[chris_mahan]

Because I have a 8 year-old boy, and a wife who takes care of him well.

I want him to have a great education, wide knowledge and experience, and be ready to face life well, be kind to others, be equipped to work hard and make good money, be a good husband and a good father.

That takes lots of time and money, and is completely worth it.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

So you work 80 hours a week, meaning that you have almost no time to enjoy life with your kid... so that he can grow up to be like you and do the same thing, and presumably educate their children to do the same as well.

So your ideal of how things should be is to have a saga of people working their asses off, in theory for the good of the next generation, but in practice for nothing because the next generation will work their asses off for the good of the next one, etc.

Maybe it's culture shock (I'm a European) but honestly, how can anyone think that is "worth it"?

[chris_mahan]

Well, I don't "work" 80 hours a week.

I work 40 hours a week.

I commute 8 hours a week.

I volunteer (he comes with me sometimes) 2 hours a week.

Lunch breaks: 5 hours.

(so far 50 hours)

Then I do all the routine stuff that needs to be done: Grocery shopping, hardware store, car maintenance, etc.

Then I spend another 15 hours a week working on extra stuff (learning, following the news, doing stuff for clients, coding).

Then there is the social events, the school events, church on Sunday, basketball practice on Tuesday at 7 and games on Saturday at 1 or 2.

Then there is sleep, and making dinner, cleaning the house, etc.

In the end, there is about 10 hours a week for just me and him time (watch movie, play games, go out and explore the world, park, read together, etc)

For me? I'm lucky if I get 2 hours a week for me. I'm even more lucky if they're contiguous.

(No time for TV, you notice, and precious little for computer games.)

[enjo]

I commute 8 hours a week.

There's an easy way to get a bunch of hours a week back.

[chris_mahan]

Except my boss isn't happy with that concept.

[ryan_123]

Its just that, he wants his son to have a better life than him. Thats why the toil. He wants to provide him better means, hence the 80 hr weeks.

Yes it'd depend on what you want from your life. Priorities are different for all.

[jvanloov]

The intention is noble.

However, chances are that the son looks up to his father, thinks his father's life is normal and how it should be, and will (unconsciously) copy it.

If that happens, will he really have the better life that his father worked for and wanted him to have?

[Infinitesimus]

Perhaps that ventures into the topic of parenting. Ideally, the parent would/should communicate to the child that the sacrifice is not idea and explain the tradeoffs, cautioning on the dangers of the parent's chosen lifestyle

[ryan_123]

When you provide him with great education, there is high probability that he realizes his father's wishes and aspires to fulfill them. Im just guessing he would be smart enough to understand his father.

[Im_Talking]

I certainly understand why you say these things as I have 2 kids.

But do you also want your boy to dream, and try something noble and possibly fail but get back up, to experience as much as the world as he can, and to understand that limitations are self-made? Of course, you do.

So you tell him all this, but he may look at you and say "Well Dad, if you want me to do all these things, why didn't you do them?".

[charlespwd]

Noble, makes lots of sense.

Thanks