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You don't need any such campaign to convince people the trade offs aren't worth it. It's blatantly obvious that parenting is full of unpleasantness, and not at all obvious that there's any upside. If anything, you need a propaganda campaign to convince young people "no really, you'll be glad you had children in the end".
It is obvious to young women(or anyone else) who are around mothers and identify with mothers that mothers like and enjoy being mothers and consider the trade offs worth it. But that’s not the information diet of young women/girls- the information diet is a stream of exaggeration about how much it sucks.
I’m reminded of the Australian study about the girls who were required to care for a doll programmed to cry and the like in order to try to convince them not to get pregnant. They wound up getting pregnant at higher rates, because their information diet was unrealistically negative about having babies and it was a needed corrective.
I have been around plenty of mothers in my day. That is not at all obvious to me. So no, I don't agree with your argument that its obvious and that our culture is just suppressing that.
When mothers express woe, it is difficult to discern ...
I mean, women are figuring out how to avoid it, it turns out.
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A lot of parenting issues that look very unpleasant from the outside are far more rewarding when actually experienced as the parent, because it is your child. Even holding my two-year old in my arms while he throws a tantrum is rewarding for me, even if unpleasant to the person passing me in the store.
I don't think most parents enjoy that. You may be a statistically odd person for enjoying a public tantrum.
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It's clear a lot of people are basically entirely replaced by some sort of parent-version of themselves once they have a child. But the non-parent version doesn't have much reason to believe this will happen... or, more importantly, to desire it.
Eliezer Yudkowsky's ex-wife wrote a cute story about that, "Attunements".
But being afraid of one's values and personality being altered by parenthood seems like a boy being afraid of having his values and personality altered by puberty; it's a fundamentally natural part of our lifecycle, and the alternative is to remain stunted forever.
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The data bears this out as being true. That's why you do need a propaganda campaign, to convince young people to make the decision which heavily weighs towards deferred gratification and, more importantly, societal health.
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