Contrary to the hindsight-ridden narrative of the Cold War that is common nowadays, according to which it had already wound down by the 1980s
I'm ... boggling. Your statment is not implausible, but do you have links to such assertions?
Really, we thought we were likely to die at any time with no warning. When the Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War was over, there was a zeitgeist of "... Um. OK. We're going to live. I have to plan now. Oh, God."
And as far as I can tell, the anxiety was there right up to the moment of collapse. Despite Gorbachev's excellent and calming media image in the final few years of it.
it is often told by people who lived through the climax of the Cold War, i.e. the period of the Cuban Missile Crisis
It is relevant, I think, that the "we" I speak of were young and powerless.
I know someone who had a child because the she felt enough better about the world after the Berlin Wall fell.
So I found this post quite interesting:
http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2009/03/gnxp-readers-do-not-breed.php
(I'm quite sure that the demographics of this site closely parallel the demographics on Gene Expression).
Research seems to indicate that people are happiest when they're married, but that each child imposes a net decrease in happiness (parents in fact, enjoy a boost in happiness once their children leave the house). It's possible, of course, that adult children may be pleasurable to interact with, but it seems that in many cases, the parents want to interact with the children more than the children want to interact with the parent (although daughters generally seem more interactive with their parents).
So how do you think being child-free relates to rationality/happiness? Of course, Bryan Caplan (who is pro-natalist) cites research (from Judith Rich Harris) saying that parents really have less influence over their children than they think they have (so it's a good idea for parents to spend less effort in trying to "mold" their children, since their efforts will inevitably result in much frustration). And in fact, if parents did this, it's possible that they may beat the average.
(This doesn't convince me in my specific case, however, and I'm still committed to not having children).