But when women are asked when they’re going to have children, there is, in actuality, another, darker, more pertinent question lying underneath it. If you listen very, very carefully — turn off all extraneous sound-sources, and press your finger to your lips, to silence passers-by, — you can hear it.

It’s this: ‘When are you going to fuck it all up by having kids?’

When are you going to blow a four-year chunk, minimum, out of your career — at an age when most people’s attractiveness, creativitiy and ambition is peaking — by having a baby? When are you going to — as is the decent, right and beautiful thing — put all your creativity and power on hold, in order to tend to the helpless, minute-by-minute needs of your newly born? When are you going to stop making films/albums/books/deals? When do the holes start appearing in your CV? When do you get left behind, and forgotten? CAN WE GET POPCORN AND WATCH?