What AOC's public egg freezing journey reveals about the cost of fertility.

0:01U.S. Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has recently been freezing her eggs and documenting the entire process on her social media account to her 6 million plus followers. It got us thinking about the economics of egg freezing and indeed the economics of becoming a parent. How much do you need to become a parent? How much do you need to freeze your eggs? How much do you need to store your eggs? We're going to be talking about surrogacy and the business model that is in some parts of the world. We will cover all this and more in today's episode. Hi and welcome to The Curve Weekly where we read the finance news so that you don't have to.

0:34I'm Sophie Hallwright, ex-TV radio producer who was very sick and tired of not understanding money, the economy or how to grow my wealth. So we started this podcast. And I'm Emily Swinton, writer, newly published author and broadcaster focused on engendering the conversations we're taught not to have. Big disclaimer on this one, we know that these topics can be really sensitive to a lot of people so please take care while listening. And also we apologize, there is a fair amount of swearing in this episode. But first, here's a quick word from today's sponsor.

1:11Strong returns in one year, I mean, you could say luck, but strong returns over 10 years, that's a track record. Find out more about Generate's 10-year track record and see their disclosures in the show notes. Remember, though, track record does not guarantee future returns. Emma, when I was thinking about what we should start talking about at the beginning of this episode, I was like, maybe we should spear you from the in the red and the green this week. I don't know whether to be flattered or patronised. Well, I was just thinking lots of our audience don't know that much about who you are. And obviously, we had you on the podcast years ago.

1:52but maybe we could talk about something to do with your finances and a less are you sticking to your budget that is obviously non-existent right now do you have any examples of your relationship with money or times where you were like yeah maybe didn't deal with that very well that may be an insight into who you are for those who haven't listened to interviews maybe rather than doing like a financial chicken yeah we could just love that would you yeah i literally had this conversation with my mom yesterday about a financial choice that was made for me but with me which i think set a very key theme within the kind of foundations of my relationship to money at age 15 i felt really bad i always make i feel so bad about this but it is also like insane and listen no shade to my parents my parents are fabulous my mom is they are just the most wonderful parents on the planet.

2:48I love them so dearly. My mum is incredible. She doesn't know why she did this. She is like, we spoke about this in the car yesterday and she was like, what the hell was I thinking? I was like, what the hell were you thinking, Adrienne? I don't know. Oh my God. When I was 15 years old, I was in a Nivea advert. So I was a model for a few years. I was a very unsuccessful model. Let me just say that. I was an unsuccessful model. I don't know. I could see that for you. Well, it didn't happen. You can't. You can't look into the imagined future, Sophie. I am the future. I am 34 now. And I was 15 then.

3:23So I was a model with select model. It was like the dream. I went to an all girls school. We were like, oh my God, we want to be models. It was like so bad. It was lame. It was just kind of baked into culture. So I got scared to be a model and I was a crap model because I hated doing test shoots. I found it so boring. Like as a model, you just like sat there and painted. I just found it so dull. But I like the prospect of earning loads of money. So at 15, I was put up to do an advert for Nivea for the skincare product it was like a spot cream so like wasn't that glam but I got flown to Germany and did this advert and I got paid 10k in total so my and that was with the agency fees taken off also at 15 000 pounds and so much money sorry it's like you're a millionaire overnight so can you imagine and actually oh my god in a future episode can we work this out if my parents had said put this in a high compound yield whatever it may be account and let it grow at 34 can you imagine how much i'd have in this account right now my lifetime savings instead my mom took me to the bank to like i think it was like we got a check so i like cash this check or something i then got a debit card that this money account was attached to because it was in a fucking current account it was oh my yeah this is so wild so bad so i think i honestly think by the time i went to university i have three grand of it left which i spent on clothes honestly it pains me to this day but also you could have paid for university you could have i suppose that they gave it to you i genuinely don't think they thought about i think like my dad is really good at business he's been like for a journalist particularly uh he was kind of still in the like heyday of like golden era of journalism so he had like the last of a good run but he's good with business he's good with money he's made some really good investments over his career and just never thought to pass that in to me so i think that gives you some context why i relationship to money so good at attracting it but not strategic in terms of what i did with that so never learned that core skill okay so so i really want to get into the discussion that we're about to have today because it is so juicy but before we do i actually just want to throw the traditional question to you red or green after a weekend at edinburgh fringe festival okay so for anyone that doesn't know edinburgh fringe festival is how would you even describe it it's a month of comedians plays all sorts of performers creativity yeah they all gather in edinburgh it is it's such a gathering i can't believe how many people there were.

5:54It's wild, isn't it? The city just, I mean, I've only been there for the fringe, but it just comes. I mean, I went to 10 shows across two and a half days and I didn't want to go to the same venue just to give you a context for how enormous it is. It's crazy. Anyway, it was so fun. It was one of my birthday presents. So I didn't actually book any of the shows. So she's a baller on a budget again. Other people are paying your way. Is this what we're teaching watching the car, girl. It is really off-brand. Oh my God. Do you know what? Two people came up to me at the front saying they listened to the podcast.

6:28And it was funny because I'd come out of one, one show, which was quite seriously the most bizarre thing I've ever seen. It was these four people dressed as monks and they were, they didn't talk for an hour. And it was, it wasn't cool, weird. It was weird, weird, but came out of it quite bamboozled by the whole situation. And someone was like, I listened to the podcast and she was from Edinburgh. And I was like, This is so cool. But no, it was a really fun weekend. I wouldn't have been able to go if it wasn't a present, but so fun.

7:00Now, today's conversation is one that we've been wanting to have for a while. So we recorded an episode, which you may or may not have listened to, to Botox or not to Botox. And one of the things that you mentioned was the two biggest questions in your 30s that you're kind of struggling to figure out what way you want to go is do you want to be a mom and do you want to get botox do you want to freeze your face do you want to be a mother do you want to get botox those are two things that help me that it's true though same and i've given into one as we all probably know by now the second is still lingering and so we wanted to talk about the fact that less people are having babies what does this mean financially for the individual for economies what is the business opportunity how much money is being made in the space and there is so much to unpack.

7:48But the main reason we wanted to talk about this, Emma, do you want to introduce what is the most topical, kind of amazing story that's come out last week? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the very well-known politician in the US, has recently been going through egg freezing and showcasing the whole process to her audience online, which I think we just need to take a minute to acknowledge what an incredible thing that is to do. Has any lawmaker ever been so open? One about their fertility journey, as it were, and also just being so open and vulnerable in showcasing the process. And she's literally going online every day and saying, today, I feel so bloated today.

8:28You know, the hormone injections are affecting me like this. This is what you have to do. And this, this level of transparency that she has given to the process itself, I think is remarkable. And it raises so many really important points around women and power and careers and timelines and fertility and motherhood. I think she's one of the most recognizable US politicians and potentially gearing up for a 2028 run for presidency. She hasn't confirmed it. She's never been shy about how huge her political ambitions are and quite rightly so she's a brilliant politician and the fact that she is doing this very publicly and I guess feels kind of part of that conversation because realistically if you're gearing up for the biggest political campaign potentially and I mean it's 2028 it's gonna be a massive election anyway so she's gearing up for something big regardless of what role she ends up campaigning for you know the motherhood question of course is gonna be pretty front and center do you have time in that in that period to go and to meet someone find someone get pregnant have baby and then to start no and i think there was i was reading a piece in the new york times about it which was just so fascinated by her relationship i'm not annoyed i'm annoyed so she when she first um was elected she had a partner kind of a long-term boyfriend who she'd met at college they very quietly broke up two years ago we say quietly does she owe the world a public announcement about her relationship status?

