Julie Jay: Is there ever a good time to have kids?

If we waited for the perfect time to have kids, we’d never have them

Julie Jay: "Sometimes, I ask myself whether my timing for having children is selfish or ill-considered. But then I remember that I didn’t meet their dad until 2018, so my hands were pretty much tied."

Recently, a friend was venting about the spiralling costs of rebuilding her dream home, west of Dingle town. 

As she talked me through their plans and how the amount of bureaucracy required to draw down the derelict-home grant was nothing short of scandalous, I nodded along, like a woman who could somehow empathise with her plight, despite my only experience of renovating a home starting and ending with my love of the show Property Ladder back in the noughties.