[swatcoder]

Oh, and to offer something more personal:

I spent the middle decade of my career with a partner at home who needed regular care-taking. I needed to put that ahead of any traditional career treadmill and so I worked remotely for a mid-sized contracting firm and was clear about my availability. They gave me the work I needed, and I preserved the time and space I needed.

Because I worked for the same firm all that time, and did good work, I established a strong and trusting relationship that afforded me increasingly more flexibility and control.

Plus, by volunteering to support the other sides of the business like Sales, Recruiting, etc I learned more than enough about contracting to be quite confident and successful when I eventually decided to go out on my own -- which gave me even more control.

I can't tell you if it's a path that would make sense for you, but it was a very rewarding one for me.