Not surprisingly, the rest of my life shriveled into a dried raisin. I lost contact with old friends. I saw little of my wife, and even less of our two sons, Adam, then 15, and Sam, 12.

One evening, for the sixth time in a row, I phoned home to tell the boys that once again I’d miss their bedtime. That’s okay, said Sam. But could I wake him up when I did get home? That would be real late, I said; he would have gone to sleep long before. It was probably better if I saw him the next morning.

Sam listened, but insisted. I asked him why. He said he just wanted to know I was there.

To this day I can’t explain precisely what happened at that moment. But I suddenly knew, with utter finality, that I had to leave my job.

A number of ordinary citizens wrote me after I announced my resignation. Most were sympathetic. A few were not.

Many women on the fast track, they wrote, were already battling a culture that criticized them for sacrificing too much -- and here I was, seemingly agreeing that a balanced life was incompatible with a high-powered job. Others said while it might be easy for me to find another well-paying job that gave me more time for my family, they didn’t have that option. I was sending the wrong message to people like them too.

I should have expected that my career decision would carry symbolic weight -- after all, I was the Secretary of Labor. But I had no intention whatsoever of sending a message to others about how they should lead their lives. Sam’s simple request was, rather, the wake-up call I needed to tell me how I should live mine.

Still, my choice was troubling precisely because so many of us face the same problem of balancing work and family life.

While most Americans make more money than our parents did a generation ago, the average, middle-income married couple with children now works far longer hours than they did two decades go -- the equivalent of more than two months a year longer.

What’s going on? Partly it’s technology like cell phones, e-mail and faxes that make work more accessible and cause many to spend more time working.

But the economy has also been shifting from stable mass production toward continuous innovation. To become more nimble, companies are tying even the typical, mid-level salaried employee’s pay to profits.

What we earn increasingly depends on bonuses, stock options and overtime pay -- all of which can rise or fall or disappear. We reconcile unpredictable incomes with predictable bills by going full out when work is available.

A friend of mine, a new father, is putting in 14-hour workdays. He’d rather not be working so hard, and no one has asked him to. But his pay is directly related to the firm’s profits. Recently, demand has been up. He figures he’d better make hay while the sun shines.

My friend’s situation helps explain why so few of us -- wherever we work, however much we make -- take longer vacations or use family-leave. We feel that if we opt out even a little, we may be opting out permanently. So we’re tempted to work harder.

I faced that temptation after I left Washington. Adam was running a big cross-country race at school and I was determined not to miss it. Then someone called me about a project. The pay was generous, but I’d have to begin the day of the race.

I turned the project down and, judging from his big wave and bright smile, Adam was glad I did. He won the race, and I like to think my presence there may have caused him to push himself a bit harder.

I wish I could say I had no regrets about the project I passed up. But not a few times on that Saturday morning my mind drifted, thinking about what it was "costing" me to be there. Then I saw Adam’s face as he crossed the finish line. It was worth it.

Like what Bob says here? Send this page to a few of your friends. Fill in their e-mail addresses below and click the button below to e-mail it to them.