Do I want kids? Here’s why that question fills me with dread – and why we should talk about it

One topic arises every time I attend an event with kids, and it leaves me filled with dread. Here’s why I don’t think I’m alone, writes Emily Olle.

I’d like it put on the record that I adore kids. This is a statement many in my inner circle may find surprising – baffling even – but it’s true.

I love kicking a footy with them, picking their little brains about how they see the world and, yes, even attending their birthdays.

As I approach 30, more and more of my weekends are filled with baby showers, pregnancy announcements and children’s parties.

On Saturday, I attended one of the best-catered events I’ve been to in a long while to celebrate a tiny person making it 12 months on God’s green Earth.

I left with two key things: a delicious chocolate cupcake, and a crippling sense of existential dread.

“So, do you want kids?”

It’s a well-intentioned and seemingly innocuous question from parents new and old that pops up at every one of these events and sits like a loaded gun against what still feels to me like my underdeveloped brain.

The honest answer? “I don’t know, but on a fairly regular basis I’ll fall into a dissociative anxiety-ridden mental state as I contemplate whether I’ll choose not to and die filled with regret or choose to procreate and feel like I’ve ruined my life forever.”

This tends to be a bit much for 10am on a Saturday morning. So instead, I just say: “Probably!”

Live vision of me having a full-on existential crisis. Not pictured: the three plates of fried rice I ate because I was inarguably too hangover for a children’s event.

I’m far from alone in this feeling.

Recent research suggests more than half of 18 to 34 year olds are delaying having a family over cost of living fears, while Australia’s birthrate is currently at an all-time low of 1.6.

While an increasing number are choosing to live a child-free life, the tick-box of the Australian dream – picket fence, marriage, kids – remains a pervasive ideal, particularly for women.

For the large part, society still attaches a bizarre morality to the decision to not have children, labelling it a shortcoming, selfishness or immaturity.

Last month, federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers said it would “be better if birthrates were higher” in Australia.

While the statement sits firmly in the bucket of Things Men Shouldn’t Weigh In On Unless They Are Medically Able To Carry A Child, it also suggests an idiotic simplicity to the idea of just “having kids”.

Notwithstanding those who have fertility struggles or are limited by the financial burden of IVF, my heartache for which is unending, it also ignores the very real and practical reasons young people are shying away from child-rearing.

I’ve had dozens, if not hundreds of conversations with female friends about the decision to have children. They tend to go something like this.

“What about a house, I can’t afford one? What about my career? If my partner leaves, where would I be financially? Could I afford to raise a child on my own? Do I want to actually be the primary carer? Will I resent my partner if he retains his autonomy while I become ‘just a mum’? Am I ready to give up my life? But will I feel like I’ve missed out if I don’t?”

I’ve seen first hand how challenging, fulfilling and joyous motherhood can be for my friends and loved ones.

But I also very much like the idea of doing this as much as physically possible for the rest of my life.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with wanting children, stability and a nurturing life as a parent. Nor is there absolutely anything wrong with not wanting that.

But that’s what makes it so difficult to comprehend that I, somehow, have to make that choice.

My “should I have a child” brain whirred once again into action recently after being spurred by an unlikely source – British electro-pop artist Charli XCX.

Sandwiched neatly between tracks about dancefloors best suited for sweat-filled Boiler Room decks is “I think about it all the time”, a brutally honest ode to the anxiety of realising you’re now at the age where the decision may be imminent.

“There’s a lot of pressure on women to not talk about that stuff super openly, especially not in pop music or in music generally; we’re supposed to be sexy and free and fun and wild,” she said of the song.

“I feel like a kid; I don’t feel like I can make that decision … but you have to make the decision – because we have a clock.“

Throw in three youthful years robbed by the Covid pandemic and the tick tock of the biological clock really makes me feel like the party is not ready to stop (that’s for the Millennials, thanks Ke$ha).

I still don’t know what the answer is. I can tell you three hours of frantic post-birthday party Googling of “will I regret having kids?” was certainly not the solution. Neither was: “Medical advancements so women could be dads, please???”

Maybe I’ll be a mum. Maybe I’ll be the cool aunty who swans in from her latest Aperol-drenched European holiday with gifts for her friends’ little ones. Maybe I’ll try, and won’t be able to. Who knows.

Perhaps I’ll never be certain if I want kids. But we can make it easier for women to feel like they can ask the question.

For those reading this who’ve invited me to their kids’ events – please know I love it, cherish it and especially enjoy sports-based activities.

But for now, I’m just going to stick with being a kid at heart.