the end of the year comes, both working, not quite a year under your belt, the end of the year, the revie, and you both get excellent reviews again, and so the boss comes to you discuss the raise for this next year, and suddenly, you think, well, i hadn't planned on this, but i'm pregnant, and i love this job, this firm. i'll be back in a couple weeks after the baby. my mom and mother-in-law will take care of the baby. i solved the problem. you'll never miss me. the boss says, oh, okay, we want her back, she's been pretty good. we need to make sure that we motivate her to come back, we'll move her up to say $48,000. he comes in and the boss looks at him and says he's a hard chargers working so hard. he's going to be in management. we have to move him to the management track. that starts at $60,000, so now there's a $12,000 difference. it went from $5,000 up to $12,000 in just a couple years in these little pieces. what the message is here, the longer you work,ed wider the gap gets, and it keeps growing and growing. that's how it happens. it doesn't happen in a big way that you miss someth