Alright, deep breath. That headline sounds dramatic, doesn’t it? Let me soften it a little before anyone panics. I’m not actually banning my daughters from motherhood, drawing up contracts, or hiding all future baby catalogues from them.
And I absolutely, wholeheartedly, do not regret having my own children. They are the best thing I have ever done.
But because I love them so fiercely, because I want the absolute best for them, I also feel a responsibility to be honest. Honest about what motherhood really is. Honest about the world they’re growing up into. Honest about the fact that having children should be a choice, not an expectation.
And while I have always been very open with them about my own mental health and post-natal depression struggles, I have never tried to dissuade them from being mothers themselves.
So no, I’m not telling them they must never have kids. What I am telling them is this: think very carefully before you do.
Here are a few of the reasons why.
Freedom
This is the big one. The thing a lot of people don’t truly understand until it’s gone.
When you don’t have children, your life is yours. You can wake up one morning and decide to change everything. Move cities. Change careers. Book a flight. Stay out late. Sleep in. Be spontaneous. Be selfish, in the healthiest possible way.
Once you have children, that kind of freedom shrinks dramatically. It doesn’t disappear completely, but it becomes complicated. Everything requires planning, money, childcare, compromise. Even popping out for a coffee becomes a military operation.
People love to say, “You can do all that when you’re older, when the kids are grown.” But honestly, your twenties and early thirties are the only time in your life when you have both energy and independence at the same time. Later on you might get the independence back, but the energy? That’s another story. And let’s be real, who actually wants to start discovering themselves and going clubbing at forty?
Not because forty is old. But do you really want to be surrounded by drunken teenagers in sweaty nightclubs and then dealing with that hangover next morning? I’m 38 and I literally couldn’t think of anything worse.
If my girls decide they want children one day, wonderful. But I want them to have lived first. To have travelled, made mistakes, chased dreams, changed their minds, and figured out who they are before they add the enormous responsibility of another human being into the mix.
Society
This one feels uncomfortable to say out loud, but it’s true. The world our children are growing up in is not designed to support families in the way previous generations were.
The healthcare system in the UK is crumbling unless you’re practically on death’s door. The education system is stretched, underfunded, and increasingly joyless. The cost of living is ridiculous. Housing is a nightmare. Wages don’t match inflation. Everything feels harder than it should be.
We’re constantly told by society that women should have children, yet the structures that are meant to help those children thrive are being stripped away year after year. It often feels like society rewards the act of reproducing with welfare packages, but then offers very little practical help with actually raising those children into happy, secure adults.
On top of that, our kids are growing up in a world saturated with bad news. War, fear, violence, political instability. It’s relentless. I don’t remember feeling this anxious about the state of the world when I was young. Now it’s impossible to escape.
The Environment
This is the hardest one to face.
The planet is struggling. That’s not hysteria, it’s fact. Climate change, pollution, loss of wildlife, extreme weather – every year the warnings get louder and the action gets weaker.
We are not fixing things. In many ways we’re actively making them worse.
So I find myself asking uncomfortable questions. What kind of world will my grandchildren inherit? How many more generations do we want to bring along for this ride if we can’t even guarantee them a stable future?
I’m not saying nobody should have children ever again. But I do think it’s reasonable to pause and consider whether bringing more lives into an already overstretched planet is something we should do automatically, without thought.
Responsibility
Here is the part nobody warned me about.
Before I had children, I thought parenting would be tiring, expensive, chaotic. I expected sleepless nights and tantrums and school runs.
What I didn’t expect was the constant, gnawing anxiety.
From the moment they were born, I have worried. Every single day. I worry about their health, their happiness, their friendships, their future. I worry when they’re at school. I worry when they’re out of my sight. I worry about the day they’re grown and making their own way in a world that can be cruel and unpredictable.
When people say parenting is a lifelong commitment, they don’t just mean financially or practically. They mean emotionally. The worry never ends. Ever.
Sometimes I think about the fact that will be worrying about them every day for the rest of my life and its such an overwhelming thought.
And that’s something I want my girls to understand before they make the choice themselves. Children are wonderful, yes. But they are also a permanent piece of your heart walking around outside your body. And there is only so much you can do to prepare and protect them.
So that’s where I stand.
I will never tell my daughters what to do with their lives. If they grow up dreaming of big families and chaotic Christmas dinners, I will support them with everything I have.
But I also want them to know that choosing not to have children is just as valid. Just as meaningful. Just as brave.
Motherhood is not the default setting for a woman’s life. It is one option among many.
And if, one day, they decide that their happiness lies elsewhere – in travel, careers, passions, freedom, or simply a quiet life of their own – I want them to feel confident enough to choose that path without guilt. They are privileged to be able to make those choices and should do so gutlessly.
Because the best reason to have children is simple: you truly want them (and can independently support them, obvs. Kids are expensive).
Anything less than that isn’t fair on anyone
