Relationship expert Tracy McMillan believes that women should take their dating lives more seriously if they want to have a baby by a certain age.
While appearing as a guest on Jill Martin's new TODAY All Day special, "The New Rules for Finding Love," she explains why young women who want to start a family might need to take a different approach to dating.
"I always say the fastest years of a woman’s life are between 32 and 37," McMillan, 57, said in a preview clip of the special. "And it’s the difference between DGAF and OMFG."
McMillan then emulated a cheer and said, "woo woo," to signify that some women aren't too concerned about the future. But when they age closer to 40, they start to realize that it might be too late to start a family.
"It's like, all of a sudden you get to this place where you want to do this thing and there's not the time there," she said. "What I feel like women did not say in my generation was 'If you want to have children, it needs to be a priority. You have to decide if that's what you want out of your life.'"
However, digital creator Christina “Tinx” Najjar, who also appeared as a guest on “The New Rules for Finding Love,” said that way of thinking might force some women to settle for less.
"My fear with that thinking is that with all that pressure to find a partner to be your other half, is that a lot of — especially young women — they settle and they make the wrong choice because they think, 'I need to get married to be happy. I need to have a boyfriend to be happy,'" she said. "All that stuff."
"We see so many women who aren’t fulfilled and they’re not happy because they thought, 'Oh, if I just do this thing, if I just get this partner, if I just do this, then it will be OK,'" Najjar added. "And my whole thing is, like, you have to agree with you that we’re pack animals. We like to have partnership and companionship."
"But it’s not going to make you happy. It’s not going to fill you up. You have to fill up your own cup, and then the right person will drop in," she said.
Martin also weighed in on the conversation and said that she understood where everyone was coming from, especially since she met her fiancé, Erik Brooks, on a dating app.
"When I was dating on these dating apps, I think you need to treat it as a job," she said.
The TODAY lifestyle and commerce contributor noted that when she was single, she would spend a lot of time going out on dates and use that same amount of energy on her career.
"I tried a career and I would get out at six o'clock at night, and I would plan a six o'clock date and an eight o'clock date. Three times a week on the dating app. And I went and I met Erik three weeks later."
The two later got engaged in May 2019. However, one year later they broke up. They later reconciled in 2021 and got engaged again in November of that same year.
Watch “The New Rules for Finding Love” on TODAY All Day April 4 at 11:30 a.m. and 7 p.m. ET.