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May 11, 2023 / Mom &… Podcast Episode 120 / Guest: Nicole Gonzalez-Cumberbatch Subscribe and Review wherever you listen to podcasts! Show Summary: Nicole shared a story that many parents relate to: her career was everything, and then she became a mom. Parenting changes our lives in ways we usually can’t imagine beforehand. Nicole realized she lacked proper support, and even basic information, to help manage life as a working parent. She decided to create what she needed, and The Motherhood Village was born. Topics From This Episode: Working parents Flexible work schedule Employer support Employee advocacy Marriage Covid FMLA (family leave) Support groups Parenting resources Maternity leave practices Breastfeeding Mamava Lactation Pods Parental mental health Release, Reset, Recharge Look, Listen, Learns Susanne Wheel of Fortune Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus Mom2.0, ChatGPT, SEO, oh my! Massage chairs at the JW Marriott Camelback Inn Resort & Spa in Scottsdale, AZ Nicole Firefly Lane Also Lessons in Chemistry Mom2.0 attendee podcasts Learning from the speakers at Mom2.0, like Austin Channing Brown and the Locke sisters, Attica and Tembi (From Scratch) Missy A Million Little Things Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting by Clare Pooley Mom2.0 session on Substacks (shout out Asha Dornfest) More About Nicole Gonzalez-Cumberbatch: Nicole is a mom and… former VP of Finance and HR, business owner, and podcaster. She believes it takes a village to uplift a mother and is essential to a mother’s mental health and well-being. Nicole founded The Motherhood Village in 2021 and her mission is to support mothers through community, education and connection. Connect with Nicole Gonzalez-Cumberbatch: TheMotherhoodVillage.com Podcast Instagram Facebook LinkedIn Connect With the Mom &… Podcast Please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts! If you’re so inclined to give us a 5-star rating, we’ll love you forever. Who couldn’t use a little extra love? Leave us a message – via voicemail or use our form – with your questions for experts, or suggestions for future episodes. Check out our website, where you can find links to all the things! Follow our Facebook Page Join our private Facebook Group (All you have to do is ask to join, and then be nice once you’re in. So easy!) Follow us on Instagram Become a patron – check us out on Patreon! Watch this episode on our YouTube Channel! Musical Notes Our delightfully happy intro and outro theme music, “We Will Get Through This” is performed by Young Presidents, and used under license from Shutterstock. Transcript is auto-generated by a robot. Apologies in advance for misspellings or errors. [00:00:00] Missy: Welcome to the mom and dot.dot podcast. I’m Missy Stevens mom and dot.dot writer, foster child advocate, and this week birthday party planner slash maybe rescheduler. [00:00:16] Susanne: Oh no. [00:00:16] Missy: is crazy. [00:00:18] Susanne: Yeah, our mother did I tell you, I got a text when we were at Mom too, from my mom said, I hope my Mother’s Day brunch isn’t planned outside because the weather looks bad. Like I [00:00:27] Nicole: Just fyi. [00:00:28] Susanne: I know. And I was like, well, it is. [00:00:30] Missy: It is. [00:00:32] Susanne: only that, it’s at our favorite restaurant, which has the most phenomenal food, but when you sit outside, it’s like a tent in the parking lot. And so even on a good day, it’s not very pretty. So yeah, we might be getting takeout. We’ll see. And I am Suzanne Kern’s mom and dot.dot writer, LGBTQ and sex ed advocate. And this week I am a mom, two oh Summit Recoverer. If you could see behind me, and I think we may do a TikTok of it later, the reality of what is behind the camera. When we do this podcast, [00:01:00] Missy: It’s not good today. [00:01:02] Susanne: it’s not good and it’s worse than usual. [00:01:05] Missy: Not good today. Well, our guest today is also a Mom 2.0. Recoverer. It is Nicole Gonzalez Cumberbatch. Whom we met completely by chance. We already had this interview scheduled, but we were at Mom 2.0 in Scottsdale, Arizona, and out of the corner of my eye, her name tag caught my eye and I was like, I think, I think that name is really familiar. So then we disrupted an entire keynote session by passing a note back and forth, written on a napkin. that is how we met in real life prior to this. Nicole is a mom and dot, dot dot former VP of finance and HR business owner and podcaster, and she believes it takes a village to uplift a mother, and it is essential to a mother’s mental health and wellbeing. Nicole founded the Motherhood