Why don't women want to be mums anymore?
I’ve just become a grandmother; my eldest daughter, Rosie, had her first baby, a little boy, a few months ago. I’m thrilled, but I’m also struck by the fact that I’ve become a granny for the first time at 61, while my own mother was a mere 53. I had Rosie when I was 29; my mother had me at 24. Rosie is now a mother at 32.
What's more, the youngest of my four daughters is currently 22, and on present trends, with the average age of becoming a mother at around 31 and rising, it wouldn’t be unusual for her first child to be another 15 years away. By that time I’ll be 76 – and it’s not at all impossible I’ll have grandchildren still arriving into my 80s.
For the first time in UK history, that rate has fallen below 1.5 (that’s the total number of births per woman – the so-called ‘replacement rate’ needed for the population to replace itself from one generation to the next is 2.1). And, at 31, the average age of giving birth is the highest it’s ever been since records began in the 1930s.
It certainly isn’t a UK-only phenomenon. Over the past 50 years, the global fertility rate (the total number of births per woman) has halved to around 2.3. By the end of this century, it’s predicted that almost every country on Earth could have a shrinking population. Some European countries have birth rates even lower than the UK – including Italy, where it’s 1.25.
So the big question is, why? Why are younger women like my daughters and their friends postponing motherhood, or even deciding against it? While for some it’s simply personal choice, for others it is more complex.
"There are lots of reasons," says Christine Armstrong, author of The Mother Of All Jobs: How To Have Children And A Career And Stay Sane(ish). "We’ve created a society in which a combination of work and children is extremely difficult." In past generations, she points out, the usual family model was one breadwinner parent (usually the father) and one carer parent (usually the mother). Today, though, in almost all families in all income groups, both parents need to work to raise a family. "And yet we haven’t filled the gap of what happens about the childcare element – there’s a big hole there," says Christine. "The costs of childcare are eye-watering: many parents spend more on childcare than on their mortgage or rent."
While lots of things have changed in society over the last few decades, one thing that hasn’t altered much is that becoming a parent affects a woman a lot more than it does a man. Partly, of course, that’s to do with physiology, but it’s also to do with expectations and their own fatherly role models. Mothers still do more, whether it’s organising childcare, booking playdates, sorting out schooling or cleaning the house. It’s less acceptable than it was to do nothing as a dad, but it’s entirely possible to do a lot less than your partner when you’re actually co-raising your kids. "Against this backdrop, it’s not surprising that many women look at it all and think, 'Why would I do that?'" says Christine. "Children are wonderful, but they’re really hard work as well."
Significant, too, says Christine, is that motherhood has had abysmal press of late. "We’re all very careful as mothers to downplay the benefits – we’re acutely aware that some women are not able to have children [for medical reasons]. But motherhood is increasingly either seen as very hard indeed, or it’s highly idealised via influencers on Instagram carrying babies dressed up as teddy bears. The reality of what it’s really like has disappeared." Because having children and a job is, says Christine, doable; it’s just not easy.
And added to it not being easy, according to Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman, authors of What Are Children For? On Ambivalence And Choice, is the fact that younger women are coming under mounting pressures not just to be "good enough" parents but to be A-star ones – which sounds, to my experienced ears, like an impossibility. The authors think so as well. "There’s a preoccupation with a demanding standard for parenthood," says Anastasia. It’s this obsession with being prepared, being overly ready and lining up everything for perfection that’s quite unrealistic.
The looming fallout of climate change is often cited by young people as an argument not to have kids. But, say Anastasia and Rachel, that might be an ethically and socially acceptable way of justifying the cause. It’s so multifaceted and it’s easier to hook it on to fears about the future of the planet as an issue everyone knows about. "It’s a way of people today asking the question: is human life any good? Should we have more of it?" says Anastasia. "But that’s an age-old concern. We’ve been asking that question in different ways for generations."
With such a complicated problem – and problem it is, because every society needs to replace itself – there certainly aren’t going to be any easy answers. Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson, director of the Women’s Budget Group, makes the point that we all need to take some responsibility for the next generation.
"It’s a conversation we need to have, and in the right way," says Dr Stephenson. "It’s not about women needing to go back to the home, and it’s not about women who are not having children being selfish – none of that is true. What it’s about is creating a situation where women who do want children can make the choice to have them without being put off, because having children is so difficult, so expensive and mothers feel so unsupported."
For myself, I feel sad that so many younger women know they want to have children but feel it’s too hard to embark on the journey. Because while it’s certainly not an easy path, it is an extraordinarily rewarding one. Motherhood has given me the happiest, warmest, most meaningful moments of my life. And now as a grandmother I have plenty more of those moments still ahead.
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