ANA CAROLINA BELCHIOR’S grandmother never worked outside her home. With six children to look after, she hardly had the time. Ms Belchior’s mother was a teacher in São Paulo, like her daughter, but her life’s ambition was to have a family. She married at 22, and bore the first of her four children immediately. “I did think about starting a family when I was just 21 or 22,” says Ana Carolina, “but it was a dream, not a concrete plan…the main thing was I wanted a career.”
