Talk to my wife of 15 years and she’ll tell you being home with two kids under 4 is overwhelming every day. And she’d be right. Still, despite having all the respect in the world for my wife as both a woman and a mother, there is stress and pressure that comes from being Dad and being the sole financial provider.

I’ve been away from EOT for a while now. It’s been hard because I love writing about being Dad and a husband and I love the blog we’ve created. Blogging continues to be my creative outlet. Being a social media and digital marketing champion by day is great, but the creative outlet that is writing for me has been an immeasurable amount of fun. I try to be personal and tackle all sorts of subjects.

Late last year, I blogged about our family’s big move to the Midwest. The last nine months have been whirlwind. Both personally and professionally. It’s been almost impossible to attain the balance I’ve had at other points in my career and family. Since the day we got off the plane in Kansas City, we’ve been non-stop on the go: new job, new school, new house, new neighbors, new weather (yuck! snow!), new doctors and even a new baby on the way. It’s crazy.

All of this pressure – both good and bad – came to a head for me this past Friday. After celebrating my daughter’s 8th grade graduation, I started to feel odd. I had some chest pains and my left arm was killing me. I knew that those were some symptoms of a possible heart attack, but I was a typical man and just wrote it off as a small annoyance. But the pain persisted and by 9pm on Friday, I was very concerned.

My wife drove me to a nearby hospital and after a few hours of tests, some morphine, and some fluids, they admitted me to the hospital overnight for observation. As I write this post, they’ve ruled out a heart attack but still aren’t sure what my issue is. All the heart attack tests came back negative, but they can’t rule out a cardiac issue because of what I am experiencing.

I’m confident it’s going to be something brought on by stress. But, until they know for sure, I’m being careful and trying to regain some balance.

My family is the most important thing to me in the entire world. I’d die for all of them in a split second. I don’t want to die because of a stressful job or the stress that life has thrown at me the last few years. I have to make changes and they have to be physical and mental.

I tell you this personal story because I truly believe many Dads are on the same path of destruction. While you need to do well in your career to feed, cloth and house your family, it won’t do them much good if it sends you to an early grave. I’d rather have less vacations, fewer promotions, and less money than leave my family before my time.

A recent story on CNN.com talked about how little Americans take vacation. And while some corporate executives would chuckle at that, since they rather work the “help” like Ramses in ancient Egypt, too little time off is just one problem effecting overwhelmed Dads.

Overall, for me, it’s the issue of finding balance. In a job where checking our brand’s Facebook page and responding to customers on Twitter eats into my weekends, it’s hard to “turn it off.” In this connected world, when you have a connected job, you almost never leave it.

It really makes you wonder if its all worth it.

In two words: it’s not.

That doesn’t mean I am giving up my career and living off the land with five kids and a wife to support. What it does mean is I am changing my behavior. I want to work for a company that supports balance in the lives of their employees. That’s why I came back to the Midwest. I came to find more balance, not less.

It’s a work in progress, but we’ll have to keep forging ahead. An old friend of mine sent me a message on Facebook reminding me that without health we have nothing. He’s right and I am going to get mine right. That means I need to find that balance and it’s going to be hard.

At the same time, it’s going to be easy. All I have to do is look at my wife and kids to realize everything else is second fiddle. Hopefully, sharing this story will help others realize that family should always come first.

Scott also contributes at Technorati.com where he writes about politics, and other crazy stuff.

Before accepting the new position, I debated staying at my old job. I weighed the pros and cons of both and discussed it all with my wife. Despite it being something I’ll have to live with, the decision affects the family just as much as it does me.

My wife trusts me to make the right decision, but it was good to use her as a sounding board and reassure myself that the decision to make the move, was the right one. Only time will tell, but I’m already feeling that the decision was the right one.

As the bread winner (only bread) in the house, this was a big decision. Everything is riding on this decision — home finances, career, etc. It’s a scary thing, but at the same time, very exciting.

