The negative extremes are, well, extreme. I am not a parent myself, yet, but I think you'd be surprised how great the incentive truly is. If we had a tidy causal analysis of what drives people the world over, I suspect parental instincts would make up a visible chunk of motivations.
But it makes you more receptive to arguments about anything that could endanger their safety and future.
My wife has started to be much more environmentally conscious (vs. economically conscious) over the past year, and I think it all started due to one off-hand remark: I said that I hope our (then about-to-be-born) daughter will be able to experience snow. She brought up that particular phrase to me many times now; it seems it really stuck in her imagination.
