Children are the new fetuses.

Recently I have been thinking about age - I'm 29 1/2 so it's compulsory to do so. Also quite a few people I care about have recently decided to pop (tear, rip, tug) out a baby and I have been hearing troubling groups of words like 'ten centimetres dialated' and '13 stitches' with alarming frequency.

It has gotten me thinking, now and then, 'I wonder if I....?'

My mind was flowing along these lines the other day while I was watching a group of little tackers running around an empty block of land happily whacking each other. The thought made me snort. Which I had to quickly convert into a cough so as not to draw the attention of the kids (their sticks were very big). Nothing makes me feel more childish than the thought of having a child. Surely I'm not old enough for that kind of grown-up business? Except that apparently I am - I'm almost 30 - my mum was this age when she gave birth to me. If I hunted around I could probably find a statistic that said that it is this very age when women are most likely to carry a pregnancy through to full term (so let's just pretend I've had the maturity & patience to find such evidence).

It's hilarious. It's bizarre.

Fortunately I've found a loop-hole. It has been decided that the 30's are the new 20's. I'm sure if you read the Herald Scum you'll already be well aware of this - there's even a Myspace group dedicated to the notion (http://groups.myspace.com/Inmy30s) asking members to "tell us all about how the 30's kick the 20's ass! ;)" - it's totally official.

So, though I'm 29, I will soon be turning 20 and won't have to seriously consider the notion of breeding for at least another ten years and can relax. Except for a few niggling concerns about the ramifications of a whole decade supercedeing the one before it - will 20's now be the new teens, teens the new childhood, etc.?

It will raise some delicate questions about my stance on abortion, for sure, however my main concern is sex. What will become of sex? Sex will be the new.....what? It's quite intriguing but, as I'm soon to enter my 20's for the second time I should be having a lot of it (whatever it is now) so I'll let you know.