Early motherhood: The last taboo for ambitious women

For the first time in Britain there are more mums over 35 than under 25. But the figures don't tell the whole story. Radhika Sanghani reports telegraph

25 - Make sure you’re in your dream job

26 – Find a serious boyfriend to marry

28 – Get married to him

30 – Start having kids with him

These are the age milestones my girlfriends and I came up with as teenagers. To our naïve minds, all we had to do was map out a timeline for our futures and everything else would slot into place. Easy.

Now we are all in our mid-to-late twenties and the realities of 21st century life mean that most of us have either failed to meet these targets or know we won't.

The only one we’ve all managed to hit we’re pretty thrilled about: none of us have reproduced.

For many twenty-something women today, having children is something we are keen to delay for as long as our biological clocks will allow.

Most of the rationale behind this is predictable: Having kids later in life doesn’t just mean we can focus on our careers and enjoy our twenties to the max, it’s the only realistic option in a time of economic difficulty, rising house prices, everlasting singledom and so on.

But there’s also something else that isn’t discussed as widely: the stigma of wanting be a mum in your early twenties.

The stigma has changed

For generations past, the stigma around pregnancy was always focused on women having children out of wedlock, teen mothers, and older mothers.

But while judgments in these areas have been decreasing over time, another has been forming. Now it’s more unusual for young women in their early twenties to become mothers than it is for women in their mid 30s.

New statistics show that for the first time in Britain, there are more women over 35 in maternity wards than women aged under 25. Whereas 25 was once considered the prime age for childbirth, the average age for British women to have children is now 30.

Sam Smethers, chief executive of Fawcett Society, says: “It’s no surprise that women are delaying motherhood to further their careers. Part of this is no doubt driven by the challenges all young people face of being able to afford to live independently, rent or buy their own home.

“Yet we also know that female graduates are significantly more likely to find it harder to get a job with employment rates of 42 per cent compared to 60 per cent for male graduates. When women leave university they’re going to be more focused on finding jobs than motherhood.”

This is all true but with it comes a pressure. For young women who have gone through the education system, there is often an expectation that they should begin their careers before decking out the nursery.

Pregnancy peer pressure

“It’s so true,” says a 25-year-old woman, who has just realised she’s guilty of perpetuating this peer pressure.

“One of my best friends is 24 and she just got married and had a baby. I thought she was mad and even though I was happy for her that everything she wanted was happening, I just didn’t get why she wanted do it all so soon.

“I know it sounds really bad but I think part of me was looking down on her for not picking a more challenging option.”

This is not an unusual response amongst ambitious young women who want to make the most of all the opportunities they have now compared to those available to their mothers and grandmothers.

Clare Murphy, of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), agrees. “Stigmatisation of women having teen pregnancies is huge, but it definitely extends to women in their early 20s as well. You can’t help thinking of it as a real case of women can’t win.

“It feels like you’re condemned to either waiting to become a mother and potentially running the risk of pregnancy complications and putting an extra burden on the NHS, or if you’re seen to be having your children too soon, that’s also seen as problematic. It definitely seems women are in a Catch 22.”

'When do I stop dreading pregnancy?'

There is already hordes of conflicting advice out there about the best time for women to get pregnant, and with this added social pressure from peers, it can become really challenging for women who do want to have children early.

That’s something one young mum I spoke to knows all too well. She became unexpectedly pregnant aged 19, and decided to keep her baby because she'd always wanted to have children early. But her decision also meant dropping out of university after just one year, and becoming the only girl from her friendship group at school to have a child so young.

She found that though her close friends and family were supportive, students at uni were shocked by her pregnancy, and she'd often feel that they would discuss her situation behind her back in total confusion at her decision.

The problem is that for young mums like her, who are on a path to a good education and career, there can be an expectation that they should choose to terminate their pregnancy rather than carry it on - because that's often the typical mindset for female students in their early twenties.

But at what age does that stop OK?

My 26-year-old friend tells me: “I’ve spent all my twenties living in fear of a positive pregnancy test because even though I know I do want a baby at some point, it needs to be when I'm ready.

It should be about choice

“Even when I’ve been in a relationship, I’ve known that if I got pregnant, I would have aborted it. But what age do I have to be to think, 'actually this is a surprise, but you know what, I’ll keep it'? I genuinely don't know."

It is the opposite side of the coin to young women who secretly dream of a positive pregnancy test but know their friends will judge them for their '1950s' dreams.

They’re different scenarios but psychologist Linda Blair says they can be just as stressful for the young woman at the centre of them:

“We need to be less judgmental. When you have a baby, or if you have one at all, should be a free choice. The essence of liberation for women is choice, not that they should be working or focusing on their careers.

“If you listen to yourself rather than other people - you’ll know when it’s time to try something.”

Ultimately it all comes down to women focusing on what they actually want rather than giving in to external pressures - whether they come from peers or national statistics and averages.

The problem with studies is they only show one side of a complex story. As Murphy points out: “They don’t just cover first births, they look at all births. And if you start having children later, you’re completing your family later.

"Of course also it takes some women a long time to conceive and they may have bouts of IVF."

Sadly there can also be miscarriages - it's estimated one in six of pregnancies where women know they're expecting will end in miscarriages - as well as fertility treatment.

These nuances to childbirth – whether it's ferility problems or a 22-year-old mum who deliberately became pregnant - are rarely conveyed in cold hard research.

But underneath the layers of judgment and expectations on women, this is the reality: there is no 'right age' for women to choose to have children, if they want them at all, and there definitely shouldn't be any expectations on these women to do anything other than what feels completely right.