If you thought Sophie Monk was going to be a closed book after finishing filming on The Bachelorette (you didn’t really think that, did you?), you’d be wrong.
“I told him I want a baby and to get married,” she told Kyle and Jackie O’s KISS FM radio show about the man she’s ended up with on the reality show. “He’s on the same page. I told him within five minutes of meeting him. Things got deep very quickly.”
Aw, bless. These words caused The Daily Mail to run with the headline The Bachelorette’s Monk Confirms A Child Is On The Way and many breathless digital column inches spent speculating on the contents of Monk’s uterus.
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The Baby Bubble
Top Comments
As a 37yo and recently a first-time mother after meeting my fiance at 34 almost 35, I'd suggest perhaps Sophie hasn't changed her mind, but changed her conversation.
Maybe she's being more open and direct about wanting this because often, it starts out with a quiet, internal private feeling that grows, but your conversation with others is quite discreet or casual about motherhood. You're still processing. Then, as you are probably starting to form a plan (be it dating more, seeing doctors, getting tests, looking into donors or whatever) you find you admit it your wanting a child/children to trusted friends - the ones who have kids - and family. Then, the feeling is more pressing, and it grows from there until you're much more candid about it in general.
I think it's something that tends to happen being single into the mid 30s and beyond. If you have an earlier opportunity to be a mother, you probably have not been through this process, where you don't know if or how your baby will happen. Until you conceive or meet your baby, it can become nearly all-consuming. but it can be a good thing, a shove.
You just don't know what else is at play for the individual, too. I had shitty AMH & AFC results that were a helpful kick to push certain decisions along faster, which was scary then - but necessarily scary, and things have worked out beautifully.
There is an incredible amount of judgement when you're a long-term singleton into your mid-30s. People think they can say all sorts of things to you, even people you hardly know. A lot of assumptions are made that you're not interested in a partner or kids, that you're career-obsessed.
"There is an incredible amount of judgement when you're a long-term singleton into your mid-30s. People think they can say all sorts of things to you, even people you hardly know. A lot of assumptions are made that you're not interested in a partner or kids, that you're career-obsessed."
This. Totally this.
Even supposedly feminist articles always seem to have a conciliatory tone to them - invariably they have a line like "some women choose not to have children or have a partner, and THAT'S OK". I mean, thanks for your approval and patronising assurance, but I didn't ask for your opinion or validation, actually.
Please stop assuming women who choose to remain child free do so in preference to being a "career girl". Some of us just don't want to breed, period. It has nothing to do with our jobs.