Village in 2021 and her mission is to support mothers through community education and connection. We love it. Welcome. [00:01:58] Nicole: Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to dive into this. Love it, love it, love it. [00:02:03] Susanne: Oh, well, we’re so excited to have you here and learned a little bit about you in your bio, but can you give, um, a little more in depth Nicole 1 0 1 about where your career started, any big decisions or pivots that have led you to where you are today? [00:02:16] Nicole: Yeah, I mean, my background is in corporate, kind of crazy. I actually worked at a bank when I was 16. I don’t know if they had in, in the states where you guys live, but in Florida we had something called like a co-op where you could leave work early when you’re in like 11th or 12th grade to go work. so when that opportunity came, I was like, wait a minute. I can leave school early to go make money. Absolutely. Um, so I did that and first I was working at a grocery store and eventually got recruited to work at a bank At 16. They thought I was older and, um, I was able to work. So I worked there, I think half of my junior year into my senior year. And I, I say all that because that kind of really was the beginning of me starting to work at 16. And then my career just kind of took off, started, uh, college when I graduated. But college kind of, I went part-time for 10 years before I got my degree cuz I always worked and as I was going to school, I was building my, career basically, and started as an accounting assistant and I’m like, oh, I think I like accounting work. And changed my major until finally I graduated with a degree in managerial accounting and had worked my way up from counting assistant coordinator controller to VP of finance and hr. I worked at an email marketing company where I kind of really grew in that role. and I loved it. I mean, my identity was based on my career. I had always said, as a child, I wanted to have a C F O or c e o title, in my name. I don’t know why. I just thought it was the coolest thing to work in [00:03:42] Susanne: That’s so cute. [00:03:43] Nicole: Um, and I almost right, VP kind of, kind of close. So my career was everything. And then my son came. And just rocked my world, for all the things right, as they do. So that was, my son is five, so got pregnant, 20, got married 2016, had him 2017. So it’s very fast. he came and I suffered all these things. I never thought postpartum anxiety and I had no clue how to navigate life, as a corporate mom. And I thought I would because I figured, well, I’ve managed people, I’ve managed teams, I’ve worked under pressure. I got this. I’m organ all the things and I didn’t, so. To say all that. To say I pivoted in 2021 and completely left corporate to start my own business just because I never found, truthfully, it’s sad in a way. After my son was born, I had to leave. The employer I worked for at the time, cuz they weren’t supporting me, didn’t, I didn’t know how to ask for help. There was no flexibility. I wasn’t ready to go back to work after my son was born. And I really went from job to job, which I had never done in my life before that time cuz I always stayed at companies for long periods. And then all of a sudden I’m like, wait a minute, I, I, I’m not happy. I don’t know, like, it’s just a lot of like questioning a lot of [00:05:01] Missy: Yeah. [00:05:01] Nicole: where do I fit? What do I do? And then, um, yeah, 2021 I left and I told my husband, listen, I’ve been at this for a very long time and I think I’m gonna support, companies with the background that I have in accounting and, and HR and operations. So I left to start my own company and I still have that I support. Small companies and businesses and doing like backend accounting and all that. and then the motherhood village. So that kind of came, I guess I’ll say that in high level. during the time of my struggle of postpartum anxiety and overwhelm. I started a podcast in 2019 and I just had something to say. Something to say. It was my outlet. I wanted to talk to other mothers. I wanted to talk about the honesty of how we don’t hear that your relationship with your partner was gonna change at the time. Like my husband and I thought we did all the right things. We dated all the right things beforehand, and then. I couldn’t stand him. At some points. I remember going to my mom and I’m like, is this normal? Like I can’t freaking stand him. And I’m like, why aren’t we having these conversations? Like I remember getting scared without realizing that it really wasn’t us. It was my needs weren’t being met. I didn’t have, I wasn’t asking for help. I was overwhelmed. It