That may be easy for Foster to say, having acted in almost three dozen movies, directed two others (Little Man Tate and Home for the Holidays) and won two Best Actress Oscars (for 1988's The Accused and 1991's The Silence of the Lambs). Indeed, what Foster craves most now is an ordinary life. Some actors pay someone to "walk their dog and pick up the kids from school," she said. "But that's your life. So you're paying someone else to live your life so you can work more? I'd rather pay somebody to work for me." For her, motherhood is "the great equalizer," says her former producing partner and fellow parent Julie Bergman Sender. "We're all at the park in our T-shirts that have a million food stains on them, and it doesn't matter if you're a working mother, a stay-at-home mom or an Academy Award-winning actress. Everybody is in there making sure her kid isn't eating sand -- and that includes Jodie."

Of course, Foster's $15 million-a-picture paychecks give her the freedom to choose, a luxury only a relative few can afford. "I never had the option of saying, 'I think I'll stop and do carpool and knit,' " says Lynda Obst, whose son is now 23. Still, as mothers on both ends of the salary scale know, working is often not entirely about payday; it is also about identity -- a mind-set that is generally age-related, says producer Peter Guber. "Actresses in their 20s live to work," he says. "Those over 30 work to live. The vagaries of the business become so prominent that family takes on greater importance." Especially established stars, he says, "realize, 'Been there, did it.' "

Timing certainly was an issue for Demi Moore, 39. Over the course of two years starting in 1996, the actress with more than $1 billion in box office sales to her name saw her life turned upside down. After receiving a then-record $12.5 million to star in Striptease, she withstood withering criticism when it tanked. The following year's G.I. Jane proved another disappointment. Then, in June of 1998, her 10-year marriage to Bruce Willis collapsed -- and a month later she watched as her long-estranged mother, Virginia Guynes, died of a brain tumor and cancer at age 54. Moore holed up in her mountain hamlet of Hailey, Idaho, to play full-time mom to daughters Rumer, now 13, Scout, 10, and Tallulah, 8. "I just needed to stop and take a break," she told IN STYLE. "The gains outweigh any losses." Today her greatest pleasure seems to be sitting in the audience, as she did a few months ago at nearby Ketchum's St. Thomas Episcopal Church -- alongside her ex as well as her beau of three years, martial arts instructor Oliver Whitcomb, 31 -- watching Rumer sing solo with the Sun Valley Summer Symphony.