Fionnuala Jones on the motherhood question: I am stuck between two desires

Fionnuala Jones at her home in Dublin. Picture: Gareth Chaney

One rainy day in January, I got the worst possible notification you could receive - Caoimhe has added you to the group ‘Ibiza August 2026’.

Now, this should have come as no surprise to me, given that we have been provisionally planning this group holiday for months. However, seeing it committed to a group chat filled me with a sense of dread I’ve been struggling to put my finger on and identify.

I find myself being asked to choose a seat on the bus of life. The left side is debaucherous, filled with people drinking margaritas and planning the next club excursion. The right side? Heaving with mothers, all holding babies at various life stages. Neither side is better or worse than the other, but they are fundamentally different.

Since turning 30 and with our wedding in the rearview mirror, I feel I have joined a colossal race against time. My husband and I would like children, if they’re on the cards for us. But I’ve truly never felt less ready for something in my life. I feel more confident about sitting a Higher Level Maths exam with no calculator.

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I know parents will read this and say, “you’re never truly ready! It just happens and you figure it out!” But it’s not just that. Now that my brain space is no longer taken up by bouquet colours and seating plans, it has reactivated what lay dormant - my singular desire to party.

Famously, I am someone who has never deprived myself of anything in my life. But, as we white-knuckled our way to our wedding savings, some things had to give. I worked hard and played where it made sense.

But, now that the planning is all done and dusted, I have been enjoying being spontaneous, going out midweek and loudly telling people that “Tuesday is the new Saturday” in the smoking area of The George (this is fine, until you wake up with a hangover on a Wednesday while normal adults are trying to work).

The schedule is looser - there are no looming financial deadlines, I’m not conscious of looking and feeling a certain way by a specific date. And yet, this new insatiable thirst for a Great Night Out™ has me feeling self-conscious in a different way.

Fionnuala Jones. Picture: Bríd O'Donovan

I have a conveyor belt of pregnant friends, a new one added to the assembly line with every passing day. I am THRILLED for them, needless to say, but I can’t help but feel each announcement shoving me further under a microscope.

Why should I want to be partying and chasing escapism at this stage of my life? What am I running from? A hypothetical baby crawling over the horizon? Is it all not a bit (pardon the pun) … childish?

Social media pushes two very separate narratives, as it always does. There is no grey area.

Thirty is simultaneously too old to be thinking about kids and too old to be thinking about throwing ass in the club.

Running concurrently are the narratives that becoming a mother is either the greatest thing you will ever do in life, or … a life sentence. Previously, I was thankful to the women on social media for showing me every facet of motherhood - the good, the bad and the ugly. Now, I wish they hadn’t, as it makes my “dilemma” feel so much harder - not to mention juvenile.

Look, I can see the parents picking up their quills to tell me that you do not have to pick one side of the bus. I know life does not end when you have kids. Things will be different and some things will be harder, certainly. But, there will still be room for fun.

Some days, it just feels like there is simply not enough time to adequately fill up a life. I feel choked by my own breath trying to make it to every life milestone, to every work achievement, clinging to every second of fun spent in between.

Inevitably, there will always be a last for everything. This Ibiza trip feels like the last group holiday before life pulls at all of our respective seams. But, maybe that’s the only way you can leave room for firsts - my own and my prospective child’s.

Before that though, I’ll do my best to ignore the Strangers Things-esque clock I hear chiming incessantly so I can dance on a few more table somewhere on an island off the Mediterranean Sea. I’ve got time.