The startling new data revealing the sharply declining fertility rate in the UK taps into the fraught and personal conversations that we’ve been having since turning 30: are we ready to have kids, financially and emotionally? How has everything from increased gender equality and the thriving child free movement to social media and the pandemic skip affected our reasoning? We try to answer all these questions and more in this two-part series on the societal and cultural issues shaping how we think about parenthood in modern Britain.

Next week we will discuss: male infertility, IVF & egg freezing, the child free movement, the taboo of the ‘unnatural’ mother, how pop culture has influenced our idea of parenthood, plus loads more listener DMs. If you don’t feel like your experience has been represented in, shoot us a DM or email us at hello@straightuppodcast.co.uk as this is very much just a conversation starter! We’d love to keep the conversation going.

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