I mean education does wonders for getting people to realize this about themselves, which is why educated women tend to have fewer children, and why a lot of cultures (globally, including many cultures in the US) discourage education either specifically for women or for people in general.

The next generation of broken people, raised by broken parents, are great wage slaves. Always have been, which is why we have child labor laws. But it happens even now, globally. Hell the US recently lost abortion rights federally, and many states are rolling back child labor laws as much as they can.

Personally I probably wouldn’t have had kids anyway because it’s a fucking chore to be intimate with another human I’d rather not touch (I’d 100% be an herbalist or spinster. The two major money-making professions allowed to unwed childless women in history other than prostitution, which.. I would just be bad at because I don’t like physical contact with other humans).

Buuuuuut.

Also no. Herbalists were providing abortive herbal mixes for centuries. Babies that were disabled or deformed were often killed or left to die. Contraceptives, even when likely to cause infection or death, were attempted. Women have been trying like hell to manage their family size for all of human history. We have records from. iirc, Mesopotamia about it. Like it’s always been a thing.

It didn’t always work, but it also, importantly, wasn’t socially frowned upon in the same way it is now for your baby to just die. It happened all the time.