9:59No, I don't think so. But nonetheless, this article is kind of focusing a lot on the fact that she is now single. She's broken up from this partner. You know, what does that mean for her candidacy? What does that mean for kind of future kind of family building, etc, etc? But again, it highlights an issue that so many women in their 30s are facing today, particularly as dating is in a perennial state of supposed crisis and more and people are staying single for longer, the fertility question becomes more heavy and kind of seemingly, at least from a societal perspective, urgent. So I have been obsessively watching Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, AOC, document her egg freezing journey.

10:41And I just thought it gives a kind of really topical and important, I guess, push for us having this conversation, having it right now. I don't know if you looked at the comments on some of the articles, but they are outrageous. Oh my gosh, no. What were people saying? There was this podcaster and author who is very, you know, in quotes, pro-life. Sorry, it's not pro-life. It's anti-choice. These motherfuckers saying they're pro-life. Where are you when a woman has the baby she didn't want and couldn't afford, when she can't afford to put that kid through school, when she can't afford healthcare for that child?

11:18Where are you? They are not pro-life. They are anti-choice and it's a hill upon which I will die. Yeah. No, I so agree. I'm like, so, this is the issue that I will go to my brain. And I think, I mean, this quote, like one of the things she said was, you know, glamorizing the lie that woman can have it all, you can't. Biology is real. And how you order your life makes or breaks your future. And I was like, ooh. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I'm saying. Fuck off. But the amount of men that commented on it and women is insane. And what do you think it was a very negative? Yeah, I was just saying it's your fault.

11:51You've left it late. Like you shouldn't be doing your egg freezing. It's your own choice for like not having kids sooner. You've chosen your career over it, blah, blah, blah. Can I just say, Sophie, when you say that to me, I have a visceral reaction of anger and hatred. This is where I think my body rages. How some fucking keyboard warriors are saying that, what have you achieved? What have you done? Like everyone is on a different trajectory in their life and is making different choices and everyone's timeline is different. Also, you have no idea why someone has made a choice around kids or not having kids and where they're at in that journey.

12:25So how anyone can sit at their laptop also chatting to one of the most successful, whether you agree with her politics or not, is irrelevant. She is one of the most successful and prominent US politicians and she's so young. What came up for me and what I think we should talk about is the idea of the affordability of egg freezing because, you know, while we look at her and think, amazing, which it is it's so cool that she's being open about it because up until now I mean I imagine there's people that have had the ex-fros and have to go and hide in the bathroom to do their injections and pretend that they're fine and it's a huge emotional and physical toll yeah I think talking about the financial element's really important because for a lot of women they think of this as you know a form of insurance to give themselves time to extend their fertility window but it is incredibly expensive and it's a luxury a lot of people don't have and it's not that successful like it's i think this idea i think that the kind of the terminology used around it like it's an insurance policy i don't think gives the full picture oh no i agree in terms of how many people actually go back to use the eggs the success rate with which people are then able to have a child with those frozen eggs that's not to say it's not a wonderful route for some people There's an interesting study, UCLA Health Study.

13:39They basically found between 2014 and 2021, only 6 % of people who froze their eggs and had used them for IVF within seven years. 6%. 6 %? Yeah. That's really... And that's because a lot of people get pregnant on their own. Yes, exactly. So then in that case, you think, well, great. And, you know, if for you, it was a kind of mental insurance that allowed you to feel freer in your dating life, it allowed you to kind of take the pressure off, then obviously that's a great thing. But I mean, even in an interview in 2020, AOC said, you know, I'm thinking like, you know, what do I want to do next?

14:09Do I have to freeze my eggs? Can I afford that? And I thought that was like someone in public office who's thinking about the affordability of egg freezing as a potential barrier to them doing it. I was like, I mean. I mean, it has been for me. I've thought about getting my eggs frozen since I was about 26. Really? Yeah, because I always knew I wanted to prioritize. I mean, I think maybe I always thought I would meet someone later in life. But I also knew I really would love to be a mother. And so I've been really aware of it. Honestly, I called an air freezing clinic when I was 26, 27 to see how much it was.

14:43And at the time, it was still 10 ,000 Australian. So I was like, I actually just can't afford to do that. And for me, I think it has been hugely a financial reason why I haven't done it. And have you explored it recently? Because I thought you were looking into it. Well, actually, I'd love to play the trailer from our Hurtility conversation. We spoke to the founder of Hurtility, which is actually started by, there's three of them. founders but we interviewed Deirdre for the podcast and it was really interesting hearing her perspective on the financial implications and also the decision to freeze your eggs a lot of us are thinking about as this insurance policy but actually firstly if you don't know what your fertility status is you may not even need to you know we're so everyone's getting so scared about this timeline that women are freezing them quite young and actually it's a lot of money it puts your body through a lot and you may not necessarily need it so I might just play a little snippet of that now.

15:35So I saw an interesting stat this morning that if every woman who was on wait lists to see a gynecologist in the UK stood shoulder to shoulder that it would span 191 miles. One in three women has a severe gynecological condition like one in three it's huge. When we started out people were there's this fear-mongering. Do you know what's really scary? Not knowing? No. When you're devoid of any options, the really scary part is when they go, sorry, there's really nothing left that we can do. That's scary. It's this unspoken truth that you have to do this sort of calculation in your mind as to how long you've got to either meet someone, settle down, procreate, you know, do all the things that you used to think you'd have done by the time you were 25.

16:20I personally, since I was about 26, have felt incredibly scared about my biological clock. but feels like it's just ticking in the back of my head at all times. I want to hear your interpretation on egg freezing. What are your thoughts on this as an industry? I think mine are actually a little bit controversial. Can I ask Sophie at the back about, sorry, did you get your fertility tested? Yeah, so I did a fertility test after that interview. How much does that cost? It's 300 pounds. Oh, that feels like really... Which is so reasonable. And what do you learn there? You basically, they test nine of your hormones and then you have a, it's all on an app.

16:54It's like really beautiful digital experience. And then you have a call with a nurse afterwards who can like run you through all of the different, what do the hormones mean? How do they relate to your fertility? And for me, it was just so much peace of mind. No, cool. I'm fine. I had two hormones that were down that were out of normal range, but she was so not worried about it. And just having that conversation made me think, oh, why would I then go and spend 7 ,000 pounds on getting my eggs frozen and putting my body through that if I actually technically don't need it right now? so I'll do another test in six months time and see you know if there's any major changes and if there are maybe I'd make different decisions but it does just give you back the power I think to have visibility on on what's going on whereas what I think a lot of women think is okay well I'll get my insurance policy but you're right a lot of people don't end up using them um and you need like 10 to 15 eggs to have I think a 50 chance even you know this is like quite low so Lots of people, if they want that sort of guaranteed feeling of it is an insurance policy, you need a lot of eggs and probably several harvests to go in and do it.

