WHEN the glam brigade fall in love these days how do they prove their undying devotion to each other. A diamond ring? No: it's a nice notion but no 1990s person could seriously still believe that diamonds are forever. A marriage cert? No again: the length of time between pre nuptial agreements and post nuptial disagreements seems to get shorter all the time.
In today's world - or the world of Hello! anyway - the only way for a couple to show they're truly, madly and deeply committed these days is to conceive - post haste. The bump has become the modern form of betrothal. The thing is the bump has a funny habit of becoming a human being - a human being that you'll be responsible for for a long time to come.
Writer Cynthia Heimel says the first thing you should ask yourself when you're considering having a baby is "Am I A Trendy Moron?"
"Many of us are," she explains, "it's nothing to be ashamed of. Babies are hot right now. You know how you sometimes suddenly want a miniskirt, even with those knees of yours? Make sure your motherhood motivation isn't similar to this." For fatherhood apply the same credo.
Maybe there is no ideal reason to reproduce - but below are ten reasons to at least look before you leap.
1. YOUR FAMILY KEEPS EYEING YOUR ABDOMEN. It's not just the Pope who thinks marriage is for procreation. Once you've been married a couple of years, relatives start asking each other "how come no offspring?" Before you can say "sensitive subject", they've decided to press on.
Would be grandparents are the worst offenders. "At your age, I was on my fourth ..."; "Mary's daughter in law has had another beautiful boy ..."; etc., etc. You know it's crazy but it starts to get to you. After all, you start to point out to your reflection in the mirror, you're not getting any younger. You begin to wonder is there ever a "right" time?
2. ALL YOUR FRIENDS ARE DOING IT. Aside from encouraging mumbles of "your turn next" from family, friends who become pregnant can stir things up too. They get weeks off work, during which they're allowed, even encouraged, to pamper themselves. Everybody fusses over them. They wind up drinking champagne in bed surrounded by flowers. And they keep glowing at you.
Afterwards, they don't want to go out any more. When you call over to see them all they want to talk about is what little Jessica eat/said/did next. It's scary. And a bit lonely too. You begin to notice how many social activities are organised around children - family holidays, Christmas, you name it. And you find yourself thinking, if you can't beat them...
3. CONTRACEPTION IS SUCH A DRAG. Nausea, loss of libido, mood swings, blood clots (The pill); excuse me's to the bathroom and yeast infections (the diaphragm); period pain and uterine infections (the IUD); Lord knows, contraception is far from perfect.
When he doesn't like condoms and she's fed up with shoving hormones down her throat, it's easy to take a chance. In the heat of a passionate moment, especially, it's hard to imagine that babies have anything to do with it. But they do, they do. One minute you re saying "what the hell", the next there's a red faced infant by the bed, screaming for milk.
If it's not what you want, you don't take chances, right? Right.
4. THE WORKING WORLD IS LETTING YOU DOWN. Most of the world is divided in two: those who are unemployed, and those who work too long, and too hard, for too little. This is specially true for women, who make up 90 per cent of caterers, clerical workers and those who clean, but less than 10 per cent of company directors, consultant doctors and those who clean up.
When life's a grind, having a baby can sound like a damned attractive proposition - something to give your days meaning or as an escape route from a dead end job. Resist. If the working world is hard going on your own, you 11 find it becomes downright hostile once you have a child. And would any baby want to be born because its parents had nothing better to do?
5. TO TIE YOUR PARTNER DOWN. Remember the scheming vixen who only got pregnant so that her man would "have" to marry her. She's faded into the background a bit - now that he no longer has to. The person who never got talked about, though, was her male equivalent.
This deeply insecure type can't bear to think of his woman out in the working world meeting other men. Get her pregnant, he reasons, and she'll be less likely to run off with somebody else. And besides, if she's at home all day with nothing to do except, mind a baby, she'll have lots of time to do housework. Ergo, he'll never have to vacuum the sitting room again and can get on with"running the world instead.
6. TO MEND A FALTERING RELATIONSHIP. They're called the elastoplast kids - born because feathers are flying in the love nest and someone gets the bright idea that what they need to patch things up is a coochy coo bundle of hope wrapped up in a romper suit. A baby will make him stay home at nights, she thinks. A baby will stop her seeing those stupid friends that put all these crazy thoughts in her head, he reckons. Hah!
Like the celebrity commitment baby, the elastoplast kid has a better than odds on chance of winding up a victim of the insanity of romance.
7. YOU'RE LONELY. There are lots of variations on this one. You want company, someone to love you. Or you're okay now, but worried about the future - your very own son or daughter would be a comfort for your old age, not to mention the grandchildren. Or you've worked like billyo to build up a thriving business but life still feels empty - what you want is an heir/ess, so you finally get to say: "Someday, all this will be yours.
Stop right there.
Having a baby for such reasons turns you into one of those parents who sniffles and sighs: "All I wanted was for you to be happy" or worse I did it all for you." Your child will end up on a psychiatrist's couch. You have been warned.
8. NON-MOTHERS GET SUCH LOUSY PRESS. Scour the world of high art or popular culture and find one, just one, positive image of a non mother to hold against all those smiling Madonnas. From the family wreckers of Fatal Attraction and The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, to the budgie loving Mavis in Coronation Street, non mothers are depicted as saddo spinsters, neurotic career demons or figures of fun.
After a while, it can get to a girl - even if inside she's perfectly happy with life as she's living it.
9. IF YOU DON'T DO IT NOW, YOU NEVER WILL. Men don't have to worry about this one, it's a woman's thing. If nature was a feminist, giving birth would be a doddle, there would be no such thing as a stretch mark, and most of all, women would have an unlimited supply of eggs and the biological clock could keep on ticking until we wanted it to stop.
But nature is no feminist, so when a woman reaches her mid thirties she starts to ask herself questions. Now? Oh no, not now. But, if not now, when? Maybe never? Oh no, not never. But if not never, when?
10. BABIES ARE SOOOO CUTE. Another woman one. You'll know this is you if the only time you feel maternal is in the presence of dinky little lace bootees. This one is simple: buy a doll.