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Notes -
I don't think this is a great argument because the marginal cost of additional children when you already have one is comparatively tiny. Your first kid is an enormous commitment, demanding a massive amount of time, energy, and money. Hell, before you even get started you need to find a suitable partner, which can be hard enough on its own. But if you've already got a toddler, what's one more? You can dress them in hand-me-downs and you were going to stay home to watch the other one anyway. It means another year or two of supporting kids on the backend, but that's a long time from now, and late adolescents aren't that hard to support regardless. The additional costs aren't zero, obviously, but they're much smaller.
So even if additional kids are worthwhile, that doesn't prove that the first was. Fortunately, we don't have to wonder: The natural revealed preference argument for how much women value motherhood is the rate of motherhood. Which is decreasing.
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