17:58I mean, Vicks had it done and she really had so much clarity and pressure taken off her. And she was really grateful that she did it. Wow. And it was a really positive experience for her. But, yeah, I think everyone's different. And I know a lot of people that just do it even if they don't know if they want to be a mum because they just want to have the option. Yeah. Which I think if you have the money and you have the time and you feel, I mean, I think it's amazing that people can have options now. But it's just, I think for it to be sort of spoken about as if it's the answer, it's not necessarily.

18:34I've never had my fertility tested. And I've thought about it a lot. But I've had quite a few friends who've had their fertility tested and then been told, shit, it's really bad. Like, it's not looking good. You'll probably not be able to get pregnant. you'll probably need IVF like real kind of really unfiltered very uncaring delivery of quite a shocking message and then they've gone they've gone left the doctors been like oh my god had sex unprotected their partner and got pregnant immediately and then had children like you know children that they adore but like probably a bit earlier than they would have otherwise wanted and that's happened a couple times with people I know so I got so put off and I was like I don't want to i think particularly i was pretty much single for like eight years single and dating and in that time i can remember a friend telling me like you definitely should get your fertility test you just want that power to know and i was like what will i do with that information i can't afford to get my eggs for that time and what am i gonna do it's gonna make me feel so panicked when i'm dating if if i find out there's an issue there is nothing i can do that is not information i can use now whereas now in a relationship and we've been to that for two years and obviously we talk about not obviously but we do talk about kids often and you know what that would look like and what that timeline is and both of us are building our respective careers in really exciting and incredible ways at the moment and kids are not things that we want to think about in the foreseeable and now I'm at the point when okay now I'm in this relationship which you know I love and will be together I hope for a very long time now I feel like okay I could get I want to get my facility tested probably because just so we have that information together because now I could act on it now i could be like okay we need to speed this up so just can you fast track your business to make millions and i fast track my book writing my next three books and get huge but there's just a little bit of like urgency it might create but i think that it is it's such a loaded topic and it's one for which women are so continually judged and it's so obviously it's so fraught for anyone who's gone through any sort of fertility issues obviously my you know so much i have so much empathy and quite few friends have gone through issues of fertility and it's devastating and I think part of that is because we as women are brought up being told your kind of your value your purpose your worth in life is your destiny is to be a mother and actually that's just not true for a lot of us like you know I think I want kids now but it you know it does change but I think because we've been so conditioned to believe that we are meant to be mothers it comes with this huge societal pressure and so it feels so loaded and so every decision is both a kind of societal shame laden one and then of course a financial one which comes with its own shame i felt shame i couldn't afford to get my eggs frozen i was like oh it's so pathetic like i can't even fucking afford this thing that would allow me to present and so i think there's so much untangling that we as women have to do to even be able to grapple with the motherhood question in an unloaded, shame-free way.

21:26Also, you couple that with the idea that if you, like we were told at 16, if you look at a boy, you're going to get pregnant. You spend your whole adolescence trying not to get pregnant and try not to get an STI. And then suddenly it's like, well, still try not to get an STI, but trying to get pregnant like all of a sudden. I think it's probably worth looking at the numbers because we actually did a survey to our community about a year ago and most of the people who gave us their details, thank you so much everyone who did, were mid to late 30s. The average for our survey and what we did, the average person that got them frozen was at 33.

22:01But actually the more holistic average is 35 to 37, which is so annoying when you look at some of the comments that were coming through for AOC. There's so many people saying, you know, you're too old to get your eggs frozen. It's like, actually, no. And one of the doctors in this Guardian article, they quoted saying 36 is a ridiculous age should be saying oh egg freezing will never work from a success rate standpoint egg freezing tends to be the most effective age at 35 or younger but you don't fall off the fertility cliff when you turn 35 i would welcome any woman who wanted to freeze their eggs at 36 which is better than 37 and better than 38 which is better than 39 and so forth so like i just thought how amazing that there's actual doctors with legitimate scientific backed answers that can try and diffuse the fear that obviously everyone feels like they've left it too late.

22:49But for us within the curve community, the average was 33. And in terms of the amount that people are paying, it's between 10 and 15 ,000 New Zealand, around 7 ,000 in the UK. And this is only for one round. And what is one? So what is one round? So one round is basically for one period, you get your injections, you get, you hopefully... So one harvesting? Yeah, one harvesting. So it's like one cycle. And for some people, you can get 20 eggs or more, and some people get one or two or none. And so the thing that's really hard and quite heartbreaking is that people save up to spend for a round of eggs and then may not get what they need.

23:26And the percentages drop in terms of how successful or how likely you are to get a live birth from it, which is why one round often is not enough. But yeah, the price is not cheap. And so for people, for me, I was just totally locked out of this conversation. And I actually had a friend offer to pay for my ex to be frozen, which I thought was like the kindest thing ever. And I had my dad offered to pay for it. But I just felt like, yeah, I don't know. I didn't go through it. I haven't gone through it yet. Is it still something you're thinking about? No. I think after the conversation we had with Deirdre from Fertility, I think that if I found that my fertility was in a position where I needed to have kids sooner, I probably would do that.

24:04rather than put my, not only my bank account, but my body in a position where I would, I think something she said really hit home for me where she was like, you know, it's going to be hard either way. There's also never really a right time, which I think is true. And if I could get pregnant naturally, I would probably speed that up rather than, I think for me, and I haven't fully decided on that yet, but I also, yeah, I just think I'm probably not going to get them, yeah get it done on the age piece i do think you know the idea that we think oh it's too old to freeze your eggs at 36 that's probably the time in which you're most able to afford it like i know the idea that the best time to freeze your eggs in your 20s i'm like well good luck to everything great if you've managed to like do a career where you make a ton of money in your 20s like amazing but if you don't have that if you've pursued anything and like media creative industries like you're probably not like making enough or you know and you're not having it sponsored by company if you work for like a journalist platform or something and i think so there's so much again that's attached to it because the age bracket in which you're most likely to be able to actually pay for it is one that's then societally deemed and shamed as being too old i think before we move on from egg freezing let's just chat about the industry as a whole because it's huge it's massive so global egg freezing the market is approximately 4.5 billion in the u.s that was of 2023.

25:214.5 billion. And that was a few years ago. It's projected to be 9 billion by 2030. And also it's worth keeping in mind, there's one in eight couples having trouble getting pregnant or sustaining pregnancy. So this is also not just people pushing out getting pregnant later. It's also people that from whatever age struggle to get pregnant or have a pregnancy, go to full term. And this is obviously a huge generational shift that we're seeing globally. Yes, lots of people are choosing either to be child free and not have kids. Lots of people either can't get pregnant for fertility reasons, but there's so many different elements that come into less babies being born.

26:01And I think that it's really unfair to look at this whole conversation without, I mean, yes, there's a huge business behind this, right? Like there's a lot of people making a lot of money out of women's fertility, but also think about the fact that if you can't get pregnant naturally, how amazing that there's a way that you could try. I think that it's easy to look at this and think it's exploitative for women to try and be making money out of our most fearful time. But I think it is also incredible that there is opportunity to explore other routes to giving birth. But yeah, it's an enormous industry with so much money being made and this is only going to increase.

