How realistic is it for a lay person with a family, 9-5 job, kids and other commitment to really attain any level of Samahdi? Maybe I'm not ready to meditate.
If by "levels" you mean jhanas - then, unrealistic. Even for 99% of monastics. Jhana is "the fruit of ascetic life" (as said in DN2), the final step of the Noble Path, the threshold of nibbana. However, there's much more in samadhi training than jhanas. According to DN10 samadhi is a huge field of mental development prior to jhanic one. It starts with "controlling the faculties" which itself is an enormous and very hard undertaking, especially for lay person. However, right here (in this large field of Samadhi) you can reach certain visible results - like the heightened mindfulness/awareness (which itself is very helpful in Virtue Training part), ability to control thoughts, suppress inner speech/dialogue, attain mental calmness at will (or - remove anxiety), anger control, etc, etc. All this is attainable even by a lay person, and is the goal of practice for so called "secular buddhists", who don't believe in rebirth, kamma, hells/heavens, but do different meditative mental exercises just/only for these visible here-and-now "psychological" results.
Buddha said, however, that before one starts doing this, one should first accomplish (to a high degree) Morality Stage - Virtue Training, otherwise you'll get little from Samadhi training, because the latter is entirely based on the former. And again this is a very large and complicated field of practice. This is where most of lay buddhists put their efforts.
just seems paradoxical that because this life is so short and I could die any moment, that it is stressful when I get tired from studying or meditating too much to the point where I just stop for a while, guess I need to be kinder to myself and find a middle ground. I'm confident i will with experience.
This is normal for a beginner in Buddhism. However, many burn out because of heightened expectations and too much striving - and then even quit Buddhism altogether. Be careful here, don't press too hard.
I'll cite a nice passage by Ajahn Chah on this matter.
If we realize enlightenment in this lifetime, that's fine. If we have to wait until our next life, no matter. We have faith and unfaltering conviction in the Dhamma. Whether we progress quickly or slowly is up to our innate capabilities, spiritual aptitude, and the merit we've accumulated so far. Practising like this puts the heart at ease. It's like we're riding in a horse cart. We don't put the cart before the horse. Or it's like trying to plow a rice paddy while walking in front of our water buffalo rather than behind. What I'm saying here is that the mind is getting ahead of itself. It's impatient to get quick results. That's not the way to do it. Don't walk in front of your water buffalo. You have to walk behind the water buffalo.
It's just like that chilli plant we are nurturing. Give it water and fertilizer, and it will do the job of absorbing the nutrients. When ants or termites come to infest it, we chase them away. Doing just this much is enough for the chilli to grow beautifully on its own, and once it is growing beautifully, don't try to force it to flower when we think it should flower. It's none of our business. It will just create useless suffering. Allow it to bloom on its own. And once the flowers do bloom don't demand that it immediately produce chilli peppers. Don't rely on coercion. That really causes suffering! Once we figure this out, we understand what our responsibilities are and are not. Each has their specific duty to fulfill. The mind knows its role in the work to be done. If the mind doesn't understand its role, it will try to force the chilli plant to produce peppers on the very day we plant it. The mind will insist that it grow, flower, and produce peppers all in one day.
This is nothing but the second Noble Truth: craving causes suffering to arise. If we are aware of this Truth and ponder it, we'll understand that trying to force results in our Dhamma practice is pure delusion. It's wrong. Understanding how it works, we let go and allow things to mature according to our innate capabilities, spiritual aptitude and the merit we've accumulated. We keep doing our part. Don't worry that it might take a long time. Even if it takes a hundred or a thousand lifetimes to get enlightened, so what? However many lifetimes it takes we just keep practicing with a heart at ease, comfortable with our pace. 
