Parenting or not, programming for commercial software shouldn't be a career goal unless you've already hoarded enough cash during the doc-com years. The open-source movement is bound to succeed and I truely believe it. That is to say, openoffice will kill ms-office and eclips will kill jbuilder and etc. Programming is like painting: if you love it, do it;if you have a family to support, be prepared to be a hungry artist/programmer. The bottom line is I program for the fun not for the money.