Meet Kay Paschal | Wife, Mom, Author, Speaker, Podcaster

We had the good fortune of connecting with Kay Paschal and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Kay, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
In my early 30s with two small children, my husband was offered a job transfer to Singapore which we declined. His company moved us back home to Atlanta from his position in Houston and now we were both jobless. So, we decided to take a big leap of faith by buying property and building a preschool. Neither of us had a background in early childhood education nor running a business of any sort ~ so what could possibly go wrong! We had been a dual-working couple (waiting 10 years of marriage before we started our family) and once we had our children, we never found a place that we were satisfied to leave them ~ so we just built one! It ended up being such a joy for 25 years, being with my children daily and experiencing thousands of families (between ultimately two locations) raising their children. Our preschools were recognized as a leader within the state of Georgia in many measures and I became a monthly contributor to numerous magazines and newspapers for over 15 years on a wide range of parenting topics, tips, and trends as well as business practices. I was also a committee chair on the Board of Directors for the Georgia Child Care Association (GCCA) for many years.
Now in retirement, my “business” of advising and engaging young families continues with the book I wrote after selling our business. My book has just been recognized as a 2023 Finalist ~ Best Book For The Parent/Zibby Awards. I am also quite busy with speaking engagements at mom groups (over 400+ moms in the past few months), exhibiting at several parenting conventions around the country, and this summer I will be an exhibitor as well as holding breakout sessions at a parenting conference in Atlanta and Charlotte. I also speak at women-in-business organizations and Rotary Clubs.
I also have a podcast on Spotify, Kay’s Gigglecast, that has short, 10-minute episodes that address a lot of interesting issues for women, not specific to moms. I will be a guest on 3 different podcasts, speaking on parenting/women topics in the next couple of months. I have also just accepted the opportunity of providing editorial content (by request) to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, so I’m excited to see how that will develop. My second book hopefully will be published late 2024.
So, my thought process for starting these businesses (the preschools and now my book & speaking business) was just a natural progression of being a working mom, but a mom first, that just happened to see a need for other working couples looking for the best possible option for their child and keeping true to that philosophy for 25 years. I then wanted to continue that joy and engagement with young families as well as offering advice to women wanting to start a business or how to handle various issues that arise when you are “the one in charge”, whether as an owner, a highly compensated employee, team leader, or supervisor. Like my preschool business, my book and speaking engagements are now connecting with young moms and women in business and I am enjoying myself so much!

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
When we started our preschool business, I had been in the corporate world for 18 years. I had a 3-year-old and a new baby when we began the process of developing our business plan and when we opened 2 years later, I had gone through a huge learning curve to make sure that I was knowledgeable, to some extent, about early childhood development. I also knew that I had to seek out and hire the best faculty possible to make sure that our commitment to superior childcare and education was attained and maintained. The faculty of my preschool, much unlike any other preschools, had an average tenure of 10 years and now all these years later, there are still teachers and caregivers going on 25 years still there. Also what set us apart from everyone else was (I think) having an owner (me) on-site daily that was a young mom as well (in the beginning) and parents, especially moms, could connect with me. In the later years, my role became a trusted advisor and even confidant to now the moms/customers that could be my children (oh my!) and that was an amazing relationship builder also. I also learned, through lots of mistakes as well as successes, that managing a group of people is extremely difficult. When I talk with business groups, I try to impart nuggets of wisdom that I learned along the way about supervising people with compassion and integrity but also fairness to the group as a whole.

With my new book and speaking business, I think what connects me with the young moms and parents that I engage with is knowing that I started a preschool as a young mom and understanding that along the way I attained a vast amount of knowledge, either from educational sources or just experiences, and that I admit, as a “giggle” of my book, that even though I knew what was the “right” thing to do in various situations of raising my boys and had given certain advice to others time after time, I didn’t always apply that same standard to myself. I get the most “head-nodding” and smiles at my speaking engagements when I admit that we all know what to do ~ it’s the “doing” that’s the hardest most of the time. So, the book and speaking engagements have been informative to young parents, but also shows them the humor in skirting around the “right” sometimes and trusting that things can or will still work out for us and for our kids….and not only that, but these situations can be some of the best family stories and memories as your children grow up. I want people to know about me that I don’t judge or espouse absolutes…sometimes what we say “we would never do” as we watch others in any form of life situations, we may do something just as questionable. Sometimes what people see us do in isolation, especially as parents, may not always be indicative of the type of parent or person we actually are ~ the same can be said of certain business situations too.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
To Eat: New York Prime – Eight Sushi Lounge – Houston’s West Paces – OK Cafe – Delbar – Nordstrom Cafe

To Do: Braves Games – Any of the almost every weekend festivals or art events around town – shopping at Lenox & Phipps – movies at the old Lefont Movie Theatre now Sandy Springs Tap…we like the foreign films!

To Hang Out: We like just being in our back yard, cooking out and having beer or cocktails with family/friends.
Hanging around the patio for lunch and drinks or at the pool at Dunwoody Country Club while the guys golf

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Definitely my husband, Steve. Being the driving force himself in everything associated with the vision, building, and opening of our preschools, he trusted me to be the one to drive the business. As I said, neither of us had the experience in what we were doing, but he saw in me the people skills necessary to build this type of business as well as the motivation to make a success of our family business and I drew strength knowing that he knew, in a business sense, what he was doing. Because of his confidence in me that I felt daily, it propelled me into all the other directions the preschool business took me, which was ultimately our success together.
He was my biggest supporter while writing and getting my book published and is now instrumental in the behind the scenes of helping me in the huge job of exhibiting at conventions and conferences.

Website: https://insertgigglegiggle.com

Instagram: insertgigglegiggle

Other: Spotify: Kay’s Gigglecast (my podcast)
Email: insertgigglegiggle@gmail.com

Image Credits
Kim Evans Photography