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For these NFL stars, Super Bowls are great, but parenting is tops.

Some things are more important than a game — like family.

When it comes to professional athletes, few things are as memorable as a game day — especially when something big is on the line.

A new video by Just Not Sports features Charles Tillman and Greg Jennings, two former NFL stars with enviable careers. In it, the players are asked if they can name the event just based on being given the date.

Some dates, such as Tillman's performance in Super Bowl XLI as a member of the Chicago Bears or Jennings and the Packers' January 2011 victory in the NFC Championship Game, were easy for them to remember. Other, more obscure games from the middle of a season, were, understandably, a little trickier for them to recall.


But there are some dates you just don't forget — like the birth of your child.

Without hesitation, the two players recalled the dates their children were born. They remembered being in the room and how special that moment was; they wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Last month, Cincinnati Bengals star A.J. Green found himself with a similar choice: miss a game or miss the birth of his child?

The wide receiver announced that if his pregnant wife were to go into labor on a game day (her due date was at the end of September), he'd choose his family over his team. As it worked out, his son was born on a Wednesday, and he didn't have to miss a game.

Still, these are the types of questions that not just athletes, but all working individuals have to prepare themselves for.

Oh, how we love you!! Easton Ace Green. 8lbs, 8oz. 22 inches long. Born September 21. Welcome to the world, Eazy! 💙

A photo posted by Miranda Green (@mirandabrooke_) on

Unfortunately, it's not always an easy choice to make. Fans, teammates, and coaches aren't necessarily on board with a player skipping a game for any reason, even the birth of their child.

In 1993, Houston Oilers lineman David Williams missed a game to attend the birth of his first child. The reaction was brutal. Fans and coaches alike criticized his decision to miss out on the team's game against New England. While it's certainly less likely these days that a team would come out against a player publicly, the pressure to play hangs heavy.

A recent Pew Research report showed that out of 41 countries surveyed, the U.S. is the only one that doesn't offer any government-mandated parental leave. While new parents may have read "What to Expect When You're Expecting" cover to cover, one thing they still might not expect is not being financially stable enough to take time away from work after giving birth. A quick glance at online forums for moms- and dads-to-be shows this is a really tricky situation.

But in the end, we all need to be able to make decisions about what's important in life, and there should be as few barriers as possible to do that.

You may think that it's easy for an NFL player, a millionaire, to make the decision to skip a game to be at the birth of their child — and maybe it is, comparatively. Many people don't have the ability to take unpaid time off work, and unfortunately, there's no mechanism in place for parents to receive paid leave in the U.S.

But that's exactly why paid parental leave — for mothers and fathers regardless of whether their new child is one they gave birth to or adopted or was born via surrogate — should be made a reality in this country. No one should have to miss the birth of their child, and no one should have to miss those important first few weeks of life. Whether you're a football star or a sales clerk, you shouldn't have to miss out on life's most important moments.

Watch the powerful #PlayersGonnaParent video below:

Community

How to end hunger, according to the people who face it daily

Here’s what people facing food insecurity want you to know about solving the hunger problem in America

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Even though America is the world’s wealthiest nation, about 1 in 6 of our neighbors turned to food banks and community programs in order to feed themselves and their families last year. Think about it: More than 9 million children faced hunger in 2021 (1 in 8 children).

In order to solve a problem, we must first understand it. Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization, released its second annual Elevating Voices: Insights Report and turned to the experts—people experiencing hunger—to find out how this issue can be solved once and for all.

Here are the four most important things people facing hunger want you to know.

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Pets

Family brings home the wrong dog from daycare until their cats saved the day

A quick trip to the vet confirmed the cats' and family's suspicions.

Family accidentally brings wrong dog home but their cats knew

It's not a secret that nearly all golden retrievers are identical. Honestly, magic has to be involved for owners to know which one belongs to them when more than one golden retriever is around. Seriously, how do they all seem have the same face? It's like someone fell asleep on the copy machine when they were being created.

Outside of collars, harnesses and bandanas, immediately identifying the dog that belongs to you has to be a secret skill because at first glance, their personalities are also super similar. That's why it's not surprising when one family dropped off their sweet golden pooch at daycare and to be groomed, they didn't notice the daycare sent out the wrong dog.

