The crux of so many stories I write comes down to respecting the hard and important work of caregiving. I'd like to see a world where all women have the opportunity to pursue work that gives them meaning, but also where all workers, men and women, can spend less time on the job and more time managing their homes and families -- especially those with small children. The "motherhood penalty" in the workplace is a vicious cycle. Women take more career breaks to focus on caregiving/homemaking because they make less money, but they make less money because they are perceived as less committed to their careers.

Homemaking entails more than caretaking, of course, and the time demands on working families has definitely led to a more wasteful, consumer-oriented culture in which, for instance, we'll just buy new socks rather than sewing old socks, or we'll buy a lot of pre-prepared, over-packaged foods rather than make meals from scratch. A sad and unintended consequence of women moving into the workforce!