I know a woman who has three children. From the time she was a young girl she wanted to be a mother. By her teens she had added to motherhood the goals of becoming a science teacher, and a pastor's wife.

She first became pregnant at 21, when her husband was in his first year of seminary. After the birth of a daughter, she went back to work in the accounting department of a savings and loan. Leaving the daughter with a sitter. That lasted about six weeks. She just could not stand to have someone else raising her child. So the young couple worked on their budget: with some changes--making meals from scratch, sewing her clothes and the baby's, her husband taking a new position as student pastor of two small churches as well as working some evenings as a night watchman--they were able for her to be a stay-at-home mom.

The second pregnancy began during the last year of seminary. She stayed home with the two children the next year while her husband worked as a school teacher and a pastor. Then she went to work part-time as a bank teller to help them afford a new car, but her main energy went to the children. Then came the third child, three more years as a stay-at-home mom, then part-time as a bank teller again. Her career decision took second-place to her children

Finally, when the youngest was in second-grade, she began teaching high school science full-time. But the children always were first, and no matter how busy she was, or how she felt, she made time for them.

The children are away from home now. They've turned out OK. I married well; this woman is my wife.