[mekdoonggi]

Yep. And that's good! That's freedom of choice. Similarly, my wife wanted children, and there's no amount of money that could replace the joy of having our child.

Everything is better when we have the freedom to make a choice.

[kixiQu]

I wish society had taxed me (desired path zero children) more in some way that would have routed the resources to my friend who would have wanted to start having kids earlier and have more. Instead, the combination of regional housing crisis with contemporary parenting standards meant she and her husband waited for career progression to have the money for the space to start.

[g3f32r]

> Yep. And that's good! That's freedom of choice.

Is it? Was it actually her choice? Or was she propagandized into being a fully-available consumer?

Was she fed a steady diet of anti-natalist/anti-family formation and pro-independence (pro-consume) media and government policies from the moment she was born?

[scbrg]

An alternative take is that we've endured thousands of years of propaganda aimed at keeping women as child bearing, house keeping slaves, and we're finally starting to see the end of that in at least some cultures.

But of course, it's only "propaganda" when you don't like it.

[blockmarker]

On one hand we have propaganda not even a century old, only possible by the invention of birth control, the creation of tv, radio and newspapers, which itself required the invention of many things such as communications faster than horseback, the existence of strong centralized states which guarantee welfare to the elderly even if they don't have children to maintain it, and technological advances and social changes which make children an expense instead of an economic asset. And this propaganda leads to societies slowly economically collapse and their populations go extinct.

On the other hand, we have the "propaganda" which has existed for thousands if not millions of years, needed no technological, scientific or economic advances to exist, and the societies that followed it grew and made all the advances required for the other.

Of the two, I know which seems to be truer and more natural.

[catlike0076]

Appeal to nature + Appeal to antiquity

[b0rtb0rt]

maybe it’s not propaganda if it’s been around for the entire human existence until the last 50 years

[mekdoonggi]

I will assume that she has the same ability to reason and make an informed choice as you.

[vkou]

Thank you for bringing up this incredibly rational, and not at all offensive or infantalizing presumption - one that hypothesizes that my spouse is incapable of thinking and deciding for herself.

You are, of course, the sole free-thinking, unpropagandized person in the world.

[saintvlad]

FWIW, I think we all (I am including myself here) underestimate the degree to which our beliefs are formed by the culture we inhabit.