Home > Work > Olive
1 " Did you know six minutes of reading can help reduce stress levels by up to sixty percent?"... "That's sixty-eight percent better than listening to music, one hundred percent better than drinking tea, and three hundred percent better than going for a walk. "
― Emma Gannon , Olive
2 " You must remember that no decision is ever really the wrong decision. Because it's the decision you made at the time. Respect your past self and her choices. "
3 " Whenever women shouted, 'Oww, what a cute baby! My ovaries! They just twitched!' I would think there was something incredibly wrong with me because my ovaries have never twitched... Holding Oscar now, in this moment, my ovaries make no movement at all. Maybe they're washing their hair or out for the day. "
4 " Sometimes we don’t ‘know’ for sure, and maybe we never will, but we just have to live each day in the way that feels most natural to us. "
5 " My first question when I meet her will be whether she feels any pressure to be seen to be 'having it all' in a different way: travelling, sex, friendships, hobbies. Having to 'make up for' not having kids in some weird way. Ambition with a capital 'A'. "
6 " Leaving something behind isn’t just about having a child who will roam the earth after you’ve gone. A legacy is made up of everything you’ve ever done. It’s everything you leave behind. It’s every choice you make. It’s every person you meet. It’s every feeling you’ve passed on. It’s every story you tell. "
7 " Well, you must remember that no decision is ever really the wrong decision. Because it’s the decision you made at the time. Respect your past self and her choices, "
8 " I think I am in that rare and temporary point in life where I am an ‘old young person’ and a ‘young old person’. I’m bang in the middle: young enough to be cool, old enough to have some experience of how shit life can be. "
9 " I think society secretly envies women like me who live precisely the way they want to without buckling to outside pressures or expectations "
10 " The positives of a child-free life for me are more time and money, to do all the things I want to do in life "
11 " You start to realize exercise is no longer about vanity, but necessity. Your metabolism changes too, sadly starting to slow down. You start to realize you ‘should’ go easier on the cheese boards, but you won’t because brie is everything. Then there are the hangovers! Drinking two bottles of Prosecco doesn’t feel like having a beaker of lemonade any more – it fizzes and pops and aches in your head the next day; but fortunately you have more willpower now to ‘get on with it’. "
12 " I know she looks like a swan swimming around on the surface, but her legs are really splashing around unterneath. "
13 " Whilst so many of my friends were paying extortionate amounts to increase their fertility and chances of pregnancy, I was swatting away my partner´s penis like an annoying fly. "
14 " Maybe people who want kids or live for their kids will never get it why I don’t want them,’ I went on. ‘But here are a few reasons: kids would ruin our relationship. Kids are hard work. Kids will destroy my body, and my freedom. Kids will destroy my bank account, and I don’t have any money as it is. The world is overpopulated! The world is a mess! "
15 " I have a difficult enough time getting motivated to take good care of myself. I cannot imagine having to always put a child first.’ Maria, 26 "
16 " No choice is the wrong choice, because it’s the one you make at the time with the information you have. "
17 " Society rewards couples so much. Life is just so much easier in a couple. Cheaper, easier, more logical...I glare at the couple in the seats next to me...I actually can't believe I was one of those smug couples for so long. "
18 " I just want everyone in this room to remember to look deep inside and know sometimes we don’t have to stifle ourselves with the pressure. We don’t have to build up this huge unanswerable question in our heads: Do I Want Kids? It hangs over us, but why? Sometimes we can just roll with it, make smaller natural decisions as we go along and follow what makes us happy daily, and in doing so we will make the right decision for us in the end, without turning it into something so pressurized. Do you know what I mean? "
19 " when you turn thirty, you are suddenly gifted a new kind of respect for yourself. ‘You will care less, as if by magic, my dear, "
20 " It’s true that as you grow older, you know yourself better. You leave bad parties slightly earlier. "