setting boundaries for work vs life.

I think you hit the nail on the head here. If /u/radiatingkayla's mom wasn't there to move her into and out of college, it was because she didn't want to. No company is going to fail by having one manager, even a top executive, be gone for a few hours. The companies that are in danger of failing because of a short absence of a manager are so because of the control freak management style that makes it impossible for anyone else to do their work without the manager's input. If her mom works 12-14 hour days it's because she doesn't want to hire and then delegate roles to deputies and/or assistants. (/u/radiatingkayla, I'm not intentionally putting you on blast, I'm just using your mom as an example.) A common theme of managerial disfunction that pops up on the show The Profit repeatedly is the refusal to delegate responsibilities to subordinates. Then the owner is stressed out and overworked. (Hmm, I wonder why? /s)

Another thing is that when people get new jobs often all they focus on is how much they are going to be making. They don't factor into the equation how much they are going to be expected to work. Say a person works a normal 40 work week and gets a salary of $50K per year. (This works out to ~$25/hr assuming 14 days of vacation per year.) They get a job offer for $60K and jump on it. Well lo and behold, the new job wants them to work 60 hours per week. Well, this pay raise was actually a pay cut because now they're only making $20/hr.

Another factor in my opinion is that often people generally, and women especially, don't want to say no/want to please their boss. Obviously having a good relationship with one's boss is important, but some people are actually afraid of saying no to their boss. Add to that the feeling that many women have that they need to prove themselves in the workplace, and I think that women especially can be susceptible to this. (Young people too.) When a boss gives someone an unrealistic deadline, instead of speaking up and correcting the boss's expectations, they kill themselves with working overtime to meet the deadline. That is all fine and well on occasion, but if you (and your boss) make it a regular habit, then your quality of life is seriously hampered.