I chose not to partake in any of those things knowing I really need my 9-10 hours. Genetic lottery blessed and cursed me in different ways, and my sleep requirements are one that will dictate my choices in life can't be the same as short sleepers.

I was sleeping 6-7 hours through highschool and I can vividly remember it being the worst period of my life, standing in the shower each morning overwhelmed by the thought "I want to sleep so bad I wish I was dead, because that's like, an infinite satisfaction of the desire to sleep." Don't misread this it wasn't a dark thought at all, I was just THAT tired.

Am I the only one making the hard choice- choosing good sleep forever?

There are certainly periods of work and early parenthood that make sleep difficult, but that shouldn't be true for more than a few years.

Unless you're grinding away at a once in a lifetime opportunity, you shouldn't be sacrificing years of your life to poor sleep to work 16 hour days or something. Make sleep a priority and learn how to set boundaries.

Unless his life is also a luxury, deep sleep is a nessecity. Those other things can take a back seat, unless it's an emergency situation concerning the wife, kids, etc.

A modern family man is also no use dead or when performing badly due to lack of good sleep.

I average 8.5 hours an night, have 3 and 5 year old kids, get up with them half the mornings, eat with them 6 nights a week, gym 3 times a week, run a popular open source project, cofounded a startup (and a staff+ IC until recently) and do my share of chores at home. I’m sure that’s not possible for everyone/everywhere but a non-trivial number of privileged middle-class parents in tech (like me) have convinced themselves it is impossible when it is not.

While I see the point with (at least) young kids, I dont see how things like work would go against good quality sleep?