Growing up, I always wanted to be a young mum; have my first baby by 25 and another by 30. Now that age is creeping up on me, and I couldn’t be further from achieving those dreams.
I’m 23, my boyfriend is 26, and having a child is the last thing on our minds. Even though we own our own home – a sign we are at least somewhat financially stable – there’s little disposable income left over each month to cater for the costs of raising a child, especially if one of us were to give up work to do any type of childcare.
And yet every few months, Britain rediscovers its falling birth rate and asks the same question: why aren’t young people having children?
Shorts
The latest figures to reignite the debate come from the Office for National Statistics this week, which projects that the youngest Gen Zers – those born in 2007 (I was born in 2002) – will not reach an average of one child until the age of 35. In contrast, women born in 1951 reached that parenting milestone by age 26.