26:40So one thing I've always wondered when it comes to egg freezing is how much, okay, we know that it costs, You've said about 7K in the UK as an example of how much costs to actually go through the process. But then you have to pay to keep the eggs frozen. How much does that cost? And like honestly, what a genius business model. Like it's a subscription, right? It is a subscription model. You've got to get a subscription to have your eggs on ice. I just remember doing the numbers for this myself and looking at the upfront cost and then the ongoing cost. Because it's something you have to think about and have in your budget for you don't even know how long.

27:13It's different in different parts of the world, but like annual storage in the US is anywhere from 500 to 1 ,000 a year, which is not nothing. Honestly, it's not nothing. I mean, it's... Also, especially if you've already paid like thousands for the first process, like holistically. Some packages you get, you know, two years storage included if you do your eggs with them. Like there's a lot of stuff like that. But on average, storage in the UK is actually a lot cheaper from like 150 pounds a year to 350 pounds a year. In New Zealand, it's similar. It's about 400 to 800. But really, there's such varying amounts on storage and on IVF cycles because you go with different clinics.

27:52In the UK, I remember I looked at the London Women's Clinic as a really private, small clinic that I was considering going to. And they were a lot more expensive than other clinics that have chains across the whole of the UK. Because obviously, their costs are brought down the more patients that come through. So it just depends on what you're wanting to prioritize. like I felt like I would be quite stressed about spending that much money and I didn't want to be in an environment that felt like the sausage factory so I wanted to go to a clinic where they prioritize calm in the waiting room and you know really help you with the holistic side of keeping your stress levels low throughout the experience like I mean but that was just for me and also it was just way too expensive so I didn't do any of it um but I think that that's sort of the issue with the egg freezing piece is that there's there's the upfront amount yeah there's testing first if you want to do that then there's the upfront amount then there's ongoing storage costs and then there's IVF which by the way is super expensive well depends where you are well yeah because in the UK because I was looking into actually doing the research for this I did begin to think does this make me want to get my eggs frozen more just by virtue of like delving into all these pieces and and hearing other women's experience of it and the answer kind of was no I didn't it didn't make me well just because I don't know I think there's so so much like fear-mongering that is being I mean the marketing campaigns for egg freezing feel quite fear-mongering and the fact that egg freezing and kind of fertility issues are really or fertility services are really targeted women even though I think it's somewhere like half of infertility issues are caused by men and we just never have a conversation about male fertility so there just feels like there's always this pressure on on women I did momentarily look into getting my eggs frozen for free but then you have to give half them away so there's this kind of egg donation scheme in the UK.

29:36I looked at that too. Isn't it just, it's so weird to think about because on the one hand, I think it's amazing for people who can't get access. You know, like what's the difference in donating your eggs to donating blood? You know, I think quite a lot. Massive difference. I know, but my point is that it's like people, you know, make those decisions because they're selfless and they're helping someone else, whether it's donating an organ, whether it's, you know, it's, it's quite amazing if someone has no way of having a natural birth and someone is willing to donate their eggs it's incredible but then when I started thinking about it myself I was like god I don't know I feel really split on this and I just it wasn't enough for me to do it for free so I do love getting free things um but I think I would struggle to give my eggs away if I hadn't already had kids yeah if I do have kids one day and you know I have happy and healthy kids great um then I think I would then I would then I would be very happy to get then I'd be like cool like as you know if i have x number of kids what i want then i'm like someone else take all of them because spread the joy also like i'm great like imagine no that's so elon musk you know that whole thing like it's just trying to break you know there's like psycho men who are just trying to populate the world with themselves i'm not that weirdo but i do think there's something so you know it's also something it's like not really talked about i don't know how many people are giving their eggs away but you know that specific like fertility issues are rising as people leaving having kids later, as we've touched on, there is obviously going to be a need for eggs.

31:05So I think it is a wonderful thing to be able to do. I was also looking just very briefly at the IVF situation in the UK. If you do leave it later and then you do come across some fertility issues and it's harder to have a child than you anticipate. In the UK, you can actually get three cycles of IVF for free. So on the National Health Service, if you are under 42. Once you're 42, and I think this is so cruel you get one go at it once you're 42 yeah oh my god feels young and then you have to be able to show in order to get those three free cycles or the one free cycle you have to show you've been trying so off birth control and like actively trying for kids for two years how do you even prove that well i guess you just if you haven't been on birth control for like i guess that's how they would measure it but suddenly when i when i read about that i sense sunny looked at my timeline and i was like okay so how late can i leave it if i want to give myself a good shot at being able to try to have kids and like naturally and then be able to rely on free cycles of IVF from the NHS.

32:05So I was like, OK, I could if I start thinking about trying to have kids at 37, 37, 38, then I have two years to try. Then I have two years to get my three free cycles with the NHS. So actually, then you can once you do know the numbers, which I guess this is literally why you do the podcast called The Curve. You can begin to kind of plan backwards a bit, be like, okay, realistically, I do want to be able to be in that window. So suddenly I have a bit of a timeline. I was like, okay, cool. We've got four years now between 34 and 38 in which I can become this like superstar writer who just makes so much money on their books and TV shows that then I'm catapulted into extreme wealth and therefore can have my child up to 38.

32:52What do you think? I was about I just think the thing that worries me is that so many of us are making these decisions based on finances. You know, like you're a necessity, though. I know. And that's I think that's what this whole conversation really is about is for me not getting my eggs frozen is financial. You planning your timeline is so that you can fall into the bracket. If for some reason your books aren't international bestsellers, which would never happen. Never. But you're making these decisions based on like what help can you get financially. Imagine if the government changed the rules.

33:26I know. And then you couldn't get access to three rounds of IVF. What if they changed it and it was one? That's so true. You know, it's like you're relying on things that you can't control. So true. For such an enormous decision that you want to make. Yeah, that's true. Because your bank account is dictating what you can and can't do. And I think that is the real sad part of this is that there's lots of women who are choosing not to have kids and be child free, which is totally great and that's their decision and they you know being child free is a totally separate conversation but there's a lot of people that do want to be mothers but that also want to prioritize their career yeah can't afford to get their eggs frozen and we talked about the only fans episode if you haven't listened obviously listen it was fascinating and we talked about jessie cave who is an actress she was catapulted to fame through harry potter and she's doing only fans now because she cannot afford the child care that would she would need to have to be able to do a quote unquote normal job she also you know there's issues around that kind of fame and wanting to do another degree she can't afford the other degree she also can't afford the child care associated with that the cost of child care i mean particularly in the uk i think we have the second highest child care in europe i i don't quite want that but i we haven't was so comparatively expensive when it comes to child care it is a financial decision and i know you have to be it's not just finances and people always say you know you make it work like you know people have had kids for time immemorial it's not just about the numbers but I'm like living in an incredibly expensive city which by the way one kind of needs to do if you want to work in a job that is like in media or anything that I mean all the big jobs tend to be in these major cities child care there tends to be so expensive prohibitively expensive you know I've got quite a lot of friends currently who are genuinely forced to weigh up do i keep my job in which case i basically will earn nothing because everything i earn is cancelled out by the cost of child care and you know obviously they they split things their partners but that's kind of just how they're like looking at the numbers or do i actually just kind of take a pause in my career i do the child care i get to spend these years with my child but then how difficult is it to me to get back into my career and it is it's hard.

