Meet the Child Care Council Staff

Introducing Rebecca A.

Robin @ Kids Matter

Meet Rebecca, the middle child of five, from Lexington, KY.  She grew up on a horse farm and rode horses a lot when she was younger.  Another common childhood activity was chasing peacocks.  She chased them all the time, but never caught one.   Her mom loves to tell the story of when Rebecca used to climb the rafters in the barn.  One day she fell from the rafters into a barrel.  Only her head and feet were sticking out at the top of the barrel.  Her older sister went for help and told her mom that Rebecca was, “broken in half”.  Luckily, she only had a few scratches from the fall.   She spoke fondly of her grade school, Athens-Chilesburg, which has been converted into an antique mall.  She said it’s interesting now, to walk through the school and point out to her children where she attended classes.   She and her husband of nine years travel a lot, and that though Arizona is beautiful with its red rocks and mountains, Kentucky is home. 

She is very proud of her three children.  Her oldest son just graduated High School. Her daughter is a sophomore in High School. Her youngest, Preston, is in the 4^th grade.  She has stressed the importance of volunteer work to her children, and likes them to take part in volunteer activities.  She said, “It’s important to teach them to help others and makes them feel better about themselves.”  A story from just last month shows that the lessons learned from this have had an impact.  While Preston was in the lunch line at school, the boy in front of him didn’t have the money to pay for his lunch.  Preston paid for it and he did it for the right reasons.  He didn’t even go home and boast about it, his teacher told Rebecca what he had done.  Her goal as a parent, “…is for my children to grow up and be able to be independent, successful, and genuinely good people in life”.

The family also has two rescued dogs, Toby and Romy.  Romy is technically her dog, but she is much closer to Toby.  Toby was rescued from an abusive home, and he still has health problems as a result of the abuse.  But, he is loved and well taken care of now.  Rebecca said, “Toby likes to ride in the car and he gets something to eat at every drive thru we go to, even at Starbucks!”

Rebecca used the Kids Now scholarship to get her degree in Interdisciplinary Early Childhood Education.  She worked and went to school, she was a busy woman, but stuck with it.  She said that one important lesson she taught her kids is that you should never stop learning, and they really like that.  She continues to demonstrate that as she attends EKU, working on a Bachelor’s Degree in Family Studies with a minor in Special Education.  She plans to graduate in the spring of 2016.  Good luck Rebecca!

Her first paying job was working at a pizza restaurant at the age of 16.  Since then, she has held a variety of jobs, and has always worked.  She said, “That’s how my family is.  We started working as soon as we were able to…”  Rebecca said her worst job ever was telemarketing; selling vacuums over the phone.  She left the job after a week.  I think we can empathize with that… it doesn’t sound very pleasant.   At the age of 22 she got a part-time job as a floater in a very well-run child care center.  Rebecca loved it so much that she decided to go to school, study, and make her career in that field.  She was working in a child care center and doing trainings part-time for the CCC.  When a position came open to work here full time, she applied and was hired.  So, she has been working in the Training/Resource & Referral Department ever since.  She is a Child Care Aware, Technical Assistance Specialist.  She said, “…being able to improve classrooms and the quality of programs children are in is very valuable.”

When I asked Rebecca if she had any regrets, she said, “…a million and we are not going over them.”  We all have regrets, but all we can do is learn from them and go forward doing better and learning in the process.  Happiness to her is, “… seeing how I can help somebody else so they will be happy.  Seeing their happiness makes me happy!”  That’s right in line with her advice... to smile and try to have fun, even when you don’t feel like it.  A smile usually makes you feel better!