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Olivia Rodrigo, Gen Z pop sensation, was recently asked if she sees marriage as part of her near future. “What am I,” she quipped, “a child bride?” According to Rodrigo, “life is full of so much joy that is unrelated to a husband or kids.” Women agree. Only about a third of them believe marriage makes a woman happier. Despite her edgy brand, Rodrigo isn’t a rebel in her apathy for marriage and children.

But Rodrigo is no pessimist. “That being said,” she continued, “I want to be a mom more than anything.” In one breath, Rodrigo shrugs off marriage and family anytime soon while affirming it as her heart’s desire. She isn’t alone. Research shows that many young adults do not see marriage as realistic or desirable in their 20s, but they still imagine a future filled with family. People want marriage “sometime,” but they don’t want it now.

This is an unrealistically optimistic vision for a so-called anxious generation. Gen Z might be maturing more slowly than previous generations, but they are grown enough to understand that babies aren’t delivered by stork. While marriage can be postponed, fertility — which peaks in a woman’s 20s and declines gradually by the early 30s — cannot. As journalist Lisa Britton puts it, “later” has a terrifying habit of becoming “never.”

Peddling a message that marriage and kids can wait sets people up for disappointment. Up to half of women report at the end of their childbearing years that they wish they had more children. If motherhood is the heart’s desire of many women, unrealized fertility of this magnitude is nothing short of widespread heartbreak.

One woman wrote for Business Insider that she regrets putting off children to prioritize her career. Leslie Dobson had her first child at 33 and used IVF for her second child at 38. “I still get sad,” she writes, “thinking about being 52 when my daughters graduate high school.”

Another woman was featured on the cover of Bloomberg Business under the title “Freeze Your Eggs, Free Your Career.” Brigitte Adams froze her eggs in her late 30s and dedicated more time to building her career. She unfroze her eggs at 45. After using a sperm donor to conceive, Adams had six embryos. All of them failed. Upon this discovery, Adams screamed like a “wild animal” and collapsed to the ground.

The ache of unrealized fertility can’t be eradicated, but it can be lessened. Cultural influences should recognize the trade-offs our choices require. Some women will choose a future with more degrees and vacations and fewer children; others will choose a future with more children at the expense of career maximalism. But women should not be duped into believing that their 40s are “the new fertile” or that marriage will make them lose their identity. Stories of women who waited too long should serve as a warning.

As Lisa Britton recently wrote: “I’m now in my late 30s, childless and unmarried. Sadly, I fear I’ve become the very figure younger women are warned about today: the cautionary tale of what happens when you put family on the back burner for too long.” Britton was sold the lie that career came first, and she’s paid the price for it. Many of her friends share the devastating experience of remaining childless in their 30s and 40s, and perhaps forever.

Rodrigo doesn’t have lifelong childlessness in mind. She struggles with the tension afflicting many young women: delaying marriage and motherhood despite wanting children. These women have been harmed most by messaging telling them to spend their most fertile years prioritizing everything other than marriage and children.

Those who want to be mothers “more than anything” should explain their reasons for the delay. Why wait on your heart’s desire? The problem is many women are frozen with fear: being childless scares them, but so does motherhood. Cultural messaging — such as the videos made by “the girl with the list,” who has curated a list of reasons not to have children — has made women terrified of motherhood. Choosing to get married and have children is not a question about what people value most, but what they fear most.

Women who desire motherhood but put it off should be warned, not frightened. When I got married at 21, people were critical. I was told I had “too much potential,” as if enjoying the greatest blessing life has to offer — lifelong love and companionship — is a waste.

At every turn, influences tried to inject me with fear. But the answer to fear is love, the glad assumption of risk. To love at all, C.S Lewis once said, is to be vulnerable. Those who are ruled by fear can never open themselves up to this. I chose to marry my husband not because remaining unmarried was scarier than early marriage, but because love triumphed over my fear.

Women who waited too long for marriage should lovingly warn others. But recognizing loss is different than letting it be our primary motivator. To use fear as fuel will cede power to the influences most capable of harnessing our emotions. Teaching people to be guided by fear is to turn them away from love, which casts out fear. A loveless culture will not become a pro-marriage culture; fear cannot be what drives people to choose what requires courage.

Our culture cannot define love. The closest we have is an empty tautology — love is love — which tells us nothing of the nature of what is being defined, much like the modern Left’s inability to define “woman.” Conservatives have the upper hand. We are the people who know what a woman is; we can also be the people who know what love is. That clarity is how we will win over the anxious generation.

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Liana Graham is a research assistant in domestic policy at the Heritage Foundation.

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