35:35So I just think the fact that, you know, obviously there should be a joint conversation between both parents, but also like it's just the financial reality of the situation that we live in, the cities that we live in where we're not prioritizing, you know, making childcare affordable, you know, giving people the best start to be able to become parents regardless of what, where they sit at the socioeconomic bracket. I guess if you look at the idea that you have to pay to become a mother, if you can't get pregnant naturally, it's also, it's not just paying for the child. It's not the idea of your job being cancelled out by childcare.

36:07It's then you're so stretched financially that you can't do anything outside of the home generally because all of your money goes on rent and childcare. So I think for a lot of women that want to prioritise their career as well as have a family, the ticket and the price is just so high, not just to even have a baby, but then to be able to have a career and kids. And so of course, one of the parents generally ends up needing to spend more time because they can't afford to outsource things and then you get into the yeah and then you get into the conversation I mean I this is like an anecdote this is not necessarily like based on big stats but I have quite a few friends that are moving to parts of the world where child care is cheaper because they can't afford to stay in cities yeah where child care is so expensive and so it becomes a like the relocation question is it's either both or one of us has to sacrifice our career to also be able to be a parent.

37:03Neither of us want to resent each other. So let's move somewhere where we can afford it. That's wild. The conversation 20 years ago was so, so different. And obviously there's, you know, very different gender dynamics now when it comes to giving birth and having kids, but it's harder than ever for people to leave a career. And we all know the impact financially long term so also that with that point i mean i think anecdotally i similarly have friends who are leaving the city leaving and you know leaving the uk but there was actually a big paper done recently and the bbc reported on this that there's a big exodus of people leaving major cities to go to just cheaper areas because the cost of child care but you think if you're making that decision you're then potentially moving away from friends your community your family so that also comes with the cost you know what I think is a sort of like is one kind of unspoken strand of this conversation I don't know if you felt this as well or if anyone listening has also grappled with this in a kind of like weird complex kind of guilt-ridden way but I feel because I'm 34 now and I'm surrounded by friends having kids I have recently started to feel this really like ramping up of pressure to if I'm not having kids right now so if I'm making the decision that me and my partner don't on kids right now we're focusing on our careers I feel this added pressure to be really fucking successful right now I feel the same if I'm not having kids because I'm doing because I want to focus on my career well I better be making that career fly otherwise what am I doing and I've really had it recently when a couple of very close friends um got pregnant and obviously I'm so happy for them and you know my joy for them is is kind of not part of it but on a personal level I did to have this reckoning of being like well you know I don't want that right now that's not the decision I want to make I'm happy decisions I'm making but oh my god what if I don't achieve the levels of success that I want in the period in which I've decided to focus on the career over having a family what does that mean for me like who am I then because you know I'm being a career woman and then I suddenly felt so guilty because I'm then almost falling into and perpetuating the very rigid binary stereotype that a woman has to be either a career woman or a mother which in itself is so reductive and so restrictive and you know so inherited from patriarchy but i really feel it and then i suddenly feel this like self-consciousness like can i justify this decision right now if it is something i do want and what happens if i don't get rich and successful enough.

39:37Do you get that? Yeah, I really do. And I think what I also feel is selfish, which is not how I should feel. You know, I've also spoken to my boyfriend a lot about this. And we've sort of said things like, imagine if we put off the idea of having kids, because we couldn't afford it financially, because it wasn't the right time or for whatever reason. Because for us, it's like, I love the idea of having as much time in my career as possible. But I also don't want to fall into this fear that as soon as I decide to, if I can have kids, it then means my career is down the toilet and I'm not earning money.

40:11I can't help but feel that pressure because also you hear all these mums talk about, you know, your priorities change and, you know, you think about things differently and you don't prioritize your career as much. And I know if that was what I was choosing to do and how I felt, I would be really proud of that because that is how I've evolved as a person but I really don't want to lose how much I love my career so I feel that and then I also feel like if I look at the things I want to do right now in the next three years it's things like I want to spend more time with my boyfriend just us two I want to go on lovely holidays I want to do things that we can't do when you have kids so again it's like well I a flashy car but will I then look back and be like oh I prioritize you know it's yeah so I feel all of those things and more and I hate that it feels like this selfish decision which is really not but it also we also have every right to make those decisions if that's what we want and it's not selfish and people that choose to be child free are not selfish no but it's so ingrained but isn't it interesting because I just think it just goes to show we are both like sitting here with like you know the stats at our fingertips both I'd say hardcore feminists you know thinking from a feminist lens, from a women's empowerment lens.

41:22And still we feel at a visceral level, the guilt, the shame, all the stuff that patriarchy hands to us around motherhood and the choices that women make. And I'm sorry, there are not men sitting around on podcasts having this conversation around their guilt around parenthood. They're just not. At a body level, I feel all these things and I feel the shame and I feel like, God, am I doing the right thing? that perennial question that kind of I think it's hung over me hangs over all of us that our whole lives what does it mean to live a good life and what does it mean for me to live a good life like what should I be doing I have to kind of pull myself away from this this shame piece and be like okay no these are choices that you do get to make and that you you know feminists have you know we stand on the shoulders of giants of women who came before us who fought for us to have the right to make these choices and to prioritize as on our terms as opposed to in accordance to a timeline set for us by a society set up for by and with men's interest at heart okay i think we should move on to a topic that really piqued my interest when you mentioned it to me the other day which is surrogacy which feels like a kind of curveball to this conversation although obviously it's so related yes this is a big conversation we will get to that after the break but first we've just got a quick word from today's sponsor.

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43:18I would love us to touch on a topic that you have made me get obsessed with over the past few days as we've been preparing for this. Yeah. Which was not really front of mind for me at all. But it's surrogacy because you keep sending me all these articles about surrogacy. I was at Fringe and I was like sending. Okay, so for context, I got on the train, Cameron Diaz. there's a photo of her in the hospital with her third child having a baby at 53. And I was looking at all the comments and I was looking through the post. I thought, oh, this is just amazing. What great timing. Perfect for our podcast.

43:49And then what I didn't realize, and I only knew because it wasn't in the headline and it wasn't in the story, is that people were commenting this is the third time she's used surrogacy. So what appears to have, she looks like she's given birth naturally because the photo is her in a hospital room. She's in a hospital gown as well. Yeah, but it was birth via surrogacy. And so I went down a total rabbit hole and didn't realize that this was, you know, it's obviously used for various different reasons, depending on the couple. But there are agencies, like there's one called Delivering Dreams based in Ukraine, where women are earning 18 ,000 average USD a year for carrying kids.

