I spent my 20s doing programming started off doing web dev and support and ended up doing the consulting thing. Got involved in a few games and start ups along

I spent my 20s doing programming started off doing web dev and support and ended up doing the consulting thing. Got involved in a few games and start ups along the way. Made some money, have a bunch of opinions about how not to do things, met interesting people,and generally thought I was in for the duration. I had kids, and my spouse flat out makes more money than me for fewer hours and better benefits. So, I am now the full time parent. We decided that having one of us stay home would be the best for the kids. So far it seems to make a difference. It has really great parts and hard bits too. Basically, after a decade of short deadlines and long hours it's hard to adjust to the final product being your kids be good people by 2035. You get to rediscover the joy of playing at the playground, pet neighborhood dogs, and visit libraries and museums. On the other hand,I think that in the first year of COVID my number of adults interacted with per week approached 1. I admit that I keep my foot in the door at one of my previous employers where I do someplace between zero and 5 hours a week of work on some legacy systems I helped build and have now been left to grow unchecked for 10 years. Overall, I think that from a pure lifestyle perspective I don't think I can go back to 50+ hour weeks.