Age: Just over a year.
Surely it's older than that. I'm pretty sure it has something to do with my dad. This is a different baby boom. The new baby boom. Baby boom 2.
I see. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what a baby boom is. A baby boom is a surge in birth rate, generally associated with optimism and a period of sustained economic growth.
So when was Baby Boom 1? Roughly speaking it began just after the second world war and ended in the mid-1960s. People born during the period are known as the baby boom generation, or simply "baby boomers".
That would explain my dad's involvement. There followed a smaller spike in births, sometimes called the echo boom, when the baby boomers themselves reached child bearing age.
That would explain me. But what's this new baby boom I keep hearing so much about? According to the Office of National Statistics (ONS), there were 909,245 conceptions in England and Wales in 2010, the highest number ever.
Why so many? Are we entering a period of optimism and sustained optimistic growth? Not unless you've heard something I haven't.
It's down to all those teen pregnancies, innit. Not at all. Conceptions for women under 18 have fallen by almost 10% in a single year, and 24% since 1998.
So what is it down to? The sharp and continued rise in older women conceiving. The rate for the over-40s has doubled since 1990. Possible causes for the increase cited by the ONS include "increased participation in higher education; delayed marriage and partnership formation; the desire to establish a career."
So they're not just doing it to make the economy get better? I don't think it works like that. But the ONS does suggest that family may be "valued more highly during tough economic times".
Older women have more babies in bad times.
It seems so. Perhaps they all got the sack.
Do say: "Forget about the baby boom. The take-home statistic is that teenage pregnancies are going down, which, uniquely for recently released statistics, actually bodes well for the future."
Don't say: "Oh God. I'm pregnant."
