[apohn]

I suspect one big difference is that when you have young children is that you can't bend on "No, I can't work." When you don't have young children you can bend (even if you don't want to), and you say "No" but do "Maybe."

I've seen this with people before they have kids and after the kids are a little older. They occasionally bend and work a bit extra, check emails after hours, etc, and then before you know the it the manager expects this person is available since they did it before.

Sadly, at one company where I worked the young single person had to lie and say they were heavily involved with educational activities at their church and they couldn't work extended hours because of that. I know they were not 100% honest about the hours required for that, but management needed some mental excuse to say it's okay for them to just work normal hours. It's stupid, but sometimes that's the only way to do it.