This reminded me of how my sister and I were renting a car in Madrid to drive to Portugal, and the guy at the rental company tried to upsell us. He was young, and hadn’t figured out yet that you don’t sell to women like you do to men.
“This Citroën is small,” he said. “The engine is weak. I could get you something larger and more potent for a surcharge.”
My sister and I started at him blankly. What he was saying meant nothing to us.
As a teenager, my sister worked at Avis, and she found out that the best way to upsell to men is to offer them a PT Cruiser. 90% get very upset and are willing to pay extra to get something larger.
For women, the magical words aren’t “large” and “potent.” What kind of a weirdo woman wants to be large? Instead, it’s “safe, comfortable, elegant, beautiful, chic.”
“Give women huge tax breaks for having kids” is somewhere right there with “get something larger” as a sales technique for female customers.
Clarissa's Blog 
“Give women huge tax breaks for having kids”
The policy bros are obsessed with the idea that women don’t want kids because of the economy or tax or jobs…
I think methylethyl is actually right that health issues after childbirth and help with house and infant are far, far more relevant.
“Give women _lots_ of help taking care of babies and themselves” is not something that’s ever going to occur to policy bros.
And my phrasing is not great either…. what would your sister suggest?
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That was an educated guess when I wrote it, but then in the comments, 100% of the ladies chiming in to say they’d had four or more kids, confirmed that they had a mom or inlaws who helped out a *lot* during postpartum. Still a limited sample size, but results very suggestive.
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It may want a vocabulary of “care” “help” “support” “love” etc.
But yeah, there’s an awful lot of dreadful eyeroll stuff out there on the internet right now from… software engineers and policy bros, inevitably men, talking about increasing the birthrate in terms of “status” and “economics” and crap. Golly pete, that is painful to read. It’s like they’ve never even *had* a baby…
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“It’s like they’ve never even had a baby…”
Or known anyone who has…..
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…and yes, I’m including their parents.
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To be fair… most parents do not discuss with their sons, the nitty-gritty details of gestation, or of keeping infants alive for the first few years.
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