Tag: advocate

Dream Job Day

Photo Credit – The Great Kaysby

Today was Dress Your Dream Job Day for mental health spirit week at my school. To those that know me this may come as a shock, but being a teacher is not my dream job. Teaching is a job that I enjoy most of the time (let’s be real we all have our negative days), but if I could be absolutely anything in the world it would not be my choice. As a child I would’ve have told you that I wanted to be a country music star like Reba; as a teenager I would’ve told you that I wanted to be a lawyer with a house just like Cher’s in Clueless. Those were all jobs that sounded great because I equated success with a lot of money. Nowadays, I equate success with living comfortably (note, I didn’t say rich) and doing a job you love. So what would be my dream job? I have a few!

1. Travel Critic/Travel Planner – I have always loved traveling! For as long as I can remember, I have loved exploring new places. In fact, part of the reason I started this blog was to write about food and travel. You can go back and checkout those early posts for fun! I still think it would be the best job if someone would pay me to travel!

2. Pro-Gamer – I was 5 when the first Nintendo came out, and I have loved video games ever since! I went through a major WoW phase, and I love The Sims (seriously I’m writing because my game is updating)! I also love board games, card games, and tabletop RPGs. If I could get paid to game, that would be a dream come true! I think it would be amazing to just stream myself playing games and have people watch. We started doing this during the pandemic on our Twitch Channel HouseofKs. TheGreatKaysby is also on Twitch!

3. Awareness Advocate – I would love to get paid to give a voice to those without a voice. I want to stand up for what is morally right for those who cannot speak for themselves. This would bring lots of joy to my heart!

4. Samantha Stephens – I want to be Elizabeth Montgomery on Bewitched. If I could twitch my nose and do all of my chores, my house would be immaculate! Also, I love that she dressed up for dinner every night. That alone would give me an excuse to wear my Breakfast at Tiffany’s inspired pearls every day! Bonus? If I’m Samantha Stephens, I can travel by popping in and out of places. Oh, you want a croissant? Let me pop over to Paris and bring one back!

There are also other jobs that I think would be fun to do just once so you can say you’ve done them. For me these include bar tender, yoga instructor, karaoke host, tour guide on a historical tour, and seamstress (I kind of do this voluntarily). All of these would be fun once, but I think they would get old if done day in and day out.

What’s your dream job?

XOXO,

The Great Kaysby

Advocate & Make a Change!

Parental leave map
Photo from Dominic Hernandez’s FAST FACTS: MATERNITY LEAVE POLICIES ACROSS THE GLOBE

They say you should advocate for what you’re passionate about and attempt to make a change. Since having LilKsby in 2019, I’ve wanted to advocate for better paternity leave in our country. This week, I got a wild hair, and decided to contact my state legislators asking them to do something about improving parental leave. The next day a co-worker sent me a Tweet saying the Louisville Metro Council approved paid parental leave for city employees for twelve weeks following the birth or adoption of a child. Their approval was unanimous! City of Louisville employees are very lucky that the Louisville Metro Council has their back on parental leave. Many people in the United States aren’t so lucky.

Until having LilKsby, I didn’t know much about parental leave. All I knew of it had come from working in the Personnel Department before taking the job I have now. Based on that experience, I assumed that it was the norm to give new mothers six weeks of leave (eight weeks for a C-section) and require the mothers to use either a combination of sick and personal days if they wanted to get paid (and were lucky to have 30-40 to cover the time) or take leave without pay. I had never had reason to look into the policy of other places, so foolishly I made a presumption that this was just how it was everywhere. SHAME ON ME! One should never make presumptions!

My first taste of better parental leave came from Mr Kisby’s job at the time. He was provided with quite the combination of fully and partially paid leave, and he did not have to use any of his vacation time! I was shocked when he told me how good of parental leave his employer provided. His was so good that when you added his time and my time together, LilKsby didn’t have to go to a babysitter until he was three and a half months old!

Since our experience with parental leave, I’ve found myself frequently thinking about the parental leave provided around the world. Did you know that “the United States is the only high-income country, as classified by the World Bank, that does not have paid maternity leave” (Hernandez)? Yes, the United States has employers who provide paid parental leave; however, there is no federally mandated parental leave for births or adoptions. FMLA does cover 12 weeks of unpaid leave for new parents, but the only thing that helps with is securing a position to return to after the time is up. Anyone who has ever had a baby or adopted a child knows that there are A LOT of expenses incurred during parental leave. Unless you’ve been saving for a long time or are willing to rack up debt, going unpaid for 12 weeks is not a viable option for many people.

Here’s another fun thing I learned while on maternity leave with LilKsby that I never knew. Did you know that the recommendations of pediatricians is that babies should not be going out in public until after they’ve had their first vaccinations at 8 weeks old? I didn’t know that! I found it very interesting that pediatricians make this recommendation, yet employers force parents to put their children in daycare at 6 weeks old (or younger) by not paying the new parents beyond that point. Something doesn’t add up with that math!

I can also speak from my own experience that six weeks (or eight weeks in my C-section having case) is not enough for a lot of babies to start breastfeeding consistently and correctly. Our journey was 10 1/2 weeks to achieve accurate breastfeeding. If I hadn’t have been able to fenagle 11 weeks of leave because of summer break and skipping workshops, then we never would’ve achieved the breastfeeding success that I knew would provide the best health for my baby.

I fully realize that not everyone in the world will ever need parental leave. However, I guarantee you that everyone will have a friend or family member that needs to use parental leave at some point. That said, I think it is time that we (everyone who comes across this and all of their family and friends) advocate for better parental leave in this country. America loves to say they are the best at everything, so it is time to make that a reality when it comes to parental leave. I encourage all of my readers to do some research, write to their legislators, and take action to help encourage improvement in the area of parental leave!

I’ll put my soapbox away now. I love you and good night!

XOXO,

The Great Kaysby

Hernandez, D., 2018. Fast Facts: Maternity leave policies across the globe – Vital Record. [online] Vital Record. Available at: <https://vitalrecord.tamhsc.edu/fast-facts-maternity-leave-policies-across-globe/&gt; [Accessed 28 March 2021].