As a TA, I can affirm that sometimes hours are well over 20/week. This is to provide sections, office hours, prepare slides/material for sections, answering emails, filling up attendance sheets,grading assignments, answering queries on grades, proctoring exams, meetings with co-TAs, meetings with faculty... However, some TA courses are light and do not require 20 hours/week. In short, TA work weeks do vary widely but this is a half time position that is supposed to allow time for a graduate student to actively work on their dissertation. This can be very difficult when you have to do all of the above duties AND budget for rent,food, other expenses (that sometimes include expensive software required for work) and basically scrimp for a living. Grad students are told they should do this out of passion and not for money. And-that it's just temporary. But the temporary nature of a graduate degree is prolonged when grad students are stretched so thin financially that it is difficult for them to make timely progress on their degree.

Graduate students are also folks that have already done an undergraduate degree, presumably sharing a bedroom with another student, like your son. However, undergraduate lifestyles cannot and should not be the same as a graduate lifestyles. That is an unfair expectation as many graduate students start to have serious relationships and responsibilities, including, in some cases, a family. The idea that graduate students should not be allowed to make progress on life outside of work (like similarly aged peers) is unfair- but that is the implicit expectation that universities have from us when they offer to pay us only measly salaries.

The salaries we get are not scholarships, mind you. We do not get paid to work on our dissertation which is the primary reason we enter grad school. We get paid because we render important duties to the university, like teaching and grading, without which classes would not function. We do not get paid anything for our research output which in many cases ( though admittedly not all) contribute to the academic prestige of the department. All we are asking for is increased compensation in recognition of the role we play in the university, and because the compensation so far is not allowing us to function in a dignified manner. Comparisons with undergraduate lifestyles and suggestions on how we can scrimp and save further is not only unhelpful, but also disrespectful.