Helping women watch their biological clock is a great idea

A London law firm has appointed a “fertility officer”, thought to be the first in Britain, to help dispel the idea among female employees that having children is “career suicide”.

Some will grumble that this is a silly appointment for a woke age, but I went to a school where the two career options for women were law or medicine, so a good number of my female friends are lawyers and it sounds hellish: the hours; the pressure over whether they will make partner or if a male colleague will be promoted over them; the negotiating of a four-day week once they have had children; the snide jokes referring to maternity leave as “holiday”. Many of them are now fleeing the profession, while my male lawyer friends stay firmly put.

If more firms employ these officers it might help the panic that afflicts many women when they approach the age of 35 and suddenly realise they need to “get on with it”, having spent the previous 20 years desperately trying not to get pregnant. I’m all for it.