Modern Families: Frantic, Tired

It's Monday morning at the Zeiss household: Two kids, two parents, two incomes and way too much to do. Nine-year-old Jake makes breakfast. His mom, Kim, preps dinner, "Cause there won't be any time for us later to make dinner," she says.

At 7:30 a.m. Kim starts another load of laundry then helps her 10-year-old daughter Madison find a missing pair of shoes. Dad Gary, in charge of keeping the family in touch through the day, hands out cell phones.

While the Zeiss' move at the speed of light, how do we know how typical a family they are?

Well, as CBS News Correspondent Sandra Hughes reports, researchers at the University of California in Los Angeles decided to study them and 31 other families. They're studying them down to the tiniest detail of their frantic lives to find out what's going on in America's families today.

"The intensity level of family life now seems to have skyrocketed," says UCLA psychologist Thomas Bradbury.

Another finding: family life is overscheduled and child-dominated.

"These homes are a little like Grand Central Station," says Bradbury. "There's a lot of comings and goings, a lot of activities and a lot of coordination of activities that have to happen."

For Kim Zeiss, that means school pick-up and Jake's tennis lesson, all coordinated from her command center, where homework is also done. Then there's hockey and a snack for Madison.

By sundown they haven't faded. Madison is fencing dad and winning, while Jake finishes up his homework.

Asked if she ever feels overwhelmed with all the activities, Kim Zeiss says: "We do this by choice. We love doing this. It's a blast."

And, she says, they're not alone.

"I can name 50 families who are almost as busy as we are," she says. "It's very normal here."

It does seem to be the norm, just like home offices and owning so much stuff that the UCLA researchers brought in archeologists to catalogue all the junk.

"People's objects are choking them, and creating quite a bit of stress," says anthropologist Elinor Ochs.

There are some suggestions.

"Turn off the TV, make sure we have dinner together many days out of the week and make sure that part of the weekend is spent together in family time as best we can," says Bradbury.

That's not a problem for the Zeiss family, even if it does mean eating dinner at 11:30 p.m. and a really late bedtime.

This busy family says they are happy and together, and that's all that matters.