flybye,

I see where you're coming from and what was mentioned above is true; everyone's situation is different. Aviation is a very selfish career path as it wants all of your money and time during college, and some of your money and a great majority of time afterwards. Your situation is much different as you have a wife and kid and pursuing an aviation career at the same time. It might not be the best thing to do to have a career where you're never home, especially when you have a really young kid. I have a hard enough time paying bills, going to school and work as it is so I can't even relate to the stress that must have been placed on you. I've been in a really bad financial situation as well and I know what it's like to lose sleep because of it.

I was a web designer/developer as well (still am, sort of, to a lesser degree) but after getting laid off and having carpal tunnel syndrome in my right hand before the age of twenty and staring at things like < ? $error = 0; } all day every day I started looking at my other options.

Before people jump on me for having aviation as one of my other options, it's not my only one. One of which is a startup web design firm which I'm launching next January. If anything, the decline in the industry should persuade more people to exercise their other options financially.

All that said, I wish you the best of luck in whatever path you choose.