After thinking about it more and more, I came to the conclusion that this decision was the right one because the family is worth it. Everything I do is for them. Having flexibility to work from home; earning more money; and, being with a company that is young, vibrant and eager to grab the brass ring is a great feeling. And, at the end of the day, all these things will help in progressing the family towards our goals — more vacations (out of New England); having spending flexibility; and, of course, having the ability to really dive deep into home improvements.

I start the next chapter of my career on Wednesday and despite being the one heading into the new office by myself, the family will be right there with me.

Don Martelli is just a dad, moonlighting as an agency exec, photographer and civilian journalist. He’s the executive editor for Technorati and a co-founder of Every Other Thursday. Connect with him at www.donmartelli.com or @BigGuyD via Twitter.

F-bomb dropped. Image macwagen on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/macwagen/2918460559/

Did the headline get your attention?

Would you have been offended if I would’ve used the full F-word?

Last week, there was a bit of an online flare up when the employee of an agency my company* uses for one of its brands inadvertently tweeted from the brand Twitter account rather than his own — and dropped a full-blown F-bomb about Detroit drivers.

Some of the reaction to that tweet and to my company’s reaction indicated that the company should grow up and that dropping an F-bomb is really no big deal.

I totally disagree with that sentiment. Granted, verbally, yes I swear a times. Even in front of my kids; though usually out of frustration. It’s not right, and my wife, Amy, calls me out for it — as she should.

But, online, I don’t think I’ve ever sent a tweet, Facebook update, wrote a blog post, left a comment, etc., that included a swear word. Maybe once or twice, but definitely not recently.

Am I being a prude? Am I wrong and that it really is okay to type ______ (fill in the blank with your favorite cuss word) from a personal account on a social media platform?

No it’s not.

For many/most of us, the lines of personal and professional life blur in social media. What you type and who you are online DOES reflect on your clients, your employer. Even if it’s not — it’s a reflection on you: That you can’t control your temper or you need to resort to swearing to get your point across.

And, if you’re a parent, how do you deal with your kids when it comes to swearing? Are there F-bombs, God D_ _ _s, $hits and other swear words dropped all over the house? Do your kids use it on their online networks — and you think it’s okay?

Granted, one can use swearing to be funny, and that’s generally understood when done.

But to use that language online (and yes, even verbally), it’s more a sign of immaturity than anything else.

And if you don’t like my $0.02 on the topic, guess you’re just SOL (Shoot! I’m out of luck, as I tell my kids.).

-Mike

*Two things here: If you don’t know what I’m talking about, do a Google search with some of the words in my sentence. Second, technically, I’m a contract employee but I essentially bleed pentastar blood.

1. Drunk Uncle

Incoherent, all day and night tweets are what you can expect from Drunk Uncle. Sure, he might spit out a gem of a blog post here and there, but it’s more likely that he will forget to do it or will publish a blog post filled with profanities or just a pathetic look at his obsessive porn-browsing history.

2. Itchy Mom

Don’t ask ItchyMom what she’s doing, because chances are she’ll send you an @ reply saying she’s “Scratchin’”. Itchy Mom spends most of her time at the dermatologist and free clinic, debating between blogging about chaffing, crabs, her recent Brazilian and yeast infections.

3. Absent Dad

Absent Dad will make sure he tells you all about his new life – the one where he forgot about his kids from the previous marriage and is now with his girlfriend in Florida (or California for my West coast friends). Absent Dad might make you wince at his Playboy lifestyle, but you’ll truly get sick when he winds up in the slammer for not paying child support. Another drawback? He might not blog or tweet or months or years at a time.

You'd be in a daze too if you were HeroinMom

4. Heroin Mom

We all know blogging doesn’t pay the bills and that being at home all day with the kids can be a real downer, so HeroinMom has to get creative. Her tweets include descriptive tales of her diarrhea, chills, runny nose, goosebumps, sweating, tears and insomnia.  Don’t mistake HeroinMom for your usual Web 2.0 addict, because she’s hard core: Who else would send her kid to school with small baggies of crank and a business card instructing teens to “hashtag it with #buythisshit”?

