For me, I have always cycled, had a pretty intense career (I run a research lab at a major research university where I also teach), and raised two so-far well adjusted and productive kids. We are soon to be empty-nesters as our youngest heads off to MIT this fall (daughter is at wellesley), so how do we do it all? For one, somewhat in response to the last post, it has always been we (my husband has the same job I do). I think that is key, both partners sharing the workload (and fun!) equally. That doesn't mean at every moment, but that the overall balance is there. It also means not being afraid to pay for help, we earn enough money that we could afford high quality day care when our kids were young, a women to clean our house and wash our clothes, etc. While recreational cycling has taken a different role in our lives at different times, one thing that has helped us stay active even when our kids were young is to cycle commute. Yes, when they were young we had those chairs that sit on the back of a bike like a rack, and now make me cringe that we ever did that, but that was all there was, and that was how our kids got to and from day care (nowadays there are trailers). As our kids were growing up, they would bike with us on family vacations, we even did Ride for the Roses one year as a family. As our kids got older yet, and wanted to do their own activities, we started to club ride early on weekend mornings, but would forgo club social acitivities to get home for a family lunch. Its nice cuz as we become empty nesters, we have our cycling to keep us busy and missing the kids less. We still get together for active family vacations, in fact we are planning a family scuba diving trip to florida this summer before our youngest starts college. I saw two couples show up for a club ride, and each guy had the kids in a trailer on his bike, while the wives were on single bikes, and that ended up also equalizing their speeds (these were racer boys) so they could ride as a group. I also have friends struggling with this that bought tandems as a way of combining family time and cycling time. So, it can be done, but you have to figure out what makes sense for your family.