🏝 Eric lives in Jacksonville Beach, Fla, where the one-time hospital pharmacist runs a thriving and amusing golf cart rental business. Want a six-seater that evokes the feel of a Tiki lounge? He’s got it. Hawaiian luau? No problem.
Eric has had several turns as a Lead Dad, trading off the primary parent role with his wife Cathy. They have two children Victor, 24, and Ava, 16.
When they first adopted Victor, at age 2, both worked part-time so they could share parenting responsibilities. “We didn’t think it was fair to adopt a child and both of us continue to work fulltime and have someone else look after him,” he said.
They adopted Ava in 2007 at a year old. Then Cathy became the lead parent and Eric went back full time as a pharmacist.
Just before Covid hit, Eric retired from a Publix (@publix) pharmacy and focused his attention on Southern Breeze Cart Rentals, which boomed as the pandemic pushed people to search out fun in different ways. Cathy took a job in healthcare. He was the Lead Dad again.
“It’s always been fluid,” Eric said. “It was depending on the situation.”
Eric loves driving Ava around in her final years of high school, talking in the car. As for Cathy, her career took off – having joined Pfizer’s (@pfizerinc) vaccine division just as Covid hit.
Sometimes he has to turn down cart rentals, if his wife has a meeting and his daughter has to be somewhere but he’s grown comfortable with that. It’s all part of the balance of LeadDadding.
But he advises other Lead Dads to take time for themselves. “You can’t help others until you put the oxygen mask on yourself first,” he said. “You have to make yourself happy. If you need to go for run or a swim, go and do it and get it out of the way. Or you’re not going to make anyone else happy.”
