Yes its a balancing act, but its also about setting priorities. I am a university professor with a 17 and 19 year old. How do I do it?
1) My husband and I both bike to work. Now that daylight savings time is over, we plan to just leave at the crack of dawn so we can also leave early and get home before dark. We also bring home work to do at night.
2) Biking IS our social life. Our friends are fellow bike club members, and our social activity is to ride together every sat. and sun. am. Our rides start at 8 or 9am and are usually over by noon, so we have the rest of the day free to do other things (like food shop, household maintenance, etc).
3) Vacations center around cycling.
Basically, all our acitivites center around our work, our family, and cycling. It also helps that our kids are older and need less constant attention.