Being a late bloomer, I really didn't have any interest in children until my late 30s, but I'm so happy I didn't go through life without that experience.
I have heard all kinds of stories about telling employers about MS and I really don't know what the answer is. I am a private person, but I have found support by talking to fellow MSrs in the community.
In some cases we've been building tools that are specific to Linux for the desktop, and they only work on Linux, but I see two major projects that are wildly, wildly successful: Mozilla and OpenOffice, and those two programs are cross platform.