Is there a right time to have kids? I think so-Sarah Whiteley-Entertainment – Metro

Brooklyn, you won’t regret taking your time to expand your family (Picture: Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic)

At the ripe old age of 23, Brooklyn Beckham has declared that he would have children ‘yesterday’. 

He and his now-wife, Nicola Peltz, got married in April this year, after getting together in October 2019 and he is already planning the next step in their relationship. 

His father, David Beckham, was the same age when he had him and Brooklyn revealed in an interview this week that he has always wanted to be a young dad. 

Now, I don’t think there is one right age to have children, if that’s a path in life you want to take. But I do think for every couple, there is a right time in the relationship and that it’s important to spend time as a couple before you expand your family. 

And so I’m glad that Nicola, 27, wants to wait a while before they jump into having kids.

I was 29 when I met my now-husband Tom, and he was 34. 

I remember one day, after a year or so when we’d finally stopped skirting around the fact that we were madly in love and wanted to spend the rest of our lives together, that we went for a walk and started talking about all of the things we wanted to do. 

We discussed the places we wanted to visit, the fact we want to buy a property together, get married, have a baby…

Then we discussed the ages we ideally wanted to do these things at.  

By the end of the conversation we realised that we needed to have met at least four years earlier than we did, to squeeze it all in. Of course, looking back now, that seems silly but at the time, we were both gutted. 

Now that I’d found The One, I wanted us to have adventures together, live life, see the world, do things. 

We tried our hardest to cram it all in. We spent three weeks travelling around South East Asia, discovering new places and trying new food.

We went to Paris at Christmas time and drank vin chaud as we mooched along the Champs-Elysees. We visited Bath and sat in the thermal rooftop pool admiring the views. We jetted off to New York for Thanksgiving and ate pumpkin pie in Central Park.

We visited Bath and its thermal spas (Picture: Sarah Whiteley)

One of my favourite dates was going to the Natural History Museum and then for afternoon tea. On the walk home, we stopped to dance on the South Bank to a Soundtracks gig (they literally only played soundtracks to films – the best idea ever!). 

Or maybe it was the one when he took me round loads of London literary landmarks that he’d spent ages planning and plotting. Or the one where I took him to a story-telling event, where everyone had to get changed into their pyjamas and they served a lot of gin.

We went to New York for Thanksgiving (Picture: Sarah Whiteley)

However, two children and six years on, if there is one thing that I do feel slightly bittersweet about is that Tom and I hadn’t met earlier than what we did, so we could have had some more time just the two of us. 

And that’s what I think Brooklyn would be missing out on if he and Nicola started pumping out babies now. 

When we got married, Tom and I decided to start trying for a baby because I was 32. 

Nicola wants to wait a while before having kids with Brooklyn (Picture: Getty Images)

After all, you never know how long these things can take, and I figured we had six months, maybe a year, before anything happened. 

Then, a couple of days after we got home from our honeymoon, I started to feel tired. Like, not just ‘I had a bad night’s sleep last night’ tired but full on exhausted. Tired in a way I’d never been tired before – and I used to suffer badly from insomnia. 

‘You’re just jetlagged,’ Tom told me. But I knew something was different – and I was right. I was pregnant. 

Being a family is just wonderful and something I’d never give up (Picture: Sarah Whiteley)

Now, I was thrilled. Children are an absolute blessing and I feel so lucky every day that we conceived so easily. 

But, while being a family is just wonderful and something I’d never give up, it’s hard to remember that Tom and I are a couple, as well as parents. 

More: Showbiz

I wish we could have gone on a few more holidays, just the two of us.

I wish that we could have had a few more lazy Sundays, where we went out for brunch that stretched into lunch and that we could have spent more Saturday nights dancing and drinking, without worrying about the consequences in the morning. 

So Brooklyn, although being a dad is unspeakably fantastic, so is being a husband.

Enjoy being a newly-wed before rushing on too quickly. Like having children, it’s something you really won’t regret. 

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

Share your views in the comments below.

MORE : Gino D’Acampo’s views on parenting have left a bad taste in my mouth

MORE : Brooklyn Beckham so eager to start family with Nicola Peltz he could’ve had kids ‘yesterday’

MORE : Why I’ll never call my children ‘naughty’

Entertainment – MetroRead More