I’ll by no means be a grandmother as a result of, like so many younger girls, my twin daughters don’t desire youngsters – Gen Z are robbing mid-life moms like me of our future

A mother-of-two has revealed how she’s endured sleepless nights over the agonising realisation she will never become a grandmother.  

Thanks to the record low birth rate, Linda Aitchison is just one of many women in the UK mourning a future she always assumed she’d have, after her twin daughters told her their ‘believe in their hearts’ they cannot afford to have their own families, despite their successful careers. 

The cost of living, lack of affordable housing and fears about the environment are prompting young couples to choose a child-free future, but their decision is having a knock-on impact on their own parents – who will now never experience the unburdened joy of having grandchildren. 

Linda, 56, says she ‘lost sleep’ when her charity campaigner daughter Emily, 26, first hinted that motherhood was not a path she wanted to take. Then Emily’s twin sister Melissa, a communications manager, confessed she felt the same way, and Linda was bereft. 

She found herself mourning a future she always assumed she’d have, after her daughters told her their ‘believe in their hearts’ they cannot afford to have their own families, despite their successful careers and long-term relationships. 

Linda, who lives in Wolverhampton, told FEMAIL: ‘It did keep me awake at night and I did worry about it.  

‘You think you know what’s coming. You know it’s an idea and if you’re like me, you’re hoping being a grandparent is going to happen. Then suddenly you find out it’s not and it takes the rug from under your feet. 

‘It totally redefines what your life is going to look like. I’m very grateful for the family I have and my priority is their health and happiness but there’s a hole in my future that I’m not going to be that.

‘It was a shock to be honest. It was visceral shock and it did hit me quite hard straight away. I did find myself thinking about it very deeply.’ 

In October this year, official statistics recorded Britain’s lowest birth rate ever. 

England and Wales recorded an average of 1.44 children per women of childbearing age as of 2023, according to the ONS. 

The collapse of the fertility rate observed in the ONS report is part of a wider trend that has been observed since 2010, and more broadly since the 60s.

By age group, the decline has been sharpest in women in their 20s. England and Wales only recorded 591,072 live births in 2023, the lowest number since 1977.

Linda’s daughter Emily says she can’t see a reason to bring a child into the world – and while her mother completely respects that decision, she said she still can’t stop herself hoping both daughters will change their minds. 

But they have insisted they cannot entertain the thought becoming parents – citing everything from the soaring costs of childcare to the state of the planet, what with climate change, wars and nuclear threats. 

They’re also concerned about raising children in an era of social media and smartphones.

‘They feel having a family would be increasingly financially draining and believe in their hearts they just can’t afford it,’ Linda explained. ‘They’re already all too aware of a cost of living crisis and fear for spiralling costs as they grow older.

‘They’ve always been more environmentally conscious than I ever was, and they have a greater understanding of how having children can be expensive for our planet and its finite resources.’ 

However, it came as a surprise to the mother of two, who confessed she ‘absolutely’ thought she was set to be a grandmother. 

Both her daughters are in long-term relationships – Melissa has been with her boyfriend Dan since sixth form, while Emily met her partner Chris at university.  

And when Linda would ask Melissa what she wanted to be when she grew up as a little girl, she would always respond with, ‘a mummy’. 

She said: ‘We’re a very close family, we’re a very loving family who spend a lot of time together, going on holiday, going for meals and going out for walks. 

‘I just sort of assumed that was the way it was going to go, that was the way the future would be, that in time they would have their own children. 

‘They’re both very kind, caring young women, and I just thought that’s what would happen.

‘I think women of that generation, the generation after me are much more clued up and vocal about what they want.’ 

‘I know how much I’ve loved having children and they’re the absolute light and love of my life.

‘I know the joy that it brings and it brings a million times more joy than however good your job is or however much you’re being paid.’ 

As as director of an editorial agency, Linda, like her daughters, is very career driven. 

But her own decision to have children was easy – and the best one she’s ever made. 

