Megan* was 24 when she was pressured to have her first child. She was a member of her local Church of England parish church, and her partner was the vicar’s eldest son. Young and in love, they decided to get married so they could consummate their relationship, but Megan was soon being pushed by her now husband and his family to have children. “I felt that it was my duty, and I had no choice,” Megan tells me. “I wasn’t made aware of my obligation to have children straight away. If I had been, I wouldn’t have gotten married.”
Megan had always been on the fence about whether or not she wanted to have children, but she knew that she was not ready to become a mother in her early twenties. “I would have liked to have spent more time enjoying the simplicity of our marriage as a couple, travelling and getting to know each other,” she explains. “I’m not even sure he was, or is, the right partner for me. We get on, but it feels forced – a rushed decision. We’re now more like good friends trapped in a lustless marriage.”
