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Driving on the way in to the office today, I began to think about some of the changes my family and I have gone through since our move to the Midwest just about a year ago. We’ve met some amazing new friends and the kids have adapted so well, I now have no qualms about ever moving again. They simply make the best of any situation their in.
On thing that has become more clear is how your social life – after you have kids – is forever altered and changed by having kids. Even those folks you meet up and socialize with that have older kids, aren’t as interested in hanging out if your kids are younger.
This is in no way a criticism of those folks, they’re all good people. But it’s clear that once you’ve raised your kids, and you don’t have a baby in the house, your interest in being around them wanes as well.
We’re about to have our fifth child in September. Boy #4, as we call him right now, will again catapult us back to the infant stage. Having a wide range aged children – my oldest is 14 my youngest is one – means you don’t quite fit in with everyone. Our older kids and their parents are now free of the issues and restrictions having a younger child brings. Dinner parties later into the night are common for them, but when you have a baby it’s hard to say yes to those invitations. Those parents are the folks we love to hang around, but once they’ve hung out with the entire Gulbransen clan, you have to think the invites get more limited. I understand the sentiment. You want to relax and socialize, not watch a baby tear up your yard or bathroom.
This, of course, makes it hard for my wife and I to really develop deeper and closer bonds with new and old friends. They’ve moved on to another point in their life and most aren’t tempted to go back on your account. It limits our adult interactions and sometimes that can be a drag.
Yet despite this, and an occasional tinge of “what if,” I don’t regret having a large family (by today’s standards) nor what we’re missing out on. Eventually, we’ll have that. We’ll be older and grayer, but the wealth of love and the bonds developed within our family more than make up for it.
If you have friends you don’t see very often because of this reason, don’t feel guilty. Instead, invite them over one or two more times a year. Believe me, they’ll appreciate it more than you know.
As the Director of Social Media at tax giant H&R Block, Scott Gulbransen recently returned to the tax business after previously spending 1o years at rival Intuit working on the TurboTax & Quicken brands. He brings 16 years as a marketing communications professional, and 11 tax seasons, with him to H&R Block and was responsible for the launch of many key social initiatives at Intuit before leaving in 2010. A strategic thinker and business problem solver, Gulbransen has worked for some of the world’s top brands including TurboTax, Sony Online Entertainment, and Applebee’s.
In 2010, Gulbransen became the first Director of Social Media & Digital Content for Applebee’s, creating the first-ever social media strategy for the world’s largest casual dining chain. While at Applebee’s, Gulbransen lead a small but nimble team responsible for creating a robust and far-reaching social engagement channel for Applebee’s and its franchise community.
In addition to his professional accomplishments at the corporate level, Gulbransen is also a prolific blogger recently named as one of the Top 50 Daddy Bloggers in the US by Cision. Gulbransen was ranked #21.
As a member of the TurboTax communications and social media team for 10 years, Scott helped the TurboTax team launch and sustain the brand’s social media platform. He also drove and was responsible for the launch of TurboTax’s successful content strategy, including the launch of the TurboTax Blog. Recently, he launched one of the most significant social media campaigns in the brand’s history with the @TeamTurboTax Twitter project.
Gulbransen was instrumental in reinvigorating the Quicken brand almost entirely through the use of social media and, particularly, Twitter. By engaging with customers and influencers who talk about personal finance on Twitter, he and his team helped Quicken Online grow from just 200,000 users in October 2008 to over 1.4 Million in just 10 months. This led to a more focused look at the personal finance space for Intuit and, ultimately, the acquisition of Mint.com.
A former print journalist, who, after realizing his paychecks from the newspaper industry weren’t going to get much bigger, turned to the Dark Side – public relations. After working in both college athletics and inside mid-size agencies, he joined Intuit in 2000 and Applebee’s in 2010. He is a graduate of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) and is the married father of five kids.
Despite his busy personal and professional life, Scott is a digital native who never strays far from social networking. To hassle Scott, or to tell him how great you think he is (or not!), email him at scott@scottgulbransen.com, add him to your Circles on Google+, or ping him on Twitter at @sdgully. Scott also is an editor and writer for Technorati.com.
Driving on the way in to the office today, I began to think about some of the changes my family and I have gone through since our move to the Midwest just about a year ago. We’ve met some amazing new friends and the kids have adapted so well, I now have no qualms about ever moving again. They simply make the best of any situation their in.
