<p>My best friend from college is a doctor. She managed to have 4 children in the process of attending a top medical school and becoming a specialist in a highly paid field. She and her husband, also a doctor, managed to buy a house in an expensive area while still in training. Subsequently they bought/built a series of multi-million dollar houses and vacation houses. Neither of them had any family money behind them. Dont forget that during a number of years of that training doctors are being paid and actually practicing medicine. It is not as if they spend the entire time in a classroom!</p>
<p>I think that the difficulties of medical training and the supposed life of drudgery and penury are GROSSLY overstated. You would be hard pressed to find a woman who in a corporate career who was able to have four children during her working life and not be severely impacted in terms of climbing the corporate ladder. An extraordinary number of women at the top in business are single or childless. The major exceptions seem to be those who made big $$ as entrepreneurs. Few people have what it takes to be entrepreneurs on that level.</p>