Child's question prompts reflection on work.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

I was standing in the kitchen setting the table the other night, when my 10-year-old daughter popped a question I didn't know how to answer.

"Mom, why don't you work all the time?"

It was the first such question I'd fielded from my only daughter, and I didn't know what to think.

Was she just being a curious 10-year-old, checking out her grasp of the world? Or was she being critical of the fact that I only work a few hours a week from home, while a lot of her friends' moms have "all-the-time" jobs beyond the home front?

Did she need for me to talk about the role of women today? Or was this just an innocent question prompted by a child's desire for more material things, which she knows a second, full-time job in the family would bring?

I …