Please stop asking me when I’m going to get married and have a baby

It started slowly. Five years ago, the first of my school friends got engaged and bets were soon placed on who would be next. As I had just gotten into a relationship, my name was often thrown into the mix as a contender. 

Then, last year, another friend got married. After the ceremony, as we nibbled on canapés, waiting for the wedding breakfast and gushing over the service, I passed my phone to someone, asking if they would take a picture of my boyfriend and I. In one of them, we dared to look at each other and smile. Soon enough the chorus of coos came: “Oh, it’ll be you two next!”

More recently, my boyfriend and I spent an evening at the pub to celebrate a friend’s birthday. One had just proposed to his girlfriend and the pair were, inevitably, quizzed over how the question was popped, whether she was expecting it and how the planning was going for the big day. All answers exhausted, they went to the bar to replenish their drinks and the conversation came to a lull and looks, full of joyful expectation, turned to us. “Soon it will be you two!” 

Earlier this month, I went to the christening of a friend’s child. As is often the case after the service, as cups of tea and glasses of wine were handed out, the child was passed from one adoring guest to another. I began chatting to the person holding the child, and with the infant in touching distance, I smiled and squeezed their chubby leg, dangling down from the embrace of the family member. 

I was promptly passed the baby, and my maternal instincts took over, allowing my hips to adopt the gentle bouncing sway often associated with holding a baby or with desperately needing the loo (or both). When I looked up, an ensemble of mothers, including mine, had formed nearby and was engaged in conspiratorial glances. “You’re a natural!” I was informed. As we later said our goodbyes, I was asked several times when my boyfriend might pop the question.

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None of this is to say that I do not want to get married and have children. Quite the opposite, it’s exactly what I want. But my boyfriend and I have been together for five years and in recent months I have been astounded at how frequently we are asked when we’re going to settle down, even by people we don’t really know. It’s well-meaning and well-intentioned but feels like we’re behind on some to-do list that everyone else has access to.

We now have a routine for when the inevitable question is thrown our way. Like at the pub for my friend’s birthday, we smile, embrace and cite how we both know it will happen, putting on our well-rehearsed show that we are in no hurry and then we say something vague about life milestones. 

When we really hit our groove, we joke about how, after all, my boyfriend is a photographer who took me to a wedding fair when we’d been dating for a mere four months (for purely professional purposes, of course).

We both value our careers, are trying to get onto the property ladder and are eyeing up adventures on the other side of the globe. None of which are obstacles but pose questions about how we want to direct our attention and financial resources. Still – why, when these questions do emerge, does it send my heart racing and my mind into an anxious spiral? 

For years, many women I know in their late 20s have been told they have all the time in the world. I’ve been told the same thing. Simultaneously, however, family, friends and even doctors are tapping at their watches. 

The idea that we can have it all has slowly morphed into having to do it all and running out of time in which to do it. Ironically, if I ever raise these concerns that it can, in fact, feel like we’re running up against the clock, it’s rebutted. “You’re so young! You have so much time!” This always then feels like there’s a quiet caveat whispered at the end: ‘Yes, but not that much. So, hurry up.’

I am far from alone. A university friend recently broke up with her partner of eight years and was met with an almost comical show of relief when she told her parents she was in another committed relationship. Another friend has recently bought and moved into her own house and received a promotion at her high-flying corporate job. Still, the first question relatives often ask is whether she’s dating anyone. 

Maybe it’s to be expected. After all, monogamy is trendy again. A 2024 survey by the dating app Feeld found that across 71 countries, 81% of Gen Z fantasised about monogamous relationships. In comparison, 75-80% of millennials, Gen X and baby boomers fantasised about open relationships. My contentment with my own timeline may be out of fashion.

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Family and friends making these sorts of enquiries are to be expected. They want the best for us. They love us and their questions are only fair. I am less fond of being pressed, innocently, by people I don’t know as well and even less so by doctors. 

Last month, I had an appointment with a gynaecology consultant to discuss some new painful symptoms with my polycystic ovary syndrome. As it had done in other appointments, it came up that I was in a stable five-year relationship and the doctor breathed an almost visible sigh of relief. I was quickly warned not to put off having children indefinitely. There it was again: time. “You’re still very young,” she had told me, “but don’t take too long to come and see us when you try and conceive.” 

A few days ago, I was in a cafe when a mother sat at the table next to me, a wedding ring on her left hand and two small children in tow. My gaze kept being drawn to her, mentally trying her life on for size. I want it to fit, but it just feels a little big at the moment. But I’ll grow into it. I know I have time.

On our fifth anniversary, I asked my boyfriend a question that was more suitable for a job interview than a romantic weekend away: what would we like the next five years to look like? And we knew. What does it matter if others don’t?