Now, Linda is surrounded by friends who are all delighted after welcoming grandchildren of their own. 

While she’s happy for them, the new territory has come with a painful feeling of jealousy as she knows she will never be in that position. 

She said: ‘It’s not like I’ve been like this all my life but it’s a normal outlook and I’m surrounded by people where it is happening. 

‘I would never be miserable around them and I keep those thoughts to myself. I’m just surrounded by people with grandkids and telling me how lovely they are. It’s just not something I can relate to and I always thought I would.’

She continued: ‘I’ve got a close friend who’s got a little grandson and they take him for days out and the little grandson comes and stays with them overnight. 

‘It’s like the old joke you always say, after you’ve been a mum, you’d rather be a grandmother because you can “give them back” and there’s this joke about how much the grandma will absolutely spoil the kids. 

‘They know that’s what I’d be like. We have so many laughs about what my mum was like with them when they were little and lots of happy memories.

‘It’s just I can see that lovely relationship and I know I’m looking at it with rose-tinted glasses. I look back and think how happy we all were when they were tiny and when they had two sets of grandparents.’

Though Linda feels that everyone else around her has fulfilled their dream of becoming grandparents, she is certainly not alone – and in fact is part of a growing group of women coming to terms with a life they never thought they’d be living.  

Professor Melinda Mills, an expert in demography and population health at the University of Oxford, previously said: ‘People are actively postponing or forgoing children due to issues related to difficulties in finding a partner, housing, economic uncertainty, remaining longer in education and particularly women entering and staying in the labour force.’ 

Last week, the New York Times published a series of interviews titled ‘The Unspoken Grief Of Never Becoming A Grandparent’ – featuring parents who will never know the joy of hearing little footsteps once again, and never having grandchildren to spoil with treats. 

‘I don’t have young children anymore, and now I’m not going to have grandchildren,’ Lydia Birk, 56, told the paper. ‘So that part of my life is just over.’

In the US too, just over half of adults over the age of 50 had at least one grandchild in 2021, down from nearly 60 per cent in 2014. 

And though many cite reasons such as focusing on their careers, concerns about global warming and rising costs of living – many simply just don’t want children.  

People wrote on Twitter: ‘Bro we can’t afford houses, much less entire new humans.’

But others said: ‘I know it first-hand and it is profoundly sad’.

Another added:  ‘I can’t even imagine. Very sad. I am so grateful for our kids and hope we are grandparents someday, God willing.’

One commenter said that it’s up to Gen Z to ‘break this cycle’, and Linda agrees. 

‘There is no reason why we shouldn’t always think about the rest of the family and the knock-on effect. It’s the end of a family line,’ she said.  

Part of Linda’s hopes were inspired by her own mother, Cynthia, 80, who was always so close with her girls when they were growing up.  

Though the family are are incredibly tight-knit, they never discuss the ‘elephant in the room’ – and Linda says she has now come to terms with Emily and Melissa’s choices.  

She said: ‘I have absolutely come to terms with it more and I count my blessings that they can be so honest with me and that they’re happy and healthy.

‘I totally respect their decision and I would never ever pressure them. It would just be ridiculous and they’re their own people. It’s just been hard for me to adjust because I know personally what they’re missing out on.’

Linda has her own speculations behind her daughters’ decisions – believing it is underpinned by a tragic truth.

Her girls were just 13 when their father Neil died from cancer in May 2012 – and Linda herself was only 44. 

‘I think part of it is that because they lost their dad when they were 13, they wouldn’t want to have children and for them to go through the grief we all experienced,’ Linda confessed. 

She added: ‘I already grieved for a future when my husband died young. So in a way you’re also grieving for the future of not having grandkids. 

‘People say it’s ridiculous: how can you grieve for someone you’ve never seen, who’s never been in existence?

‘But it is a true factor and I should know because I’m already grieving for someone else and it adds to it. I thought I had my life planned out.’