I hear people in mid life use the justification so often that they live the terrible, deprived, unhealthy, crushing life they live because their kids mean everything to them and they want to provide them with the best.  It's such bullshit, its just kicking the can down the road.  Instead of working to actually make a community, a region, a country, a world that affords good quality of life, the parents just decides that sacrificing themselves is the answer??  Like I get it, it's noble, it helps the younger generation to have a money cushion.  But how about providing them with a parent that takes care of themselves, a parent with a social life, a parent with energy to devote to their kid rather than working to the bone, a parent that models sustainable lifestyle, a parent that does the work to make society more conducive to success for all, including themselves, so that it will be for their kids as well.  It's such a backwards ass attempt at virtue to perpetuate and uphold a system that runs off the exploitation of workers, under the auspices of giving children a better life.  You're simultaneously selling them right into the same fate you subjected yourself to.  Shit