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.

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.

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.

If so, welcome to the club.

In an informal poll I conducted on Twitter, 4 parents responded that at least one of them yells at their kids. In fact, @samanthamcgarry on Twitter said: “At least once a day, if not more.”

I know how that is.

I am the son of screaming parents and I too am a screamer. I don’t think it’s quite like being predisposed to alcoholism or cancer, but screaming parents usually lead their kids to be screaming parents. Now don’t get the wrong idea, I don’t scream obscenities or insults at my kids. But when I lose my temper, I definitely yell.

That brings me to my problem. I don’t want to be a screamer.

For me, I think the screaming is basically frustration. The same goes for my wife. When you don’t have parents or family that can help watch your kids so you can get away for a weekend every so often, I think you just find outlets you can use. For us, it’s using our lungs when we get pissed.

In 14 years of marriage, my wife and I have spent time together alone and away from home once. That was seven years ago. That is no badge of courage. It’s crazy and I am not proud of it.

Because we’ve been with these little buggers non-stop that entire time, I don’t think we ever get to truly unwind. We never get to relax enough where all of the stress and frustration subside enough to allow us to just chill.

Lately, I have been getting uncomfortable with the amount of time we are raising our voice at the kids. Partly its our own frustration, mixed with kids who just need to be raised the right way. You have to correct your kids but the way you do it makes a big difference.

What I’ve come to learn is you don’t have to rant or rave to make a strong point to your kids. They can get a serious and important message using a regular tone of voice. That includes even when you want them to know you’re not happy with them or just flat-out angry. My kids are learning to shut-out the raving and if we want to reach them, we’re going to have to take a different approach.

I am not a new age, touch-feely parent. Kids need to learn important lessons from their parents and they won’t learn them by a parent being their “friend.” Kids need discipline and boundaries set for them. That’s what I do and now I need to start figuring out how to do it without screaming at the top of my lungs when they do something stupid.

Even I am tired of my wife and I raising our voice. We just need to stop.

We also need about a week in Hawaii alone.

Well, at least the former is something I control.

Follow Scott on Twitter @sdgully or email him at scott@scottgulbransen.com. His personal blog, where he writes about leadership, public relations and social media, is www.scottgulbransen.com. Scott also contributes to the Shamable Blog, The Friarhood, and is the Sr. Director of Global Public Relations for Sony Online Entertainment.

Flickr: respres

But sometimes, things in life get crazy and the “Dad, can you shoot some baskets with me?” has to be answered with an exhausted no.

That doesn’t mean it’s easy.

This week I started a new job and, needless to say, my brain is full and overloaded. Trying to learn a new place and a new business takes a lot out of you the first few weeks. That’s especially true when you’ve been at your previous employer for almost 10 years. It’s all new – very exciting and different – but also a little overwhelming.

I am always excited to see my kids when I get home from work. It’s really the highlight of my day. They’re so eager to share with me details of their day and what adventures found them since we parted in the morning. Usually, I have enough energy to really engage them. But sometimes, you just don’t.

Yesterday was one of those days. My son wanted to play catch with Dad but Dad was on empty. That means a quick no which squashed his youthful excitement to see Dad and the sullen, shoulders-forward reaction followed.

“Can’t you just play for a little while?

Ugh.

I was asked this question while I still had one leg in the car. I hadn’t even gone in the house yet. That didn’t matter to an excited kid who just wanted to spend some time with his father.

This is where the onset of parental guilt settles in. You have every right not to play ball with your kid but it feels awful. As parents we constantly (at least most of us) put the needs of our kids above ourselves. So why does it feel so awful when you do put yourself first sometimes?

I take being a good father very seriously. So when I feel like I am not cutting it, it cuts deep. I know it’s a self-imposed pressure, but it stings.

I wonder too how much of the guilt comes from our kids who know exactly how to push our buttons – especially the puppy-dog eyes guilt button. Either way, I hate being in the position.

I do know swinging too much the other way to “make up” for a busy day isn’t a good idea.

Part of the reason I write for the EOT Blog is because I love to hear from other fathers on their point of view. What helps you get through these situations?

I know I’ll make up the time with my son – and other three kids – this weekend. That doesn’t take the sting away in the short term.

Follow Scott on Twitter @sdgully or email him at scott@everyotherthursday.com. His personal blog, where he writes about public relations and social media, is www.scottgulbransen.com. Scott also contributes the the Shamable Blog and is known as the Gluten Free Father and reviews GF food.

http://www.pestingers.net

coffee stain left by someone else, a layover here in Cincinnati, looking out over my laptop to a bank of windows that take in a snow swept runway the same color as the dirty white sky?

These days are long gone, but there was probably a time when someone could take you to the airport or meet you at the airport and have a meal or drinks with you there. Haven’t seen you in a while, we ought to get together. Sure, but when? Hey, I know – I have to fly on Thursday, meet me for breakfast at the airport and we’ll catch up. No more, no more.

I’m well armed, I have three books, work, plenty to write, DVDs. I have inspiration, too. Earlier this week I was teasing my EoT colleagues. I told them my piece on Marlowe would be so good they’d want to quit writing in despair at the comparison of their copy to mine. Facetious, of course. But then I turn around and Richard Condon does the same thing to me with 1959’s The Manchurian Candidate. You probably know the movie but, gawd, the book! What story but, more important, what prose! What dialogue!

“I have to be a fraud,” she said, slipping several lengths of steel into her voice like whalebone into a corset.

The part that made me want to cry was his description of New York, “rich in facades not unlike the possibilities of a fairy princess with syphilis,” “patrolled by strange looking pedestrians, people who had grabbed the wrong face in the dark when someone had shouted ‘Fire!’ and were now out roaming the streets, desperate to find their own.”

All together, the avenues and streets proved by their decay that the time of the city was long past, if it had ever existed, and the tall buildings, end upon end upon end, were so many extended fingers beckoning the Bomb.

My final destination is New York, by the way. Thank God it’s not Condon’s. But anyway which is the lonelier, the businessman or the writer? The suit coat-clad Ulysses or the troubador that hears a Master sing?

Let me of course toss out the usual caveats of loving my kid and feeling awful when he’s ill and I’d do anything to take away the cough, puking, etc., blah, blah, blah.

And I’ll also toss out there that sick days probably get a bit easier (minus the puke and whatnot) when the kids are tweens and teens. At least then they hunker down by the tube or the video games and, at that age, maybe the folks don’t feel as guilty with a day of television.

But between the ages of, well, a day and at least 8 years old, I’m taking odds that most everyone would rather put in a day at the plant than serving time with a sick youngster. In my experience, anyway, sick kids of a certain age are just bad patients. They feel like crud, they can’t play hard, can’t really go outside and can’t do what the rest of us do – see above – because, well, they’re kids.

Sick day with my youngest this week was spent in 20- to 30-minute increments jumping between some TV, some solo play, Cariboo, some mild play (a slow motion light saber fight and shorter game of Tickle Monster), Chutes and Ladders, some more mild play (cut short by a coughing fit), a trip to the doctors/pharmacy/video story, lunch, mild play and on and on and on. Eventually, his brother came home and, when they weren’t fighting, they amused each other a bit more than I could.

In the end, the sun came down, the day ended and we all lived to fight another day. Don’t tell my kids, but damnit, I hope it’s a work day.