5. Crabby Daddy

Crabby Daddy isn’t necessarily cranky, nor was he born in July. Nope, Crabby Daddy is all about his personal hygiene and lack of bowel control, hence his ability to pick up and spread his tiny, itchy “friends” at every public toilet he encounters. Crabby Daddy might make you want to reconsider using public restrooms but he’ll win you over with his grooming tips, his blog conference sponsorships by Rid and his Ignatius J. Reilly-esque quirkiness.

Five quickies for you on a Saturday. What others do you think we’ll never see?

They have a very virgin, very pure point of view.

While children tend to be very unabashed, they also can be tough to read. Or, maybe it’s just my kids. Or, just maybe me.

From about 2 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2008, until about 3:20 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 23, 2010, I was unemployed. Laid off. A self-employed job seeker. I was very fortunate to be busy enough during that time with freelance/contract work so that I only used up about two-thirds of my unemployment. My wife, Amy, and I had other types of assistance, reduced expenses and watched what we spent.

Amy and I tried to not let “daddy being out of a job” impact the kids too much. As I said, I was very blessed with the contract work I pulled in. We got by.

But the kids were very well aware of how different things were, and it sprang up every so often. Here are a few recent examples.

• In early September, the family had a movie night, and we watched “Daddy Day Care.” One of our kids’ favorites. The movie is about Eddie Murphy’s character getting laid off and eventually starting “Daddy Day Care.” During an early part, there’s a scene with Murphy’s character that goes from the first day or two out of work to six weeks later. Right after that time jump in the movie, our oldest son, 12, says quietly, “Two years later…..”
• On the day I got my job offer, our oldest son was at an after-school dance. Our youngest son, 9 — who knew about my new job — wanted to be the one to tell his brother the good news. He was that excited about it.
• A few days later, before I actually started, our oldest son came home from school and said that a couple people commented to him how happy he seemed to be. He said he didn’t think he was acting any differently. Nothing else of any significance was going on that day.

I’m often amazed at how much my kids teach me and how much I learn from them. Being a parent is one of the most self-realization experiences anyone can ever have. I’m sure of it.

And, every time I get to thinking that any one of our four kids are “just kids” and focused in on their own world — they remind me that they know what’s really going on.

-Mike

Mike Driehorst, a PR & social media marketing professional, and is the editorial director for online media for Chrysler Group LLC. He is happily married to his wife, Amy, and tries not to act like the fifth child in their family. You can catch him online at Twitter, his own blog and a few other places.

I am fortunate to work for a great company who has made it amazingly easy to adjust and set us up to find our new home. Right from the get-go, my wife and I have been able to make a separate trip to look for a house, and have been looking since we arrived a few weeks ago.

Armed with news that housing continues to slump throughout the country, we thought heck, it’s a buyers market so we’re going to find a house very quick.

Not so fast.

As the father of four, and a husband, finding a home has been an all consuming activity. Each free day, we’re touring homes and lugging the kids along since we’re new to town and have no one who can babysit. That’s been a challenge but not as big as actually finding a home in the price range we’ve given ourselves.

We have found, what we believe, to be the “perfect” home for our family. The only problem is we’ve been outbid twice. That’s right, outbid.

I guess in some ways it underscores we have good taste because with the inventory that is on the market, the only two houses we’ve been serious about have lots of interest. As much as a house becomes a home, a real estate transaction is a business transaction. You have to do your best to keep emotion out of it. It’s a transaction, or so we tell ourselves.

Just yesterday, we lost out on a house my wife really, really wanted. The kids wanted it. I wanted it. We simply came up short.

After about an hour of negative thinking, I snapped out of it and realized everything happens for a reason. It’s hard but we’re getting through.

