The salary is nice; I'm just not really motivated that much by money. I am however opposed to consistantly working over 50 hours a week when most of my overtime is going towards paperwork because the public and politicians want to blame teachers for society's ills. The amount of hours we have to spend in training nearly doubled this year. Seriously.
I don't want kids. I don't want to give up an exciting life to retire 'comfortable' or whatever else because I don't believe we can even predict what the economy will look like 30 years down the road.
The only reason I put in so many hours is because I want my kids to learn - even if it ticks them off that I try to challenge them and not just to pass them in an easy science class. People can poke fun at the fact I get summer off all they want. I'm working as hard as professionals making twice my salary in a field that is as anal-retentive as medicine.
It's just odd to me that people try to pretend like the superior thing to do is to sacrifice your youth to possibly make more money later on in life. That sounds miserable, and I'd never hold others to that standard.