Gotta disagree here. When you choose to have kids you're giving yourself to something greater. Ignoring them to dedicate yourself to a career is not someone's "yum", it's just being derelict in your duties to your children. Don't have kids if your "yum" is dedicating your life to your career, and no one will have any problems with your choice.
>Don't yuck someone's yum, if they're making decisions for themselves with open eyes.
Why? You cannot critique the decisions of anyone? They are free to ignore me, or think I'm wrong. In respect to you points, an engineer is not a astronaut, a seaman or a pilot. You are not required due to the nature of your job to be away from your children, or sleep in the a cold floor like an animal.
Not even the quality of the work needs it, it's just so you don't hire more people. Sure, there are real emergencies were you might take a rain check with your kid once or twice a year, but a constant culture of grind is different. The whole "hardcore" mentality is cultivated because it is cheaper, the sacrifice is yours and the Elons of the world reap the rewards.
This is not mere personal choice, it's purposely engineered. The plan is that everyone in tech becomes a corporate GameDev, and like it.
Plenty of astronauts' kids and spouses are probably super proud of what their family member did, even with the sacrifices they all made.
Conflating Elon's ego into the picture is strawman-ing the question -- whether sacrifice in the service of a greater goal is worth it.
My answer? It depends, and it's everyone's own choice to make.