Moving is difficult enough. When you lose out on a house, it has a way of deflating the whole family. You just have to trust that things will work out.

With our corporate housing only going 60 days, we sort of have a deadline but don’t want to be forced into buying a home we don’t want. No one wants to “settle” for something with such a big investment.

I don’t know why the Kansas City market is picking up. I don’t see that happening anywhere else, which makes you ask yourself: “what did we do to deserve this?”

Anyway, the family continues to settle in. I don’t like shopping for homes and it’s certainly not our favorite part of our new digs.

As my last post here on the EOT blog stated, moving continues to draw our family closer. The bonds are stronger but the stress level has increased. I assume that’s natural but we’re looking for that break in the clouds.

Especially if it has four bedrooms and a finished basement.

Follow Scott on Twitter @sdgully or email him at sgulbransen@gmail.com. His personal blog, where he writes about leadership and social media, is www.scottgulbransen.com. Scott also a contributor on Technorati,  to the Shamable Blog, and is the Director of Social Media & Digital Content for Applebee’s at their corporate office in Lenexa, Ks.

Those are just studies and research. Let me show you and prove to you why today’s dads are the real online power brokers. Back in May 2010, the Mom’s Rhapsody (below) — a parody of Queen’s classic Bohemian Rhapsody received a lot of play. As of this post, nearly 26,000 views on YouTube.

A month or so later, boom! Dads take the YouTube stage with a rap of the Dad Life (below). Nearly 1.9 million views as of this post…and it’s a rap! Not no classic rock ballad.

Just proves who has the real influence and power.

Word.

-Mike

When he’s not dreaming of being the king of his castle, Mike Driehorst, a PR & social media marketing professional, is happily married to his wife, Amy, and tries not to be the fifth child in their family. He needs to do more blogging not only here on Every Other Thursday, but also at Mike’s Points. If you don’t really care about blogs or don’t have much time, check Mike on Twitter.

The summer is tee’d up for parents, i.e. an open invitation to do whatever you want with the kids — day trips, vacations, pool time, beach fun, backyard grilling sessions, bike riding, etc. It’s the time of the year that you really get to enjoy your family because it’s an active time.

However, the fear that you has as a kid — the fear of summer ending and going back to school — is the same fear you have as a parent. You just don’t want the summer to end because it means that the mundane-life routine kicks back into high gear — school drop off and pick up, after school activities, homework, etc.

I’m typically a fan of the cold winter weather, but love the summer because I get to spend so much more time with the family. That’s why the end of summer sucks.

I realize that my little kids aren’t going to be little kids forever. They will eventually become teenagers, who want their own cell phones, a car, alone time, want to date (gulp), etc. That all scares me to death. So for me, the end of summer is one big reminder that life keeps rolling on whether you like it or not. No matter how many trips to the beach you take; no matter how many BBQ’s you have at your house or go to, the summer is going to end and it’s going to suck.

In the end, all we’re left with are the memories, which these days come in the form of photo galleries on Facebook and videos on YouTube.

Photo Credit: Old Revere Beach, Revere, MA

Don Martelli is just a dad, moonlighting as a PR exec, photographer and civilian journalist. He’s the executive editor for Technorati, a co-founder of Every Other Thursday and is a contributing writer for Shamable and the PR Finish Line. Connect with him at www.donmartelli.com or @bigguyd via Twitter.

Article first published as The End of Summer Sucks on Technorati.

You get up every morning to prepare for your day. For me, that typically means getting ready for work. That entails a a shower, breakfast, getting dressed, brushing my teeth and heading to the bus stop. Then it’s a bus ride to the train station and then the train into Boston.

The process takes about an hour total — from the time I get up and get ready to the time I get into the office — give or take 15 or so minutes depending on the bus and the train.

