I get to choose though. I have unlimited time off/sick days, roll into work at whatever hour I want and can take time that I need to do other things. Nobody is forcing me to stay, and I had the opportunity to tell them how long it would take. I am also free to call it off and extend if I need.

I work a lot, but the company isn't enforcing bad work life balance. Imagine if you had a job where your boss paid you hundreds of hours of overtime beforehand, and left it to you to decide when and if to take it, would you not sometimes do overtime when you feel it's your responsibility?

I would say that it is not the proper way even if you have not a family

The sad reality is that a lot of people evade parenting by spending way too much time at their work. To some extent using work as an excuse to spend less time educating and spending times with kids.

So you either get the social stigma of not willing to have kids, or you do get some kids and actually don't want to spend time with them ?

Obviously, some parents find the right balance between the two and actually care about the kids enough to keep work in check but I'm starting to think that's more an exception than the norm.

Sorry if this is rough to read or offensive. As I said, I work 39h a week and most of the higher ups at work do 41/42+ hours a week easy. It's obvious than they choose work before education. There is a point where it's just physically impossible to be there for your kids while spending that much time work. Don't even get me started on these higher ups spending so much time working even when they do get home.