Well, any reasonable adult would explain that the world does not revolve around one particular person; that the child can't be two places at the same time; that she must choose one activity or the other; and that, in so choosing, she gains one opportunity but forfeits another.

This isn't because the child is a girl. This isn't a feminist issue. This is Life 101, something all people learn as kids -- until they grow up to be a high-level government official who has to choose between one six-figure job near her kids and one far away, and can't accept life's inherent limitations.

Like a kindergartner, Slaughter seems to think that she -- and women in general -- should somehow be exempt from universal realities that have nothing to do with gender inequality and everything to do with the fact that you can't defy the laws of physics. Forget biological clocks. Time and space do not magically expand because you'd like to be two places at once or do more things than can fit into a 24-hour period or even a life span. Somebody might want -- and have the talent -- to be an Olympic gymnast, a Nobel-winning mathematician, and a professional ballerina, but there are age and health and time limitations involved. There isn't a policy in the world that could change the fact that if you choose to be in Washington five days a week , you can't also be at home tucking in your children and dealing with their issues back in Princeton.

Did Slaughter, despite her intelligence, somehow imagine that she could be an involved, engaged parent while living in another city for two years? Did her inability to anticipate the fact that she might miss her children and they might miss her make this the fault of feminism, or just a case of not completely thinking through one's decision? Where is her responsibility in this, and what does this have to do with inequality?

Life involves dozens of choices on a daily basis. Some are big and some are about which toilet paper to buy -- less soft and more economical is a trade-off for plush and expensive. The secret to happiness? Pick one, and don't complain that it's too rough or expensive. If you don't like your choice, it's a free country, and you can change course -- as Slaughter did when she decided to come home to Princeton and turn down the very generous option her bosses offered of working only four days a week in Washington. (How many middle-class women get those kinds of accommodations? How many men do?)

Rather than accept the very basic childhood lesson that choosing one option might impact the feasibility of another, Slaughter blames the government, men, society, feminism, cultural attitudes, the workplace and other externals. If you choose Harvard because you like Cambridge better than New Haven, you have to give up Yale and your love of its drama department. If you order the salmon entrée at your favorite restaurant, you have to forgo ordering the steak entrée that night. If you choose to have kids, you have to give up a certain amount of your freedom for the next 18 years. Not just career freedom, but marital, economic and social freedom as well. Order up what you want -- Harvard, the wild salmon, the kids -- but know that there's no such option out there called "having it both ways."