At work, it’s the same sort of situation.I have about 8 different clients I do work for and my activities during the day are very random. Sometimes I’m writing press releases, editing blog posts, designing magazines or pitching bloggers. The day at work is captured in 15 minute increments (how we bill our clients).

At the end of the day, I head back to the train station, grab the bus and head home — again, another hour’s worth of my time. I get home and it’s daddy and husband time — dinner, playing, talking, etc.

Then there are my duties as executive editor for Technorati. So that entails editing 10-15 blog posts per day and even writing about about 6-8 myself. The evening at home runs until about 11 to midnight, when I finally hit the sack and start it all over again the next day.

My point here is that the day is broken up to time slots. You have to manage that time carefully and efficiently. No matter what you’re doing, manage that time so it maximizes the output — whether it’s writing a blog post, doing the dishes, playing with the kids or brushing your teeth.

I keep bringing up teeth because I recently got a RADIUS Intelligent Toothbrush sent to me for a review. Now, I’ve always used an electric tooth brush, but I was willing to give this one a shot.

Basically, it has a built in 2-minute timer and 30-second quadrant timer to help the brusher comply with recommended brush time and technique, which is recommended by the American Dental Association. It also comes with a 3-month wear meter to signal time for a new replaceable head (it also has a smart non-slip re-usable handle, which, according to the PR person, reduces waste by 93% and is guaranteed for 4 years).

The key thing with the brush is time. It forces you to brush for that recommended period of time and I have to tell you, it’s fun waiting for the next beep and it appears to work just as well as my electric tooth brush.

So, what I’m really driving at here is that time management is every where in our lives. Between tooth brushes that help us brush our teeth to schedules for the bus, time is there to keep us moving. The key is how you use that time to improve your output at work, make your teeth healthier, or, which is the most important thing to me, is be a better dad or husband.

Time, as they say, is on my side. Yes it is.

We did not plan on any family vacation of note this year. Just wasn’t in the budget. However, when Ford Motor Co. presented me with an opportunity to test drive a Flex recently, my wife and I thought, “Well, if opportunity is knocking, we might as well open the door and let her come on in.”

So, we turned the opportunity to test drive a Ford Flex to New York City into a mini-vacation for the family. (For my take on the Ford Flex, see this blog post.) I’ve been to NYC several times for business, but no one else in the family had.

Ford was going to take care of the gas on the way there, and reimburse part of the expense for a return trip (had to leave the Flex in the city). Thankfully, we were able to stay with family for the first night of the drive, and a friend of a friend who lives a block and a half from Times Square let us — a family of six — use her apartment. WOW! Talk about friendly New Yorkers (though she is originally from Michigan).

Overall, the time in NYC was great, with several highlights. See below for one, and chalk up actually meeting fellow EOT’er Dave and his wife Audrey Binkowski as another. It was a time we won’t forget.

But, remember, this post is about the great American road trip. What to do to help keeps kids entertained for a 11 or so hour drive? Here are some games that have become some of our favorites — no matter how long the drive is.

Eye spy alphabet: It’s kind of tough to play regular eye spy traveling 65+MPH, so you look for things in alphabetical order. Of course, you have to get creative at times — like the Air (okay, you can’t really spy it but creativity is required at times) or an eXit sign, etc. Of course, items in the vehicle can count.

Find three things: Similar to eye spy but one person chooses three different things and the rest of those playing try to be the first to find all three. Common things we use include an American flag, a red barn (hey, we live in the Midwest), and a _____ color car.

Who’s line / improvised story-telling: Everyone takes turns adding a new line (or two or three) to a story that often begins something like, “Jeffery was walking down the street and then….” It’s really neat to hear where the kids’ imaginations take the story.

Oh yeah. One of the highlights (video below) was when a very talented saxophonist in NYC’s Central Park played happy birthday to my youngest daughter on the day she turned 3 .

What about you?

What are your favorite long-drive, family-time games to play? Or, add a comment about a highlight from a recent family vacation and let us know why.