? The Albert Hall charged me £18.50 for a glass of The Pale Rose (supermarket price: £13 a bottle), served under-chilled in a plastic beaker by rude staff. Why do these outlets have to be so greedy? Not dear Rufus’s fault, but such a charmless experience on a charming night.Cut the sleaze please, Madge Madonna, 67, in the music video for a new single from her upcoming album Confessions IIMadonna’s film for her new Love Sensation single is – what is the word I’m searching for – terrifying. The ten-minute horror show takes place in a nightclub bathroom and features her new bottom, her new lips, her new best friends and her old love of breezy sleaze and the usual carousing chorus of crotch-thrusters.It is incredible and rather admirable that the 67-year-old Queen of Pop (left) is still making great music and creating headlines with her antics. But rather tragic that she does it by presenting herself as a trout-pout trollop in a plastic basque having sex with a stranger in a public toilet. Very inspirational for young women, I don’t think.Where is her inner Simone de Beauvoir in all this? The video also features Madonna and her dancers with laser beams powering out of their anuses (anusii?) and vaginas, while Benedict Cumberbatch and Kate Moss muck about in the nightclub bogs. It is both unintentionally hilarious and alarming – anusii ahoy – what does it say about Madonna’s mindset?Does Gates believe himself?Awful enough that Bill Gates hung around Jeffrey Epstein like a bad smell for years, taking advantage of the seedy lifestyle the billionaire paedophile provided for his friends, which was mainly sex with women and girls, if they wanted.Even worse that Gates once tried to slip his wife Melinda some drugs to cure the STD she didn’t know he had given her – like crushing up a worming pill in a bowl to give to the family dog. But his defence of his behaviour tops the lot. In front of the US House Oversight Committee, Gates claimed that associating with Epstein was a ‘huge mistake’ but said he saw nothing illegal. He added that Epstein blackmailed him into behaving badly and that the email about his wife’s STD was a fake.No wonder Melinda booted him out of her life once she realised what he’d been up to.The Microsoft co-founder has not been accused of any wrongdoing and has maintained his meetings with Epstein were confined to philanthropy-related topics. Does he even believe himself?