I am 38 and mother of a 2 y.o. I work at a marketing firm. For months now I have to work 10 to 11 h per day. Most days, I come home at 7 or 8pm, get my kid to bed, eat dinner and work again. Sometimes I work on weekends too, respond to client's emails or monitoring project progress. And there is no overtime pay.
I feel like my life is happening without me. I see my kid like half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the evening. I eat quick meals to have more time to work. I haven't seen a movie in months because when I have free time all l want to do is stay in bed. Work is all my life now. Even when I don't work I still have to think about work because of deadlines, of unfinished projects or unexpected client's request. I care about work more than my kid because I can always make her wait while I can't do the same with my clients.
I know I get my priorities wrong but what choice do I have? People don't care that I am a mother of a young child. They only care about what I can bring in as a worker. The whole capitalist society treat us like objects, they value us according to how much money we can get them. We are not human being but machine to work, work, work. When there are a real machine that can do our work they won't hesitate to toss us out.
And all of this for what? Just for sell more products, mostly useless, to people. I neglect my child to help some company sells a bottle of shampoo that has a slightly different parfum. Do we really need hundred different types of shampoo? Most of us work for jobs that don't even need to exist, that don't make the society or human life better.