I would support efforts to try to redraw the line as stated above. I do think we would all be better off if we could do so. But my default assumption is that that won't happen - we will fail to organize effectively enough to redraw the line and we wont "get the day off" that the parent asks for. Maybe I need to be more optimistic to encourage such efforts, but because I think merely asking has such poor chances, I'd rather point to the problem of coordination in an attempt to move the convo towards "how do we beat the coordination problem" - hopefully by being more aware of the size of the hill we are facing, we can be more likely to devise more ambitious approaches to solving the problem

Hours alone is not the only thing that matters, but all else being equal it does matter. Someone who works smarter for 20 hours will get ahead of someone who works stupid for 40, but if both people work smart the 40 hours person gets more done