Career Day
Monday, April 21, 2025
Hi friends, Caprice here! I wanted to share a bit about my recent experience with Career Week and what it made me realize about our work at Birthsmarter.
When my child’s kindergarten teacher asked for speaker volunteers for Career Week, I initially disregarded it.
As a birth worker, a lot of my job has felt amorphous for a long time, and I never really pictured myself speaking at any Career Day. I also worried the administrative side of being the Director of Education for Birthsmarter wouldn't be exciting to 5 and 6 year olds.
While I spend a lot of my time, updating curriculum and supporting educator development, part of my job is still teaching expectant families, and that, I thought, might translate to kindergartners!
More than that, I realized that I really want my kids (and their classmates!) to see the value in caregiving, and that supporting families in that caregiving is important work.
I’m glad to say my visit was a hit and all the kiddos wanted to take a turn “babywearing” with the stuffies and scarves I brought along in my big Birthsmarter tote.
At Birthsmarter, we think a lot about the _work_ of Childbirth Education.
Since our inception, Ashley has considered the professionalization of our industry really important.
Childbirth Education has long been the “side hustle” for doulas, labor + delivery nurses, and midwives more than a career in it’s own right.
What we’re trying to do at Birthsmarter is not small.
Supporting our teachers - holding them all to a high standard, and making sure that our work embodies our core principles and stays true to Ashley’s vision - is what continues to set us apart. Most Childbirth Educators work in silos. They take a short training and use that to generate a curriculum that reaches their individual clients or small community. There are not spaces in that model to workshop new teaching ideas or talk about new research or walk through what happens when a student is upset.
Ashley and Birthsmarter at large are trying to professionalize childbirth education. By classifying our teachers in established markets as employees. By compensating them for class set-up and take-down, meetings, and evaluations. By offering continuing education stipends.
We care that our educators _actually_ build community with one another. We care that our educators feel supported by their organization in the important work that they do.
Because parenting is the most important work any of us will ever do - and we think respecting the work of the educators is the best way to walk that talk.
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