What an honor it is to be part of this outstanding feature story in The Sunday Times of London, and to be called “America’s ‘baby decision coach!” Thank you for sharing your personal story, Phoebe Luckhurst — it was a pleasure to coach you and your husband Samuel. You can read their story here:
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Should we have kids?
We asked America’s ‘baby decision coach’
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by Phoebe Luckhurst
13 October, 2024
Phoebe Luckhurst and her husband, Samuel, both 34, meet Merle Bombardieri, the 75-year-old therapist who says she can help them make the biggest choice of their lives
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It’s a normal Wednesday afternoon except I’m talking to a stranger on the internet about my biological clock. I am not being particularly eloquent, though Merle Bombardieri seems to be keeping up. After I finally finish stammering about fertility and cliff faces, she summarises kindly: “It’s not as if you’re 29 and you’ve got years to think about it.”
Ouch. Yet it’s true (I’m 34) and this sort of real talk is precisely what I signed up for with my husband, Samuel, also 34 and sitting beside me. Via Zoom from an armchair in her sunlit living room in St Petersburg, Florida, the 75-year-old psychotherapist Bombardieri helps people from all over the world make the most definitive decision of their lives: whether or not to have a child. This afternoon it is our turn in the hot seat.
Bombardieri has been a “baby decision coach” for four decades (she is also a licensed clinical social worker). Her first book, The Baby Decision, was published in 1981 and she is writing another: Baby or Childfree? She works with couples and single clients all over the world — from Scotland to southeast Asia — most of whom want to decide one way or the other in the next six months to a year (a session costs $200 — about £150).
In the first of what is usually between five and eight sessions, she asks people to place themselves on a scale of one to ten according to how keen they are to become a parent. Some couples pose a challenge. “If people are polarised at zero and ten it is going to be much harder to find a solution that would enable them to stay together,” she says. “If you have a zero and a ten, those are the people most likely to break up.”
Fortunately for our year-old marriage and eight-year relationship, Samuel and I are happily united in our indecision (solid fives), which is a feeling I sum up with further panache: “I feel like we’re on the same page, is how I would characterise it. Ummmm. Which is kind of an openness to both sides. And not decided on either.” She nods in understanding.
“My stance is there’s no one right answer,” she says. “The only question to ask is, what makes sense for me? And if it’s a couple, what makes sense for us?”
Bombardieri does encounter a number of recurring themes — uncertainty, fear of parenthood, fear of pregnancy, a fear of sacrificing one’s identity to a squalling infant. Increasingly, couples are citing the environmental impact of having a child. “The environment is a big one,” she says.
Money is also a big one for many people. The economic realities of the past two decades have preserved those in their twenties and thirties in a state of suspended semi-adolescence, in which they reach the “traditional” milestones of adulthood — home ownership, marriage, parenthood — far later. Data from the Office for National Statistics shows that while earnings have doubled in England and Wales since 1997, house prices have increased four and a half times.
The UK [also] has the third-highest childcare costs in the developed world. No wonder birth rates are in freefall: in England and Wales, they are at their lowest rate for two decades. Politicians, demographers and economists predict an apocalypse. “No other generation has had to deal with this,” Bombardieri says.
You can read the rest of the story here.
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Do you need baby decision guidance?
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Do you need expert, unbiased guidance to help you with your childfree vs. baby decision and related questions? You can find details about my online coaching options and events — available to anyone anywhere in the world — on TBD’s Coaching Page. There, you’ll also see how to quickly contact me.
I also invite you to join our private Facebook group called The Decision Café — or on my Instagram page, which often features new article previews and special content.
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– Merle Bombardieri
