Researchers have found that how adolescents perceive their parents' attitudes to work is key to the development of their own work attitudes. ( The Atlantic) Although it's a bit more complicated than that if you're the mom. From the piece:

People who perceive their father to have a strong career-orientation are more likely to be career-oriented themselves—but career-determined mothers have no effect on their kids’ work orientation.... Mothers do have a notable effect on whether children have a job-orientation mentality. Adolescents who are close to their mothers are less likely to view work as just a job when they grow up, probably because they’ve been raised to value social, rather than instrumental, life experiences.

I think this is a mostly good-news story for us, although of course it raises the question of whether our family has the right balance in place. My husband and I are pretty privileged to have great work that is meaningful to us, and that is exactly what I would want for my kids. I have sometimes struggled with how to present work to my kids. When my eldest was first in daycare, I used to tell him I was glad he would get to go play with his friends, but that I would miss him and be sad we were apart. One day he asked me "are you crying all day long?" Being the slightly anxious mum I am, I worried that he was getting the impression that work was some kind of horrible meaningless place. After that I started saying "I love to go work at my job, but I hate being apart from you." This year he started saying that to his little brother: "I'm sorry we're apart, but I like my class." I guess our anecdotal evidence backs the study up. How does your work-life balance affect your kids' attitudes?   (Photo: iStock)