Our 411th Dad in the Limelight is Cort Ruddy. I want to thank Cort for being a part of this series. It has been great getting connected with him and now sharing him with all of you.
1) Tell me about yourself, (as well as how you are in the limelight for my readers knowledge).My name is Cort Ruddy. I’m a writer, a husband, a father and a Political/Public Relations consultant. I’ve been working from home for about three years, splitting time between client work and doing my part in raising our kids. I’ve written about our adventures for a little more than a year at RuddyBits.blogspot.com. I’m in the limelight when I share the funny stories and random bits of wisdom I learn from my kids.
2) Tell me about your family
My wife and I have four kids – three girls and a boy. The oldest is 10; the youngest is 3. My wife works from home, too. So our house is kind of a crazy place. It’s quite loud, when we’re all home. Luckily, our kids go to school most days, so we get some quiet time to work, relax a bit and think without children screaming and carrying on all around us. If we home-schooled, I think we’d both go crazy. So, we don’t do that.
3) What has been the largest challenge you have had in being a father?The greatest challenge I’ve had has been finding a balance between work and family. Our oldest is ten, as I said earlier, and for the first 7 years of her life I was, by all accounts, a workaholic. I worked as a speechwriter for a U.S. senator and then for a state senator. In my free time I worked on political campaigns. I barely remember the first years of parenting. A few years ago I decided I had to be home more, and made decisions to allow that to happen. But, as they say, when you have money, you don’t have time, and when you have time, you don’t have money. We still haven’t found the perfect balance, but at least I’m a bigger part of my kids’ lives.
4) What advice would you give to other fathers?
First, be involved, and second, be patient. So much of life pushes us to work, work, and work some more. It’s easy to see working as a dad’s only role. It shouldn’t be. More and more Dads are choosing to be more involved, many at a sacrifice to their career. Hopefully, the working world will make room for dad’s to be more involved.
Of course, once we’re around more, we often learn that being home – while rewarding – is quite hard. Kids aren’t like co-workers, or employees. They take far more patience. Being more patient is the advice I give myself on a near-daily basis.
5) How have you come to balance parenthood and outside life? I don’t know that I’ve found the right balance. Yet my wife and I have made a few decisions that helped us find more balance than we had. Career decisions have allowed me to be more involved. Not all those decisions were the best for my career trajectory, though. We also decided a few years ago to move away from the hectic life we had in Washington, D.C., to be closer to my parents in Upstate New York. For us, life here is just more conducive to raising a family. Plus, having the kids’ grandparents around gives us a support system, allowing time for non-parenting stuff like going to dinner together on occasion.
6) What have you learned from the fathers that you have interacted with?
I’ve learned that many of us struggle with the same things – balancing work and family, dealing with crazy kids, and being better husbands — and that one of the best things we can do is talk, and joke, and laugh about it with other dads. The challenges we face at work, at home, in our relationships, and with our kids aren’t all that unique. And the challenges aren’t easy either. Beer and laughter help.
7) What else would you share regarding your experiences as a father thus far?
It’s probably the most rewarding, as well as the hardest job we’ll ever have. And nobody knows everything about how to do it right. It’s a constant learning process. Since I’ve started blogging about being a dad, reading what others write and connecting with other dad bloggers, I’ve learned a ton. Mostly, I’ve learned there’s a lot more to learn.8) What have been the most memorable experiences that you have had thus far as a parent?
Other than the actual birth of each child, it’s been the unique experiences that stand out: the sunrise walk on the beach on vacation, that hike through the woods near our home, the time we all went fishing on Father’s day, that snow fort we built after the blizzard. I’m a big believer in doing as much unique, cool stuff like that as often as possible. Those experiences tend to stand out more in our memory than the daily routine – where so much actual parenting occurs. I know the kids remember the special times more, too. We went ice skating once or twice last winter and, yet, all summer our five-year-old kept saying how she couldn’t wait to go ice skating again. I want to fill their heads with memories like that.
If you have any questions for Cort, please leave a comment here and I will make sure that he gets them so that he may be able to respond!
Also, do you know a Dad in the Limelight? If so, please email me their contact information so that they too can be a part of this series!
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