The problem is, most Americans don't know what to do with leisure time. It actually causes them distress. We need to figure out how to get people engaged in other pursuits before we disengage them from work.
5 days of work. Get up, get self ready, get kids ready, get kids to school, work, get home, feed kids, get kids to bed. Too mentally tired to do anything now, and if it's not summer then the Sun's either down or going down. Hope you didn't need to mow the damn lawn again, or your evening's really shot.
Day 6, spend actually quality time with kids (finally!), begin to recover from the work week.
Day 7, starting to feel like a real human again, maybe do just a little stuff for one's self, get the house in order after 6 days of chaos, do other necessary stuff that was deferred during the work week.
Day 8: five days of work starts over.
Can't say I agree.
On the contrary, 2 days off and I would have nowhere near the time I would like to do all the things I want to do.