Of course there's such a thing - different cultures / societies / countries / eras have treated parenthood very differently. For most of human history, before effective contraception, children were just something that usually followed marriage and there wasn't much choice. And "barren" women were often treated as cursed, and large families were usually seen as a good thing because the kids were going to work on the farm or whatever, and support you in your old age. Post industrialization (and the advent of social welfare programs etc) children were seen as more of a burden than an asset and smaller families were favoured, and contraceptive methods improved. But for a long time, having kids wasn't really treated as something that ought to be optional, and was generally presented as something that ought to be the main focus and goal of a woman's life. Then women started working more and prosperity increased and there was more of a focus on providing education and a high standard of living for kids - this, plus the fact that women were still doing most of the childcare as well as working, led to the general idea in the modern developed world that two kids is the right number.
Now we in the world's most developed countries are moving towards an entirely unprecedented way of treating parenthood - the idea that it's a perfectly valid option to be childfree by choice is really gaining ground. A good thing in my view, but a very new one. These days, people can fuck all they want and not have babies if they don't want, and reproduction is often treated as just another lifestyle choice.
Today we have societies that embrace the childfree and ones that ostracise infertile women and bar them from many aspects of adult social life (common in many traditional communities of Africa and Asia). Countries that give a year's paid mat leave and countries that give none. Countries where childcare swallows a salary and countries where it's virtually free. Countries where social policy encourages men to do their share of parenting and countries where the idea is laughable. Countries where fertility treatment is made available to single women and gay couples, and countries where it's almost impossible for anyone to access. A country (China) that has moved from barring people from having more than one child to desperately trying to raise the birth rate, in the space of a few years.
How the whole idea of parenthood is treated varies WILDLY, and long has done. It's bound up with all kinds of aspects of culture, economics, medicine, work, gender relations, politics, religion, ideology, education and everything else that governs how we live and the choices we make. At present in the UK it's mostly treated as a sort of hobby - an entirely personal choice that you'd better manage and finance entirely alone, and if the burden falls harder on women tough shit. But with a big dollop of "you're an unnatural unfeminine monster if you don't want it", for a lot of women, a lot of the time. The way we treat parenthood in the UK at present reflects our status as one of the most individualistic societies in the world, with very little sense of collective responsibility for the future; it also reflects the fact that we're still pretty sexist. Compared to the family-friendly policies of Scandinavia, we suck. Compared to the US (no mandatory paid mat leave), we're doing great.
Unless perhaps if we're billionaires who are also psychopaths, none of us can escape the influence of the social, political and economic forces we live under.