This seems to miss an important point: choice. Most middle-class Americans get to choose their jobs, within reason. Most American schoolchildren do not get to choose their schools.
I went to a charter high school whose curriculum focused on letting us do individualized projects catering to our interests. Its 7-hour day (8:30-3:30) seemed far less oppressive than the 6-hour-and-20-minute day at my public middle school. I've kept up with it after graduation, and they now offer after-school classes and programs until 5:00, and summer courses. And kids go, even though they don't have to. Why not, when their friends are there and the programs are stuff they're interested in anyway?
Similarly, I don't mind working long hours at the Googleplex, because my friends are there, they give me food, and the work is interesting and meaningful.
When those conditions aren't met, you'll find many fewer people bragging about how much time they spent at work. Some working-poor people will work two jobs to make ends meet, but they don't brag about it, they complain about it. It's only because a relatively large number of Americans can now work in jobs that they find challenging and stimulating that we get the workaholic American.
I went to a charter high school whose curriculum focused on letting us do individualized projects catering to our interests. Its 7-hour day (8:30-3:30) seemed far less oppressive than the 6-hour-and-20-minute day at my public middle school. I've kept up with it after graduation, and they now offer after-school classes and programs until 5:00, and summer courses. And kids go, even though they don't have to. Why not, when their friends are there and the programs are stuff they're interested in anyway?
Similarly, I don't mind working long hours at the Googleplex, because my friends are there, they give me food, and the work is interesting and meaningful.
When those conditions aren't met, you'll find many fewer people bragging about how much time they spent at work. Some working-poor people will work two jobs to make ends meet, but they don't brag about it, they complain about it. It's only because a relatively large number of Americans can now work in jobs that they find challenging and stimulating that we get the workaholic American.