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As the 21st Century began, Americans found themselves working longer, earning more, seeing less of their families, and liking it less. Time stress is universal. Under the intense pressures of global competition, the accelerated tempo of change, and the ever-increasing demands of the 7x24 workplace, the conflicts between work and family have grown acute, especially among younger workers. With women now accounting for nearly half the workforce, there is literally no one at home to care for the children and manage the home full-time. Over three decades, working couples lost an average of 22 hours a week of family time. Under this stress, the American family is literally shrinking - people are marrying later, having fewer children and having them later in life.

Hedrick Smith and his production team have created a two-hour nationwide broadcast for PBS looking at these chronic and growing tensions in American life and also at efforts to fine solutions that will ease the stress on families. Smith talked not only with people high and low - not only high-tech managers in Silicon Valley and high priced lawyers in Boston, but assembly line workers outside Chicago, hospital workers in New York City, and hotel housemaids and doormen in Washington, as well as experts on work-life issues. He found companies like Marriott, Baxter and Hewlett Packard trying innovative techniques to give more flexibility to their staff. In New York, Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union has blazed a pioneering path to help provide child care for its members, from infant day care to special programs for pre-college teens and summer camps for sub-teens. Yet these efforts remain the minority. Experts say it will take a far larger effort, probably involving public-private partnerships and changes in the norms and laws that regulate American work life to really get at the heart of the problem.

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