I am pretty cynical when it comes to the attitudes people seem to have about children (I don't have kids so it's possible I don't know what I'm talking about). You and many others use the same language to talk about attempting to publish a book or starting a company that you use for having children: words like "project". In general I don't agree with this conception of children since failure in that endeavor often has disastrous consequence for a person that wouldn't otherwise exist.

It's not merely a personal risk in the sense that somebody else will bear the costs of failure. I tend to think people should generally feel more anxious about the incomprehensibly huge responsibility of making a person, not less.