[moron4hire]

Life is so very short. What value can you put on 25 extra days with your kids in a year. They're only going to be home for ~20 years. That's ~500 more days you get to have with them. An extra year and a half. It's a no brainer. There is no way you could pay me to give up a year and a half of my family.

[Radim]

  There is no way you could pay me to give up a year and a half of my family.

You're very special if there is "no way" someone could pay you to trade "family time" for "work"!

By agreeing to participate in the work process, most people these days "give up" not 25 days a year, but full 100. Of course, there is a price tag they put on that time -- the salary.

This single-minded "family time is infinitely more valuable than work time" sentiment doesn't seem to match people's actions in reality. It looks more like some new-age signalling process; a (recent?) social phenomenon.

[wernercd]

Are you being obtuse on purpose?

You are taking the argument to the other extreme: "Family time is SOOOO important, why are you even working? hypocrite"

Of course he has to "trade family time for work" aka salary. Of course he has to spend (probably) 40 hours a week (not including lunch/driving) to keep the bills paid... Everyone - except lottery winners, retired people, those lucky to be born into money, etc - has to do that.

But, as with anything, there comes a tipping point where the time spent isn't worth they money earned.

Assuming he was paid $100k (just a made up number), at 40 hours a week and 30 hours of driving, he would get paid ~$27/hour. (100k / 70 hours / 52 weeks)

If he cuts his pay to $75k (25% pay cut) and instead drives 30 minutes per day, he's now getting paid $29/hour (75k / 45 hours / 52 weeks). He "nets" less, but gets paid more per hour and has more time for "important" things.

Those are made up numbers, but for a "pay cut" he could get paid more per hour and have more time at home.

Does he quit because "family time is infinitely more important"? No... he's not an extremist that has to pull some basic, common-sense notion to an absurd degree. He made a trade off: It's called reality for most people.

[Radim]

No, I am replying to a concrete argument. I quoted it at the top of my post.

That the family-work ratio cannot be extreme, and is very much a personal tradeoff, was the whole point of my post. I am baffled -- what exactly are you arguing against? It seems you're agreeing with a vengeance.

[moron4hire]

No, you're making absurd assumptions to be able to make a pedantic argument.

[Radim]

Out of curiosity -- how was I supposed to read your original comment?

What I saw was the OP saying "I saved time commuting, all good" (doh). Then you came in with "no way you could pay me to give up family time", which sounds extremely... extreme.

If that wasn't the core of your message, what was?

What are the absurd assumptions?