The decision not to have children felt right for Jane Fallon and her partner, Ricky Gervais. But now that her friends are becoming grandparents, and enjoying it at a stress-free distance, she wonders if their decision was a disastrous oversight

“I’m going to be a granny!” I couldn’t have been more surprised if my friend Karen had announced she was going to run for government or had taken up ballroom dancing. In my experience, grannies were sweet-faced, white-haired wrinkly old ladies. Grannies were most definitely not my cool fiftysomething buddy with magenta highlights and pink Dr Martens.

Except that these days, of course, that’s exactly what grannies are.

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I’ve never regretted not having kids. Even as a child I found it hard to imagine being a mum. I was never one of those little girls who played with baby dolls and picked names for her firstborn. I was playing in the mud with my dog, doing backflips and climbing trees. Or I was lost in a good book. My dreams were all about becoming a writer, a vet or a gymnast, not having a family. As I got older it became something I actively didn’t want to do. Not because I didn’t like children. That’s always a popular assumption – alongside the accusation of being career obsessed, also false in my case. (Bizarrely, someone once decided that my decision to remain child-free must be down to the fact that I was unwilling to lose my figure. Trust me, I didn’t need to give birth for that to happen. It did it all on its own.) No, I didn’t want to have children because doing so just didn’t feel like me. Being a mother wasn’t who I was meant to be.

I gave it a lot of thought over the years. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t making a terrible mistake. In the end, it came down to the fact that I didn’t think I’d be a good mum. I am too much of a worrier. I’m the person who thinks about calling round all the hospitals when someone is five minutes later than they said they would be. I always assume the worst even though – thus far – it has never happened. I know I would have stifled any kids I had with my overprotectiveness. I’d have been following them around all day checking they were still breathing. I can’t even imagine how I would have handled them learning to cross a road on their own, going off to school or, God forbid, having driving lessons. And what about dating? Out of the question without a chaperone! I would have made them paranoid and fearful without meaning to. I wouldn’t have wanted me as a mother, so why would I foist myself on someone else?

Thankfully, my partner, Ricky, felt the same – not that I would make a terrible mother, or if he did think that he thoughtfully kept that to himself, but that he wasn’t keen on parenthood, either. And as we’re both the youngest children of large families, the pressure was off. Our elder brothers and sisters had already started on the next generation by the time our decision was made. Had either of us been an only child I imagine we wouldn’t have had it so easy. We were happy with our decision and we still are.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jane Fallon with her partner, Ricky Gervais, in Beverlyl Hills this month. Photograph: Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Moet & Chandon

Of course there have been times when I’ve thought maybe it would be fun to be planning Christmas with a couple of sunny seven or eight-year-olds (my imaginary children on these occasions are always cheery and good-natured – nothing like the nervous wrecks I actually would have reared). I’ve spent hours over the years arguing with myself about which names I would have given them, and I’ve occasionally imagined how old they might be and what they might be doing in young adulthood (always confident, successful, happy and uncomplicated). But then I remind myself of the realities and I know that I’ve done the right thing.

But it has only just occurred to me that I’ll never have grandchildren. This is a disastrous oversight on my part. Karen’s revelation has had the effect of a) making me feel very old (although, to be fair, a girl in my class at school apparently went on to become a grandmother by the age of 30, so grannyhood is not necessarily an indicator of age. That’s convent schools for you. Not only did they not teach us about contraception but they skipped the whole chapter on reproduction. Half of the girls in my class still thought babies were delivered by storks when we were doing biology O-level), and b) making me feel jealous in a way that I never was when my friends started having children. Because being a grandparent is all about the fun stuff. It’s like a reward for the years of stress and trauma and sleepless nights involved in dragging up your own children. It’s payback time.

Grandchildren are the Furbies of the offspring world. They’re cute, they’re funny, you can play with them and then put them away when they start to get on your nerves.

You’re always the good cop. You can spoil them in a way that would be remiss if you were their parent. You can hand the discipline over to someone else. They’re always glad to see you because to them you mean treats, staying up late, eating things they shouldn’t (who cares if they’re full of sugar, you won’t have to deal with the consequences), and probably a sneaky fiver on your way out of the door. And if they grow up too scared to go outside, that’s not your fault either. No one ever started a poem: “They fuck you up, your Gran and Gramps.”

I don’t want to be written off because I can’t keep up. So I need to get myself some surrogate grandkids. Fast. Jane Fallon

The arrival of grandchildren changes family dynamics, too. Once one of your siblings becomes Grandma or Grandpa, a new little dynasty is formed. They’re a bona fide offshoot of the family tree. Of course you all still get together when you can, but they’re now an entity in their own right. And who is my sister more likely to want to spend Christmas with? Her adorable grandchildren or the rest of us bickering away and rehashing 40-year-old grievances over the roast potatoes? It’s a no-brainer.

I’ve started to realise that as you get older it’s more important than ever to have relationships with younger people in order to feel connected to the world. Otherwise you’ll be left behind. An aged dinosaur who doesn’t understand the difference between Snapchat and WhatsApp or whether something is “reem” or “on fleek”. Or, indeed, whether those words are really part of the English language or not. I don’t want to become that sad old person who gets written off because they can’t keep up. So I need to get myself some surrogate grandkids. Fast.

My nieces and nephews are all adults now, so I am going to focus on my great-nieces and nephews. So far I only have two and they live at the other end of the country so they’re unrecognisable each time I see them, and I can only be a vague, shadowy figure who sends birthday presents and the odd email. Consequently, I have started to look at my younger – more local – nieces (strong, independent young women with no intention, quite rightly, of settling down and reproducing before they have had a chance to get a foot on the career ladder. Something that has always made me very proud of them) with the impatient eye of a pre-emancipation matron, and willing one of them to decide it’s time to get pregnant. It would be so lovely to have a baby about the place. Only part-time, of course.

• Strictly Between Us by Jane Fallon is published in paperback by Penguin, £7.99

• The publishing details were amended on 18 January 2016

