I think that the most-important thing to learn is: what are tools such as Perl used for? What sort of problems are tools like Perl used to solve, and why do real-world businesses have those problems?

Once a business need has been identified, the manner in which Perl (e.g...) is applied to the problem is either to find or to build a program that fills that need. Most often, "building" makes very heavy use of existing constituent parts, e.g. CPAN packages. Once the solution has been built or installed, it must be applied and maintained (on an ongoing basis...) in the daily data-processing procedures of the business.

I rather-routinely work in situations where I have to "ramp up" on whatever this-or-that project or client is doing. I might be working with Perl in the morning, and PHP or Java or Ruby in the afternoon. There is a certain art to being able to make that mental transition, but it really goes to show you: "how things change, how things stay the same." The languages are "different," yes, but then again they are not. The tasks being accomplished, and the way in which they are being accomplished using this-or-that tool, are basically the same. The same mistakes are made, too.

So, if you can "grab ahold of 'the big picture' and never lose sight of it," as an analyst would do, that might be the very best strategy you could use. And here is where your experience ... as a mother and therefore as "manager of a family" ... is definitely relevant. Before you focus on anything, you have to constantly decide what to focus on, how much attention to devote to it, what you're trying to accomplish and whether or not you're doing it, and so on. These "soft skills" are every bit as important as "syntactic prowess."