Spend X hours working per week to get Y hours of family time
vs.
Spend X+n hours working per week (or just X if you can find ways to be more productive) to some much larger value of Y hours of family time over some estimated larger timeframe.
It's all a gamble and about risk, but if you think you might be able to retire early in say, 10 years, and get to spend a much larger amount of time with your family (and be presumably less stressed and in a better position to support them financially) that might be worth a bit of extra hustle or focus on productivity than spending 20 years working for some similar result.
I'm being really hand-wavey with numbers, but when people think of early retirement for these reasons, that's often the thinking behind it.
There's a fair question to be raised on the quality of that time spent, particularly when you look at your health when you are younger, and the impact of spending time with children when they are young, but there's a lot of factors that people consider when weighing these questions, and I don't think it is entirely fair to judge someone because they may weigh those questions differently than you did.
Spend X hours working per week to get Y hours of family time
vs.
Spend X+n hours working per week (or just X if you can find ways to be more productive) to some much larger value of Y hours of family time over some estimated larger timeframe.
It's all a gamble and about risk, but if you think you might be able to retire early in say, 10 years, and get to spend a much larger amount of time with your family (and be presumably less stressed and in a better position to support them financially) that might be worth a bit of extra hustle or focus on productivity than spending 20 years working for some similar result.
I'm being really hand-wavey with numbers, but when people think of early retirement for these reasons, that's often the thinking behind it.
There's a fair question to be raised on the quality of that time spent, particularly when you look at your health when you are younger, and the impact of spending time with children when they are young, but there's a lot of factors that people consider when weighing these questions, and I don't think it is entirely fair to judge someone because they may weigh those questions differently than you did.