I was raised in a place where women were not supposed to amount to anything. My dad said to me “You should go to college and finish. Because I know my sisters always wished they had finished college.”

Somehow the idea of me going to college to have a career for myself and to accomplish an ambitious goal for my future wasn’t something he expressed.

Early on I told my mother I wanted to have 10 kids.

Honestly? That was the only future I could imagine. Women in my world did not have careers or ambitions. They did have a lot of kids.

And if that was the only standard of achievement, I was going to acieve more than anyone I knew

I burned to have a challenge.

I did find a challenge in my career, eventually. I loved my job.

I did want to start a family, but I was quite ready to postpone it.

I was totally unwilling for my ambitions to take a backseat to childrearing.

How about side-by-side?