The Panic Years

What happens when a woman begins to ask herself: Should I have a baby?Women go through adolescence, menopause, some have a mid-life crisis, some might even have a quarter-life crisis, but there is another time of profound change and it doesn't have a name. Nell Frizzell is calling it The Flux. For most women it happens between the ages of twenty seven and forty but it isn't actually about age at all.The Flux is characterised by a preoccupation with one major question: Should I have a baby? And of course with the questions that inevitably follow: Do I want a baby? How do I know? Will I ever be ready? The Flux occurs when a woman realises that the options she's taken for granted throughout her teens and twenties are not available to her for ever. Every decision she makes in this time will have an impact; partner, holidays, job, postcode, savings, friendships - never mind your sense of self - nothing is off limits.Raw, hilarious and beguilingly honest, Nell Frizzell's account of The Panic Years is an arm around the shoulder and a call to arms. We are none of us alone in this, but we must share our experiences and those of the women around us - as Nell does - to lessen the struggle with one of life's biggest questions.