44:27and then they're given bonuses if they're having twins. And, you know, it's a whole – there is a whole industry of people paying for surrogacy that I just kind of didn't even really knew existed. I feel like I, like, notionally knew about it because you see these – like, Meghan Trainor recently used a surrogate and was really lambasted online. And it's really important how she talks about it. She was like, I knew – she's had two kids naturally herself and then used a surrogate for her third. And she was like, I was so scared of what the public would say because I knew they would accuse me of like essentially like outsourcing the labor of labor to another body and like there's so much nuance to that and there's so and she was so scared of the like court of public opinion um and her husband was like let them say what they like and she ended up she released a picture of her the new baby because she was like I the hospital they were like basically her PR was like the hospital could basically leak this so you either take control of the story which is a whole conversation about like celebrities and privacy but I thought it was so I kind of I'd read the discourse around that and her and like the questions that I'd raised she said it was for health reasons which is completely obviously like legitimate and why a lot of people do resort to surrogacy or utilize a surrogate but what I didn't realize so notionally it was floating there but what I didn't realize until you inundated me with I know I took so many screenshots of people's comments and stuff it was so fascinating but what I didn't realize was how much of a booming industry is and how much it's growing because you told me a stat before It's crazy.

45:53It is growing exponentially and it's set to grow even more in the next couple of years. Yeah. So this was the part that I, because I was just looking into it and I started reading a Times article and then I went down a total rabbit hole and realized this industry globally is expected to grow 10 times by 2032 to 129 billion. Wow. There is, yeah, it's really interesting because there's parts of the world where you can pay, like commercially pay someone to carry your baby. there's parts of the world where you can do it as a i can never say this like altruistic yes like in the uk you can't pay for someone to be surrogate but you can someone can do it altruistically so you can pay for their costs things like doctors yeah and their accommodation yeah but it's you're not giving them a fee like being on a salary whereas there are places like ukraine where women are choosing this as a career path and i was looking at this website it's called it's actually crazy I was like listening I was actually looking at a bunch of testimonials from women who have been surrogates and it's the agency is called Delivering Dreams and it's in Ukraine and yeah there was just this all these stories around women who have been paid to carry children you know it's hard to apply if someone has to have given birth naturally before there's lots of criteria so you kind of just assume that it's easier to do than it is it's actually not there's like a lot hot involved.

47:18But this article was particularly interesting because it was around when the Russia-Ukraine war was kicking off. And as a part of their contracts, a lot of these women were being relocated to different parts of Ukraine, being away from their families. And the head of this agency, Delivering Dreams, was having to make the decision of, do we cross these women into Poland, where if they gave birth to those kids in Poland, the surrogates are the legal mothers. Whereas if they stay in Ukraine, you know, a lot of the people and the couples that were paying for it were based in the U.S. And they were paying for it through these Ukraine agencies because it's cheaper than in the U.S.

47:55It's like sometimes$150 ,000 to$200 ,000 for someone to carry a baby. Whereas in Ukraine, it's a lot cheaper. So, but there's all these like this. And you know that thing. I was going to say, I sent you a story the other day that just keeps popping off my feed. If it's a woman, a surrogate in America, who the couple who is paying for the surrogate, asked for her to terminate the pregnancy because the child was found to have a medical issue something to do with their heart I think and she refused on religious grounds to get the abortion I just can't and she's been kind of funded by this Christian organization now and she's basically refused to have the termination is now I think has given birth or is giving birth to the child which then has to go through a lot of medical procedures which the biological couple have to pay for but the woman now wants to fight the custody of the child and is being financially backed by this christian organization so be it is wild this there's obviously a lot of stuff here right like you know these women are signing contracts especially if it's a commercial arrangement yeah which in america it would be yeah where it's almost like their body is no longer theirs and so a lot of the women who have gone to do it i mean a lot of it is financial reasons There was one woman in this particular article who she basically was earning four times the amount that she was earning as a school teacher by becoming a surrogate.

49:16So the things that she would have been able to pay for for her family, obviously, completely would have changed her life. There's so many different women that this article followed. I actually might link it in the podcast show notes if you want to read it because it's really fascinating. I want to go back and read this. You know what I also found really interesting about this topic area was how this obviously also cuts across the clampdown on LGBTQA plus rights. Because in Italy, for example, you know, there's a right wing government. They have absolutely banned surrogacy. So they declared it a universal crime.

49:50And the law makes it an offence for Italians to have surrogate babies abroad, even in countries where it is legal to do so. And it's punishable by up to two years in jail and a fine of up to one million euros. And this is obviously, you know, means for a couple that for a gay couple, how for two men having a child, this basically precludes them from being able to do that. So they can know all they can do is adopt. So again, it becomes a policy that forwards a particularly hardline, I guess kind of right-wing agenda. But it's not something I would ever have thought of, I guess it's not like firsthand, as being a kind of part of that conversation.

50:29Would you get a surrogate? Oh, it's so, I was so, before I read this article, the one that I was talking about in the Times, I was having a conversation with my boyfriend about it on the weekend because I, it's, God, I feel so weird talking about this. The only reason that I started questioning it, and I was playing devil's advocate with him to see what his response would be. When I was reading the comments in this article, someone commented saying, what is the difference in women being universal carriers? The men don't have to carry a baby. They become fathers because they use women to carry the baby to give birth.

51:07And I thought, that's such an interesting point. In the weekend, well, I messaged Emma saying, God, I mean, like, I understand the idea of these. And I also need to be careful what I say with this, because as you mentioned, Megan Trainor, for example, coming out and she said that that was for health reasons. We will never know why people are using surrogates, whether it's for health reasons, whether it's because they don't want their own body to go through. It might be for work reasons. There's so many things, right? And that's private and that will probably never, ever, ever be public. the stories we're seeing about surrogacy generally are famous people because it's not becoming you know someone's not going to do a an article on sally down the road who's decided she's a surrogate so a lot of the conversation then comes back to people assuming that women are outsourcing the idea of carrying a baby because they don't want to do it and the wealth divide of people who can afford to do that is then preying on people who can't afford to live or look after their own families so they're using their bodies to go and and I in the weekend before I read this times article I thought I kind of understand why people are doing it I'm terrified of the idea of being pregnant also it made me question I was actually asking and speaking to a doctor about it in the weekend saying what are the ongoing health impacts of someone carrying a child does it impact their life expectancy expectancy does it change their their personality their health all of that like what what is it is it just in the nine months or 10 months that you're pregnant or is it ongoing and because for me that is quite a part of the conversation if someone is negatively impacting someone's health in a long-term capacity I think that's where I wouldn't feel comfortable because there's some woman on this on this website who are saying they love being pregnant they love being pregnant my mom had both me and my sister she was like it was the best thing ever I loved it i'd do it again and i'm like really i'm like you just don't remember the pain and she's like emma you weren't there i was i loved it so i think for some people so that's the thing some people love being pregnant but a lot of people but a lot of people don't and they're the ones that often are i also think it just a conversation that we definitely have another day but just around the the we too seldom discuss just how big a deal it is for women to be pregnant like the health like how women women feel during that period the impact it has on people's health You know, I've got friends who in their first trimester, they are throwing up every single day.

53:35They are feeling terrible. But it's kind of like the under-discussed thing. Like women are just supposed to just like crack on. You know, you post the sonogram pictures and then suddenly like, oh my God, baby's born. In between that is, you know, can be huge amounts of sickness. You know, damage to your own health. A potentially huge operation if you have a C-section. Or, you know, there's loads of complications that potentially happen with vaginal births. So I just think we just don't have a loud enough conversation as a society about the actual like health ramifications of pregnancy. I mean, add on to that, that I think more than 60 percent of maternity wards in the UK are deemed unsatisfactory.

