{"id":22724,"date":"2026-01-02T00:31:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T00:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/the-first-of-my-friends-is-having-a-baby-and-it-makes-me-feel-pressured-how-do-i-reframe-this\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T00:31:00","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T00:31:00","slug":"the-first-of-my-friends-is-having-a-baby-and-it-makes-me-feel-pressured-how-do-i-reframe-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/?p=22724","title":{"rendered":"The first of my friends is having a baby and it makes me feel pressured. How do I reframe this?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Big life questions tend to squeeze us at this time of year, writes advice columnist <em><strong>Eleanor Gordon-Smith<\/strong><\/em>, but a baby is a person not a symbol<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p>Read more <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/viewer.gutools.co.uk\/lifeandstyle\/series\/leading-questions\" rel=\"noopener\">Leading questions<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>I\u2019m turning 29 soon and the first of my friends is having a baby in the new year. This news has prompted a lot of self reflection. I\u2019m pretty ambivalent about having a child myself but also feel like it\u2019s the next milestone. I feel a great deal of pressure to decide whether or not to have a child \u2013 but this is largely self-inflicted. Unlike others I don\u2019t have family asking this question.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>I know I have a few years to decide on this (and might not be lucky enough to be able to have a child in the event), so how can I reframe my thinking and be straightforwardly happy for my friend without feeling the pressure to decide what I want to do with the rest of my life?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p> <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/lifeandstyle\/2026\/jan\/02\/the-first-of-my-friends-is-having-a-baby-and-it-makes-me-feel-pressured-how-do-i-reframe-this\" rel=\"noopener\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>\n<strong>Source:<\/strong><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/lifeandstyle\/2026\/jan\/02\/the-first-of-my-friends-is-having-a-baby-and-it-makes-me-feel-pressured-how-do-i-reframe-this\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><br \/>\nRead full article at www.theguardian.com<br \/>\n<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-size:14px; color:#555;\">\n<strong>Medical Disclaimer:<\/strong><br \/>\nThis content is for informational and educational purposes only.<br \/>\nIt does not replace professional medical advice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Big life questions tend to squeeze us at this time of year, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith, but a baby is a person not a symbol Read more Leading questions I\u2019m turning 29 soon and the first of my friends is having a baby in the new year. This news has prompted a lot of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22725,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1747],"tags":[11265,12085,10830,12086,12087],"class_list":["post-22724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fitness-lifestyle","tag-baby","tag-feel","tag-friends","tag-pressured","tag-reframe"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}