When I ended up having children (adopting them, actually), my time for extra activities outside work went to zero. However, as the children have been getting ol

When I ended up having children (adopting them, actually), my time for extra activities outside work went to zero. However, as the children have been getting older, I've been getting slowly and gradually getting that extra time back. I try to allocate some time to spend with the children and some time for learning new stuff or working on a side project. It's worked out pretty well. I have had no problem with professional development, and I think it's because I've worked at places with reasonable work hours. It might have not gone so well if I had been working at a place that expected 10 hour days (or longer) or lots of weekend work. Instead, it's been 8 hours a day on weekdays for the most part, with the occasional bit of work outside that area. I've become a tech lead and moved into a senior role with no problems. My company is pretty family friendly and they value my abilities and experience even if I insist on making time to spend with my children. I lost a lot of time to spend on fun activities, but once the children become older, it's also a lot of fun to do activities with them. I got my kids the Robot Turtles board game to teach them programming, and they've had a lot of fun with that. So yes, having kids will significantly reduce the amount of time to spend on all those things you used to do, but it doesn't have to mean stagnation. I've still been able to make progress, although I certainly haven't had time for entrepreneurship. So you have to decide whether the reward (children and interacting with them every day) will be worth the effects it will have on your life. For some people, it's very much worth it. For other people, it's not. Life doesn't have to be go go go until you die or retire. You can slow down and enjoy it without becoming a dinosaur. In our field, demand is high, so we don't have to spend every waking moment trying to get ahead.