54:09We just don't care about women's health, particularly pregnant women's health. So I think this is part of a bigger conversation that we as a society really need to be having. And that's why I always think those people in the comments who are making any sort of judgment about a woman's choice with regards to her fertility journey, if she chooses to do that. You have no idea what someone's going through personally. And I think as a society, we need to get much better at helping women at all stages, helping couples, helping people at all stages of that journey. A lot of people feel as though asking somebody else to carry a child simply because you're trying to outsource something that you don't want to do is wrong.

54:49That's what most people in the comments were saying. I can see. Which I completely understand. No, same, same, same. But then what is the difference? You go to places, you know, we spoke about going to different parts of the world where childcare is cheaper and you're outsourcing childcare, you're outsourcing cooking, cleaning, all the other things you don't want to do. It always turns to fall on women. That is, you know, say you're paying 600 pounds a month for someone to live in at your house who has left their family on the other side of the world because it's a better opportunity for them to earn.

55:17They have to leave their kids with their, often with grandparents. parents they then grow up like their kids growing up without them they've had to make this choice to be in-house help that's damaging in ways you know but but they're they're choosing to it's like how far do you thread it back like even if you think about someone that is like a painter as a job and you're inhaling fumes and that negatively impacts your health or you're a hairdresser or you're a cleaner like there's so many different careers that you're a laborer like you are actively using your body. And it's not necessarily helping or having positive health.

55:52So I guess my thing is surrogacy has been so demonized and a lot of people are throwing judgment on these people that are choosing to pay to have that outsourced. But what is the difference in outsourcing other things that you don't want to do that other people have to put their body on the line for? I mean, I just think it's... I think it always tends to go back to one thing. It's women doing it. And therefore, society loads in with judgment. I really think that actually I didn't think this before and now I think it having this conversation it's so steeped in misogyny because I think we feel as a society in a patriarchal world that we live in that we have the right to continually judge women's choices no matter what they do particularly as they pertain to motherhood and bodies what we do with our body think of the stigma that has existed around sex work for so long we know historically I think there's been a disproportionate number of women working in the sex work industry over men again highly stigmatized what women choose to do with their bodies is always has always been such a source of scrutiny and i think actually yeah having this conversation i'm like surrogacy feels like it kind of is another piece in that puzzle because imagine if men had to give birth they would have found a way to outsource it i'm sorry but like if your penis split in two when you give birth it's true like They'd be outsourcing that shit from day one.

57:11So like, and I, God, I think I personally wouldn't do it because I know how much people would judge for it. They would. It doesn't matter what reason you did it. But I just, I think there's, it's really fascinating to me that there is a lot of money being made in this space. And I think that it's going to become more normal. I think that what we're seeing in the same way that, you know, plastic surgery has now trickled down to being way more common. But it's been done for so long. I think that we're seeing a lot of celebrities use surrogates. And I would say in 10 years time that it's going to be a more normalized industry that people use, not just.

57:50Well, I guess it's part of like the kind of underlying thread of this conversation is that people generally, you know, across society are leaving it later to have children compared to what we did historically. And I guess with that comes the potential of it being harder to then have children naturally. And so all these other routes, like from IVF, egg freezing, IVF, surrogacy, all these other kind of the fertility industry, the child rearing, not child rearing, what is it? The baby industry is, of course, going to continue to grow because the demand for it, presumably, the technology is growing, one, but also the demand is going to go up.

58:33There was a report done by Tommies, which is the UK's largest pregnancy and baby charity. And they released a paper suggesting, widely consumed popular media downplays the impact of age on fertility and glamorizes pregnancy at advanced ages with rare or no mention of ART donor which is eggs like donor eggs or sperm or related health risks now it really pissed me off reading that because I actually think it's wonderful that we're getting better particularly the media is getting better at celebrating motherhood and like you know Sienna Miller's just had a baby her third baby I think she's like 42 Ed Hathaway At 44, yeah, Sianna Miller's at 44.

59:08She had her pregnant with her third baby. She had her second baby at 42. I think it's a positive thing that the media is celebrating rather than critiquing these women. I mean, seeing all these women having kids older is amazing. It's amazing. Especially because if I was to be able to have kids older, I would be able to afford the kind of life I would want as a mother. And I think that, for me, seeing all these women doing that is really exciting and it makes me feel full of hope that I don't have to prioritize or deprioritize one for the other. Ideally, like the dream would be that I can still have a career I love and thrive in while also being a parent.

59:44But I know for a fact that now I wouldn't be able to do that. And I think that that comes with having money and being able to afford help or outsourcing. And yeah, I wouldn't have that right now. Totally. And I completely agree. For me, I feel so validating seeing really successful, powerful women having choosing motherhood later in life i guess what the report highlighted and what i guess is a frustrating reality is that what we don't talk about as much as the route it took to get well this is what i was about to say is that a lot of these people have a lot of money to be able to throw at their fertility extension from a timeline perspective access to the best doctors access to yeah a surrogacy if that is kind of the route someone takes it once again becomes money question so yes we may be seeing more celebs having children later in life but they also have the means to be able to pursue all routes to achieving that and i guess that's a i found it very jarring to read an article that highlighted that because i was like no i don't want to i don't want to engage with that but i also do understand that is quite a valid point and again it's kind of often comes back to being a money question as we begin to close the conversation I do think it's also worth us just acknowledging that in the background of this conversation is a discussion that feels like so prominent for like everyone now and that is just the crisis in dating that is meant that one of the big reasons that people are leaving it later to have kids yes it's career and it's all the things we've spoken about it's also just because dating feels like it's in an absolute tailspin and so people aren't meeting we know that you know relationship people aren't in relationships as frequently people aren't meeting someone with whom they actually want to have children um and if they are they're meeting them later so i think there's also that there are lots of things that are within your control up to a certain point in terms of your kind of finances your financial know-how the choices you make whether you get fertility tests there's lots of things that we've talked about that are kind of within your control meeting someone with whom you want to have children with feels so difficult because that's not within your control you can go on 101 dates and still not meet someone that you really like and want to be with and that I find a really difficult part of this conversation because for anyone's listening who's like I cannot I want this I want all these things I wanted it for quite quite years and pets can't afford it and I can afford it exactly they have all the things that we've spoken about but what they can't find is a partner that then they want to do it in a partner obviously you can do it solo but the way they prefer to do it be in a partnership that you know what do you do then because that's you know and that's an issue facing some people say i mean the atlantic the atlantic staff writer faith hill is just the best writer on dating and she has called this like the great romance slump it kind of defines this era of this like dearth of romance the kind of crisis in dating so i think it's worth touching on that i mean there was research recently by pew research center which found that roughly four in ten adults ages between 25 to 54 that's 38 % were unpartnered that is neither married nor living with a partner and this share is up sharply from 29 % in 1990 so we've seen a notable growth in the number of people who are unpartnered at you know at that kind of age that we historically people would be looking to have children so like this is a massive factor in the in the conversation and I think yeah because there's choosing to have kids, there's wanting them and not being able to meet someone, there's meeting the right person and not being able to afford it.

