There are things called empathy and humanity. Yes children should be the top priority, not only mine but everyone's. I don't ask you to compensate my hours because I have a child, I ask to try to find the best solutions to an exceptional problem, by being adults and open to discussion. The fact that you think there would be a power play is because YOU consider it to be a matter of power. It's not about power, it's not about the fact that what you have to do is more important or not. It's children (or family, or humans, or living animals), nothing is more important. We don't talk about free time here, we talk about being there for people that completely depend on us. And of course it's exceptional, situation would probably smoothen out after a few days or weeks, where we could find solutions that better suit everyone.
We talk about children here, you just cannot simply decide to put them aside for a while. What hobby is more important to justify that you need to do it at a specific time ? You just invented this constraint to try to prove a point, but it really sounds like you just want to rant. Do you have children ? It's already exhausting to take care of them in normal times, but I can guarantee that when you don't know when they can go back to children care or school, and you have to work on top of that, it becomes really difficult. If you had to take care of one of your relatives, I would not think twice about trying to be more flexible for you to do so.
I'm exactly in the same boat as you, I love my 2012 non retina Macbook Pro.
Upgraded the RAM a few years ago, changed the HDD for an SSD, and it still works fine.
I didn't like the newer MBP keyboard or touchbar, maybe now they're getting better.
But the price is what will push me away.
I'll probably try to find a nice model on which I can make sure Linux run fine.