It's time to stop telling women in their 30s how to live their lives

I turned 30 this year, and let me tell you, that milestone falls on you not like a stone, but like a hard, crushing boulder.

Like so many my age, I'm feeling the weight of Western Society's expectations. If it were an entity, it would breathe down your neck "Time's up! You've existed on this planet for 3 decades now. Gotta buy a house, think about getting married and having kids."

Although I'm not exactly in the worst position in my life in terms of 'adult' progression - I have a job which I love and can see myself succeeding in, I share a flat with a friend and two cats, I can cook relatively well - I still have a while to go before I can afford a house, and kids and weddings aren't something I think about a lot.

So have I failed myself for not living up to society's expectations? Am I losing at the game of life?

These views of "how you should be living in your 30s" have been internalised by Western culture for decades and even centuries. In the 50s and 60s, most people got married in their early 20s. In the 70s jobs were easier to get and houses were cheaper to buy, especially in the UK (where I live), so most people were sorted by 30.

80s and 90s babies haven't had it so rosy - a number of my friends have found the process of buying a house in recent years so gruelling that some have given up altogether. So surely people who are wagging the judgemental "you're running out of time" finger must understand that millennials have reasons for being a little behind compared to baby boomers and Gen Zs?

But for me and many other women, the great, menacing voice of Western society continues to boom. It jeers "Ha, ha, ha. You're forgetting something. Your biological clocks are going tick, tick, tick..."

Without a doubt the question of starting a family is one the biggest pressures that women without kids will experience once they hit the big 3-0; and it's no surprise when women are being constantly reminded that their fertility is slowly declining. To add salt to the wound, in one UK survey 35% of females and 46% of males said they believe 36 is too old for women to have children. So, I guess I better get these eggs fertilised before I hit 36 to avoid being judged by petty patriarchal minions who are obviously petrified of women being able to make decisions involving their own bodies.

Although the societal pressure on women to rush to have children may appear justified due to the fact female fertility declines with age, that still isn't a valid reason to make women feel that they're doing something wrong if they don't feel ready or don't want kids at all. Many women are also choosing to delay having children or have none because there have never before been so many opportunities for women to build a successful career for themselves.

Alas, despite everything I've said, I still have a niggling seed of doubt which was planted not by patriarchal, archaic ideals, but by people close to me who have made comments without realising they could be harmful. You might think I'm sensitive for calling out seemingly benign comments such as 'Have you done this yet?', 'when are you doing this?', 'you're 30, you should be doing this now', but this type of attitude can make people feel discouraged from exploring options that are outside of the 'ideal life' mould.

It also feels unfair for people to assume that just because they may be happy that they've reached 'benchmarks' by a certain age that others will be too. What if people in their 30s don't have the resources to reach those benchmarks in the first place? What if, like me, they're taking time to focus on themselves and make up for years of enjoyment they lost because of trauma or certain events?

When I was at university, I was plagued by anxiety and depression during a lot of the times I should have been having fun. I still went out and socialised regularly, but particularly on nights out, there was rarely a night where I felt completely 'free' to be myself. It got to the point where my anxiety made it feel criminal for me to smile and just let go. Many of my projects outside of work and uni over the years were also left unfinished because I wasn't in the right frame of mind to complete them.

Although I still suffer with it sometimes, over the last few years I've managed to take control of my anxiety and for the first time in a long time I'm finally able to focus on me and what I want. I’m making up for lost time, and if that means I’m going to be late to settling into society’s idea of what a ‘perfect adult life’ looks like, so be it. If it means going out and staying out until 4am sometimes, so be it. If it means finally writing that book, so be it. If it means travelling the world before having kids, so be it. If it means freedom, then so be it.

This is for those of us who can't help but compare themselves to people of the same age with kids, cars, husbands, wives, houses; for those of us who wince when our aunties and uncles prod us for life updates at family gatherings; for those of us who've rushed their lives because of society's standards and now find themselves unhappy and unfulfilled:

Don't build your dreams around what others expect. Marriages, mortgages, kids, as wonderful as they can be, are changes that can also be highly stressful and expensive to manage once they happen - so only pursue them once you know you're 100% ready. I'll be ready one day, but for now, I'm doing me.