I can say I hope it will be worth what I give up

When I am at work, I am making a conscious choice to be a scientist rather than a derby girl, a future wife or best friend. Much like many other scientists, I have frequently made this choice for about 60 hours a week for much of my scientific career. While this sacrifice is commonly borne with a stamp of pride, there appears to be mounting evidence that this level of dedication could have a deleterious effects on productivity, creativity, and quality of the work and seldom leads to a healthy emotional or personal life.

How many scientists:

1) Brag about missing major life events in the name of science?

 I skipped [major holiday with family] so that I could run an experiment.

2) Have talked about family obligations or responsibilities as though they're an unreasonable drain of one's time?

 :::scoffs::: I have to go babysit [my own child].

3) Talk about how much they work and how stressed out they are?

I'm so stressed out that I grind my teeth during the little time I'm capable of sleep.

Part of the problem is that this is the culture of science and it's run  in a way that's counterproductive to effective stress management and efficacious productivity. I'm stressed out, producing crappy, not-significant research, and sacrificing the little time I have to enjoy the things I enjoy to drudge along and feel this way. 

How many career scientists have strained family relationships, or worse, have severed them altogether from the strain of scientific study and participation in this culture? How many of these people spend many of their years alone because their dedication to their work makes it difficult to find or maintain healthy or meaningful interpersonal relationships? How many people opt to pass on seeing their loved ones because of their commitment to scientific inquiry?

How many of them come to regret these choices?

I wish the culture of science didn't promote these sacrifices for the sake of science valor with a smear of pride. Perhaps then a retrospective account of a career in science wouldn't sound so much like a sad story borne by an unfortunate soul, driven by a slavish commitment to improving or informing the world in some noble way. I've hardly seen any movies where that's worked out in any way that seemed positive (The Saint?), forget any real life instances.

We mostly work to live... until we live to work...