Jacob Rees-Mogg wants us to have more children – but it just doesn’t feel like an option for my generation

If the Conservative MP is actually concerned about the younger generation’s unwillingness to produce offspring, perhaps he and his party should be taking more decisive action to make it financially workable

I turn 33 in a week, and you know what that means: existential dread, with a heaped side-helping of guilt. And maybe some cake, if I’m lucky.

One thought that has stuck in my mind about the number 33 is that it is the age at which Jesus Christ is popularly claimed to have been crucified, martyring himself so that humanity would be able to enter the kingdom of Heaven and sit by the right hand of the Father for all eternity. By contrast, by 33 I plan to have completed Zelda: Breath of the Wild for the third time (but I’m stuck on the desert part, so we’ll have to see).

That’s how it is for millennials like me, while our parents were set up with jobs and careers and... well, us, by the time they hit their thirties. Very much not the case for a significant proportion of my generation. Maybe it’s because we’re unmotivated. Maybe it’s that we’re entitled. Maybe it’s because the economy has been, shall we say, less than optimal since we graduated from secondary school. Now a £21k-a-year job can ask for multiple years of experience, and luck will play a part in you getting it. Who’s to say?

As it turns out, Jacob Rees-Mogg has had his say, as he is wont to do. He has suggested that the younger generation aren’t having enough children. To help compensate for this, Rees-Mogg suggests, the state pension age will need rise to pick up the slack. Not that I will have to worry about retirement, since I’m pretty sure that by the time I reach my twilight years the pension age will have reached the three-figure mark.

As for children, my financial position would be threatened by getting a cat, let alone a child. Others I know of my age have similar concerns, as well as other anxieties, such as the climate crisis.

Rees-Mogg expresses his concerns in a very passive way, telling GB News: “Demographics are very important. The number of working people in relation to the number retired has been decreasing steadily – and we cannot afford the level of pensions we currently have, as we haven’t got enough working people to pay for them.” He says this as if he isn’t a part of the ruling party that has been in power since I turned 20.

Say what you will about Rees-Mogg, but he’s definitely no hypocrite, having had six children himself and expressing a “jolly keen” desire to have even more. However, I do resent the implication that my generation’s refusal to reproduce is somehow a conscious decision.

For those of us in the lower income brackets, which seems to be most of us, we haven’t been afforded the opportunity to indulge in the trappings of adulthood our parents enjoyed. Having kids went out the window the second we found out what a mortgage was, and how much it would cost us. Sorry, Jacob, I was looking forward to having kids, but my landlord doesn’t even allow pets.

Suggesting Rees-Mogg is out of touch is almost a cliche now. Britain isn’t the only country in the world dealing with the problems of a population that’s getting older, but it would be nice to hear how he expects many of my generation to afford caring for children. It’s not like this problem wasn’t visible on the horizon, and the same party has been in government for more than a decade. This is another social phenomenon that is afforded little introspection, and is instead consigned to an easy soundbite.

If Rees-Mogg is actually concerned about the younger generation’s unwillingness to produce offspring, perhaps he and his party should be acting to deal with the conditions that prevent millennials from taking the plunge? After all, they have been the ones creating policy for the last thirteen years.