Last week, Kirstie Allsop sparked a flurry of outrage when she remarked that if she had a daughter, she would urge her to skip going to college and to have a baby instead.
She was quoted as saying that her advice to this imaginary girl would be:
Darling, do you know what? Don't go to university. Start work straight after school, stay at home, save up your deposit – I'll help you, let's get you into a flat. And then we can find you a nice boyfriend and you can have a baby by the time you're 27.
Oh boy. When I got to the “we can find you a nice boyfriend” part I raised an unimpressed eyebrow. Or at least I would have if I could do that. I actually made a face where I think I’m raising one eyebrow but just look mildly confused instead.
Her reasoning was basically that fertility becomes an issue once you depart your twenties and as well-intentioned as she may have been, her comments have rankled more than a few women.
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Teachers in England have dismissed her as patronising and a '50s throwback and while she’s entitled to her opinion, what annoyed me the most was the assumption that all women want to have children.
I think if you're a man of 25 and you're with a woman of 25, and you really love her, then you have a responsibility to say: 'Let's do it now.'
To which I say: feck OFF Kirstie.
As a person who dreads being asked if I want to hold someone’s baby and if given the choice, would rather hang out with a puppy any day of the week, the thought of having children in my fast-disappearing twenties (two weeks left) or even in the near future terrifies me. It’s just not something I have any interest in whatsoever.
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After getting a sizable negative reaction to her comments, she pointed out that she wasn’t questioning anyone’s choices or telling women what they should do, but that it was an option she feels is worth discussing. Which is fair enough, and maybe it would work for some women, but it wouldn’t be for me in the slightest.
So what do you think of Kirstie Allsop’s comments? Does she have a point? And is there too much pressure on women to stop pressing the snooze button on the (ugh) biological clock?