1:03:21There's so many different reasons why less babies are being born. And so much of this conversation is put on, oh, like woman and choosing to have kids later. It's like, there's a lot that is out of our control too. And whether or not someone is choosing to or not choosing to, when you meet the right person is huge. And I've seen, and this again is like anecdotally, I've seen a lot of people who are kind of comfortable with the idea that if they have kids, they're either happy to have them by themselves. They're happy to have them with someone, even if they might be 80 % sure of that person, they're choosing to have a kid with them because they want that.

1:04:02And they're not putting so much pressure on the relationship piece because they want to prioritize having a kid. I have people that are the total opposite who, unless they found the absolute perfect person, won't consider having kids. There's so many different factors that play into it. But you know what really undergirds it? Money. Because I think to have, you know, I've got to similarly have friends who are considering, do I do it solo? And it often comes back to be a money question. Can I afford to? Can I afford mortgage or rent solo and with a child and with you know can i afford to take the time off work can i would i get matly like can i afford the child care if i'm paying out of one pocket can i for all the costs can i afford to take them on as an individual rather than having it shared across across two people you know for many for some people that is possible amazing but again for others it's a money question that then might be kind of precluding them from being able to do that on their own 100 i mean i can't i could not imagine being able to afford to do i mean not not even to think about like emotionally i think single people that raise kids by themselves are superheroes superhuman like superheroes it's incredible and i in a society that does not support people being parents like we have to remember that like that is also the backdrop to this conversation alongside the the perils of dating is that we don't live in a society that is actively supporting parenthood generally and motherhood specifically.

1:05:29But then back to the dating piece. Yes, say you don't meet somebody by 39, 40 and you really want a kid. That's the kind of thing you're also having to think about now in terms of saving up and investing towards fertility treatments potentially. How big is a saving spot we're supposed to be? Well, that's what I mean. And I think that's what is happening is that a lot of people, because they want to prioritize being a mom or a parent. And I think that what then they're doing is having to put on hold, putting money towards anything else. So it'll be really like, yeah, I mean, it is. It's so much of it comes back to finances.

1:06:06And I think they need so much more support because if you want to see more women giving birth, you're going to need to find ways to support them financially. I know. We can't keep talking about falling birth rates in the press. Some people, it's not a decision. Well, if some world leaders are talking about adults, I'm like, it's a policy. I think there's a lot of factors. There's social, there's economic, cultural, there's a lot of things playing into it. But if I was in government, if I was leader of a country thinking we really need to address birth rates, one of the first things I would do is like, how do we incentivize people to have children?

1:06:43we give more child care we don't punish people for having children we make our hospitals what we put way more money into supporting maternity units also comes back to education doesn't it because we should be having these conversations from like a youngish age of like how do you set yourself up financially for the future that you want and what does that look like in terms of your savings if you want to be parents i mean maybe if you're if at 20 years old someone said like do you want to save for parenthood i've been like but it should be part of like it should be similar to a pension or retirement savings.

1:07:13Imagine if you just had to and it was like the employer paid into it and so did you and men and women did it. And maybe it's like if you choose not to have kids, you get that money put directly into retirement. Or if you don't want to have kids, you can just opt out of it. But it's also an option if you do. I just think if it was helped from an earlier age and both... Just to get you thinking about it. But both the individual and the employer was putting money. Because also there's just so much pressure on businesses, small businesses. You know, like you want to employ women and like of course you want women in the workplace if you're a two or three person business and all three people go on maternity leave the business crumbles because you can't afford to pay you know it's like there's so many issues it's not just the personal and I wonder if there was some kind of a system where people were encouraged to put money aside and invest invested or invested and that went towards child care went towards like paying for things yeah I don't know I just I think that yeah you're right it's you get to 30 and all of a sudden you're hit with all of the biggest big ticket items whether it's buying a house getting married having kids retire all the things bloody come at one time and we've started to look at the retirement piece but i there's so much more that could be done to help us all put ourselves in a position to because there is if we're still banging on about investing in money you know 10 years on and people haven't heard of it there's you know we're still speaking to a microcosm of society like if there was something that was led by countries and it was just like no one I don't know maybe maybe it would be there would be less financial barriers for people giving birth and and wanting to be parents because it was something that was thought about not as an afterthought or not in the couple of years where you're considering it you know what what we've once again end the episode on fucking policy I knew so last week I was horrified when I listened back to our OnlyFans episode which was great it was so juicy but i was so horrified retrospectively that i would round up a really interesting conversation being like you know what we need something what you need better regulation the government needs to step in legitimate point i definitely stand by that but like was that the funnest thing to end on but i'm also just like here we are again and here we are again like and you're ending our chat being like no okay i've got a better one i've got an idea i was thinking about this what how amazing would it be if you could we could bring back communal living bring back putting all the babies with one nanny yeah bring back the idea of like you know there needs to be innovative business ideas where there's like maybe you you rent a house and a and within that apartment block whatever there's a creche that everyone can take their baby to in the morning then there'll be so many mothers listening being like i don't want to take my baby to a creche wait why because lots of people want to what they want to look after but i guess my point is we need to think wait let's start a business you know we need to be more innovative it's been a long-time proponent of communal living and i am so with that i think if i could pay for reen and also child care in the same breath and how good i genuinely there's a co-working space i think i saw something about it a while ago there's one in new york thick yeah there was open that was there was part co-working part child care amazing beautiful yes you have such an obvious demand like next business yeah let's do it on the side little hustle on the side i genuinely have thought at the point in which if i become a mother i'd do it i can't do anything half measures i'll go all in you best believe i'll be starting campaigns like some businesses to do yeah there'll be a whole podcast that's always why i call i can't do enter into that chat too soon because it'll be so consuming but at that point yeah because it's such an obvious such a gap in the market and there's also like money needs to be spent on that let's create the solution okay that's a business plan yeah okay so we've got a new business plan and maybe if anyone's listening who's looking for a business idea you could you know begin you true pitch it maybe if anyone's got any good ideas let's do it okay that's a way more that's a way more that's a funner yeah to end on so let's end on that yeah Sophie I loved this this was a bit daunting and scary but I ultimately feel hopeful me too I still about our business as I was gonna say I still feel like I still can't afford to be a mother but but with our communal living business yeah and I will too but also I just wanted to say this is a huge conversation with so many different pieces to it and we've got a lot of people in our community who are mothers who've chosen not to be mothers who maybe want to be one day if you have any thoughts on what we've spoken about and you would like to leave a voice note it would be really cool to hear from you so we'll link the hotline in the show notes I feel like yeah if you feel comfortable writing something publicly wherever you're listening we would love to read a bunch of comments but also if you wanted to leave a voice note it would be really cool to hear people's thoughts on this episode because there's a lot to it yeah same okay so leave us some voice notes that'd be fun alright Sophie have a great week everyone bye bye everyone next week thank you so much for listening to The Curve Weekly make sure you hit subscribe or follow wherever you're listening so you're always up to date with the latest finance and investing news and feel free to leave a comment to let us know what you thought about this episode because we would love your feedback we've got new curve weekly episodes for you to listen to every monday but until then listen to a raising the curve these are our in-depth podcast episodes where we chat about all things money we're also around all week on socials if you're hungry for more curve content and all the links are in this podcast show notes we hope you have a great week and we'll catch you for the next episode of the curve weekly on monday

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