That your life becomes entirely about your kids once you have them is not proof that’s how life should be
I am of an age when most of my social group is in their late 30s and early 40s, and, as has always been the case, the majority of my friends are women. So I find myself increasingly having this conversation – usually with a friend, but sometimes with a nice woman I bond with at a party or somesuch – and it goes like this: she always assumed she would have kids, but she didn’t meet the right partner in her 30s, and actually it was fine because she was so busy with her career, and who can afford kids anyway? But now she’s 40 and while she’s not desperate to have kids, she’s also not that keen on losing the option. It kinda sucks being the only one among her friends without kids, when the WhatsApps are full of Hey Duggee chat, and what will happen to her when she’s old? Will she be all alone? So should she have a baby now? I look her right in the eyes and I tell her what I always tell women in these circumstances: don’t bother.
I need to clarify two things here. First, this is in no way a reflection of my feelings about my own children, whom I genuinely cannot imagine my life without, even though I lived for almost 40 years without them. That your life becomes entirely about your kids once you have them is not proof that’s how life should be – it’s a reflection of what kids are like. It’s strange how often people confuse the cause and effect here. I can only assume it’s done mainly by parents who are trying to reassure themselves that they definitely made the right life choices when they realise that, for the next eight years, their weekends will no longer be about seeing their friends, but consist entirely and only of shepherding their kids to playdates and making awkward small chat with random people who just happened to have had kids around the same time as you.