See, not even their human parents can tell them apart because when the swapped dog got home, nothing seemed odd to the owners at first. She was freshly groomed so any small differences were quickly brushed off. But this accidental doppelgänger wasn't fooling her feline siblings.

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A guy passes out on his bed eating pizza.

A 29-year-old woman had a baby girl, and after a brief maternity leave, she had to return to work. She couldn't afford childcare, so her husband, 35, reluctantly agreed to watch the baby while she was at work.

“It’s important to know that he’s been unemployed since 2021,” the woman wrote on Reddit’s AITA subforum. “He receives benefits. It’s also important to know that he’s extremely lazy. He doesn’t cook, clean, or help out in any way. I was nervous about leaving her home with her father, but I had no choice.”

The mother had reason to be worried about leaving her baby home alone with her husband, but in the beginning, things seemed fine. “When I came back from work, she was clean and sleeping. The next few times I came home, he was either playing with her, feeding her, or out for a walk with her. I was happy,” she wrote.

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A boy doing the dishes.

A 41-year-old mom with 3 boys, 12-year-old twins, and a 10-year-old, pays them $10 daily to do their chores. However, their pay is deducted $10 if they miss a day. The boys have to do their tasks 5 days a week, although it doesn’t matter which days they choose to work.

“This system has worked swimmingly for us since it started, the boys have always complied with completing their chores,” the mom wrote on Reddit.

Her 12-year-old son was getting ready to play Fortnite with a friend and told him he’d be ready in 15 minutes once he finished his chores. When the boys started playing the game, he told the friend he was in charge of dusting and sweeping the stairs, to which the friend responded, “It’s a good thing my parents don’t make me do girl chores.”

After learning what the friend said, the mom told her son that chores are genderless.

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Photo by Omar Lopez on Unsplash

Women do better when they have female friends.

Madeleine Albright once said, "There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women." It turns out that might actually be a hell on Earth, because women just do better when they have other women to rely on, and there's research that backs it up.

A study published in the Harvard Business Review found that women who have a strong circle of friends are more likely to get executive positions with higher pay. "Women who were in the top quartile of centrality and had a female-dominated inner circle of 1-3 women landed leadership positions that were 2.5 times higher in authority and pay than those of their female peers lacking this combination," Brian Uzzi writes in the Harvard Business Review.

Part of the reason why women with strong women backing them up are more successful is because they can turn to their tribe for advice. Women have to face different challenges than men, such as unconscious bias, and being able to turn to other women who have had similar experiences can help you navigate a difficult situation. It's like having a road map for your goals.

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Derrick Downey Jr. has been dubbed the 'squirrel whisperer.'

Most of us who live in the U.S. are used to looking out a window or walking out our front door and seeing squirrels. The cute, fluffy-tailed rodents often appear perfectly pettable, but they generally scamper away when humans get too close.

That is not the case for TikTok creator Derrick Downey Jr., however, as he has not only befriended his neighborhood squirrels but goes all out to help them live their best squirrel lives.

Downey shared a video in May of 2022 in which he chats with a couple of squirrels on his porch while feeding them and offering them water. That video received over 26 million views and kicked off a whole series of videos showcasing the adorable antics of Richard, Maxine, Hector, Consuela, Norma (may she rest in peace), and Hood Rat Raymond. He's built Richard a house, rescued Maxine's babies, mourned Norma's transition (to wherever squirrels go when they die) and more.

People can't get enough, and who can blame them? Squirrels are the best (when they're not tearing up your patio furniture and stealing cotton for their nest, as Downey has experienced.)

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Education

Voice recordings of people who were enslaved offer incredible first-person accounts of U.S. history

"The results of these digitally enhanced recordings are arresting, almost unbelievable. The idea of hearing the voices of actual slaves from the plantations of the Old South is as powerful—as startling, really—as if you could hear Abraham Lincoln or Robert E. Lee speak." - Ted Koppel

Library of Congress

When we think about the era of American slavery, many of us tend to think of it as the far distant past. While slavery doesn't exist as a formal institution today, there are people living who knew formerly enslaved black Americans first-hand. In the wide arc of history, the legal enslavement of people on U.S. soil is a recent occurrence—so recent, in fact, that we have voice recordings of interviews with people who lived it.

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