Why are millennials like me so stressed about having children?

Wages are dropping. House prices are skyrocketing. The future of the planet seems dismal. Is it therefore any wonder that birth and fertility rates are declining? Olivia Petter speaks to experts and her fellow millennials about a generation gripped with anxiety over whether they should become parents

‘Time is of the essence. Tick tock. And so on. But when it comes to children, even the word elicits a kind of dull ache in the lower part of my stomach’ (iStock)

By 28, I will be married. By 30, I will have my first baby and call him something adorably pretentious, like Silas. By 32, I will be living in the countryside and expecting my second baby, a girl whose bedroom I will have already painted yellow.

Like many millennials, I imagined a future for myself a lot like this when I was growing up. And yet, the reality couldn’t be farther from it: I’m 29, single, and ambivalent about whether I even want children – that is if you exclude my cat, Blanche DuBois, who is, for all intents and purposes, my fluffy daughter.

It might sound odd: now on the precipice of 30, I should be keeping my waning fertility at the forefront of my mind and make a decision before I no longer have a choice, right? Time is of the essence. Tick tock. And so on. But when it comes to children, even the word elicits a kind of dull ache in the lower part of my stomach. Followed by a mix of juxtaposing emotions spanning the gamut of love and longing to fear and dread. I’m not alone.