I heard it twice today: “Well, you know Ms. X. She has to work …” I know what that means: The woman in question has enough money (or her husband does) that she has the option of not finding a paying-job-outside-the-home.

That phrase, tossed off so easily in some conversations, has always chapped me. Saying someone HAS to work makes it sound like having a job is something to be pitied, especially if you’re a woman. Or, worse yet, that your work isn’t really important … if you don’t have to do it, how vital could it be?

I realize more and more that it’s the choice of working — being able to have a fulfilling job that helps build a career — that might just be the single biggest step women have taken in the last generation or so. And for many women, it’s the thing that keeps them sane, no matter how terrific their marriage is, how wonderful their kids are, and how much they love playing tennis.

I once read that Julia Child knew that marrying her beloved Paul and discovering her passion for cooking saved her from a life of boredom at best, and alcoholism at worst. Ruth Reichl, in her recent memoir “On Not Being My Mother,” outlines in fairly terrifying form the compromises her mother was forced to make, and the difficulties it caused for everyone in her life, because she was never really able to build a career.

When I graduated from college, I often wondered why my mother was so eager for me to head off to big, bad New York City with only the promise of a low-paying magazine internship on the horizon. It’s painful to understand, all these years later, that she wanted for me something she never really had: A life’s work that consumed every bit of her intellect and gave her a reason to get up in the morning. I know she was a terrific teacher, but I also know she felt as though it was one of the few choices she had when she needed a way to make a dependable salary.

And it’s those choices that are so important to keep in mind, whenever we talk about women working. I know few women, even those who don’t make a regular paycheck, who actually don’t “work.” Here’s to finding your passion, working because you want to, not because you have to, and building a life that balances everything you love that’s important.

Yes, I have to work.