Speaker 1: I want to talk about Mitch and Laura, something that
Speaker 1: is very personal to me and something that is very
Speaker 1: hard for me to articulate. I always have trouble trying
Speaker 1: to find the right words and the right ideas to
Speaker 1: get across when it surrounds fertility and having children.
Speaker 2: I'm thirty seven.
Speaker 1: Years old and I have been on quite the fertility
Speaker 1: journey with freezing eggs, trying to freeze embryos and been unsuccessful,
Speaker 1: trying to freeze embryos again and getting just a few,
Speaker 1: which you know, is not ideal, but it's better than none.
Speaker 1: And I constantly have this battle in my head of
Speaker 1: do I want kids or not?
Speaker 2: Is that a decision I really want to make? Can
Speaker 2: I have kids or not?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: Do I want to risk trying and falling pregnant and
Speaker 1: having one and then it's not what I wanted? Do
Speaker 1: I not want them because I don't think I can
Speaker 1: have them. I can't work out which came first, the
Speaker 1: chicken or the egg when it comes to being able
Speaker 1: to have kids or wanting them, and I think I've
Speaker 1: mixed those up a lot in my head.
Speaker 2: I saw some statistics that have.
Speaker 1: Come out from the Australian Bureau of Statistics that have
Speaker 1: revealed that I definitely am not alone in this feeling.
Speaker 1: So we are now at an all time fertility low.
Speaker 1: So we are now averaging one point five babies per woman.
Speaker 2: Whereas we used to average three point five y five.
Speaker 2: This is Australian Statistics. Australian Statistics twenty twenty four current.
Speaker 2: This is current.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so what we're seeing is this. I mean, they
Speaker 1: obviously went out and ask people why. But one of
Speaker 1: the biggest reasons is the financial dedication that you need
Speaker 1: to make to have a child. The cost of living
Speaker 1: is at an all time high, but inflation is not
Speaker 1: going along with that.
Speaker 2: People are not able to afford to have a child anymore.
Speaker 1: Some people are choosing more selfishly because they want to
Speaker 1: keep traveling or they don't want to give up what
Speaker 1: they see is the privileged life that they live. But
Speaker 1: we're seeing people just physically say I really would love
Speaker 1: to have a child, but my fertility is not great,
Speaker 1: I can't afford IVF or I cannot afford daycare, schooling
Speaker 1: fears a roof over my head.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And I mean I have friends. I have two
Speaker 3: kids myself, but I have so many friends who have children,
Speaker 3: and they have they have decided not to have any more.
Speaker 3: And it's not because they don't want to have a
Speaker 3: bigger family or an extended family. It's because they physically
Speaker 3: can't afford it. I mean day care fees alone, if
Speaker 3: you don't get subsidies from the government or you know,
Speaker 3: you're on a duel income household for one child. When
Speaker 3: my daughter goes to school, it's one hundred and eighty
Speaker 3: five dollars.
Speaker 2: A day per child a day a day per child.
Speaker 2: It's nearly four hundred dollars for two kids. Yeah, day,
Speaker 2: It's crazy.
Speaker 3: And the thing is is that there are so many
Speaker 3: moms out there who would love to go back to
Speaker 3: their careers, who would love to go back to work,
Speaker 3: even if that's part time, but they're not able to
Speaker 3: go back to work because it's cheaper to be a
Speaker 3: stay at home mum than it is to put your
Speaker 3: kids into daycare.
Speaker 2: And like, so the system is broken.
Speaker 3: The system doesn't support mums and it doesn't support having
Speaker 3: these bigger families, and I think so many people feel
Speaker 3: that pressure.
Speaker 4: So britt for you at the moment where it is
Speaker 4: because we've hung out outside of the show and with
Speaker 4: our friends, and it consumes a lot of your thinking.
Speaker 4: We talk about it personally a lot you having kids
Speaker 4: in your fertility journey.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And like I like, even all last night, I
Speaker 1: was in tears all night just because it's all I
Speaker 1: think about it. And every time I go to voice
Speaker 1: it out loud, I get up to that because I
Speaker 1: don't know if I can have children, and then I
Speaker 1: don't know if I do have them, how.
Speaker 2: I can physically do it.
Speaker 1: And I know I'm not alone in that feeling, and
Speaker 1: we do have a biological clock and we do have pressures,
Speaker 1: and I hate that women have to feel this way.
Speaker 1: And like I said, I know I'm not alone in it,
Speaker 1: and I can't. I cannot work it out in my head.
Speaker 1: Like I just like I said before the chicken all
Speaker 1: the egg, I can't work out if I'm questioning it
Speaker 1: because I don't think I can have them. Like I
Speaker 1: said before, I tried to freeze some membryos, you know,
Speaker 1: and we got zero. When I tried to freeze one,
Speaker 1: and I got one that had a disability and wasn't
Speaker 1: viable with life. It's a real challenge and I just
Speaker 1: am having a hard time working it out in my
Speaker 1: head what I want and what's the right thing, and
Speaker 1: do I go down that route?
Speaker 2: It's going to change my whole life.
Speaker 1: And also, now women have the opportunity to have a career,
Speaker 1: and a career is very important to me.
Speaker 2: We never used to have that option.
Speaker 1: So I know there's a lot of women out there
Speaker 1: now that are like, Okay, great, Now I do get
Speaker 1: the choice to go and chase something else that traditionally
Speaker 1: only men could chase. And then do they have to
Speaker 1: make that sacrifice of a family to do so?
Speaker 4: I think we open the lines because you bring up
Speaker 4: a very interesting point of view, and you too, Laura,
Speaker 4: like the finance is involved, and then you say the
Speaker 4: economy and the world and the state of the world,
Speaker 4: and you know, is it ethical to bring kids into
Speaker 4: this world?
Speaker 2: Well, I'd love to know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, people, if you're driving right now, give us a
Speaker 1: call here, because I would love to know if you
Speaker 1: have kids and you don't want any more, or if
Speaker 1: you know that you do not want children, I'd love
Speaker 1: to know the why, because there has to be more
Speaker 1: of a reason that we're seeing this huge dropping fertility
Speaker 1: rates in Australia.
Speaker 2: And I'm really interested in the why, right
Speaker 4: What'll take you cause me next the pickup