wasn’t necessarily him. So that whole steam rolled into me saying, I wanna have conversations. So the podcast started in 20 19, 20 21 when I left corporate to start my. Consulting business. I also started the motherhood village and that has just steamrolled. Um, I do support groups for moms now for career moms in the evening. I do webinars, workshops, a lot of community led events. And now we’re here 2023. I know that was kind of a lot, but it kind of [00:06:38] Missy: a lot, but we’re gonna break it down [00:06:40] Susanne: yeah, we will break it down. And I’m curious, uh, what was your work like during Covid then? when you break that apart, [00:06:48] Nicole: Sure. So, I’m glad you asked that. So the company I had worked for, again, you gotta remember at this time, I’m like unsure, right? I’m like, listen, my whole career has been wrapped up in me having a title and working my butt off for it. And now I kind of don’t care. But do I, we’re talking about money, but I’m like, you know what? Um, all these things questioning a lot. So the company I had worked for, um, they kind of dangled a carrot where I was gonna be a controller. And I was like, all right, Take a step back, but, it was for a really big company at the time, um, locally and long story short, COVID hit and the employer told me when I asked for flexibility cuz my son’s daycare closed, she literally said, so you’re choosing your family over my company. [00:07:29] Susanne: Oh boy. [00:07:32] Nicole: That was literally, I think, I don’t know, whenever the mandate hit, maybe the 20th. My son’s school had closed a few days before. It was like literally that Monday or Tuesday. And I tell you all that cuz that was the mindframe. My son was two and a half years old. I’m like, lady yes. I’m like, we’re in the middle. We have no idea what this is about. Um, [00:07:51] Missy: no. [00:07:52] Nicole: So Florida, thankfully had this thing called F M L A where you could take time off if you had to care for someone who had covid or your child’s school closed for Covid. So because I knew that, I said, you know what, I was gonna stay on and help, but since you wanna do that, I’m taking my femla. So I took my femla and I got paid to stay home because my son’s school closed for the three months, and then the minute the mandate was, Uplifted. I basically got laid off, which I knew that that was gonna happen. I would’ve quit anyway. Um, but I was very thankful because it was bittersweet. I got to take what, whatever that was March to June 1st, I think, as his school opened, and I got to really have that time with him. But, um, It was still disheartening and hurtful, right? Like, I’m like, wow. Like here we are. And it was a woman who owned the company, so I was so disappointed. So, yeah, so my, my Covid experience, I, I very fortunately got to stay home with him during that time. [00:08:45] Susanne: That’s so interesting cuz that’s a boundary we hear from a lot of coaches where they say in any scenario, not just Covid, where people work as if. They are the owner of the company. And I feel like that is something that I did very badly. And I realize that now, back in hindsight, like I did every single status report or presentation as if it was my company, which, you know, is a boundary that all the coaches say, no, no, don’t do that. Where this boss came out and basically just said, yeah, you, you need to treat this as this as your company [00:09:19] Nicole: just like that. She was like, so basically you’re choosing your family over my company, and I remember just saying they’re like, Like, is this like twilights on um, [00:09:26] Missy: a real question you’re [00:09:27] Nicole: And is that allowed? Like do I call, like who do I call? Like what? Um, ethically, like all the things. Um, so yeah, so that’s kind of been my, my career journey since having my child. And it’s been very sad because, I haven’t had the support since having him with. Any employer to say, we welcome you, like, let’s find things. So I’m a big employee advocate and I do foresee in the future, me doing something with corporations to help those small businesses really understand what they need to provide their employees once they have children. [00:09:59] Missy: what kinds of resources does the Motherhood Village have now? Because I know employee advocacy is a big piece of what you’re doing. Like what are you seeing are the huge challenges that you’re able to help women with at this point? [00:10:12] Nicole: Yeah, that’s a great question. tangible, I guess you can say what the Motherhood Village does. Like I said, the support groups and a lot of that does help because there’s a lot of working mothers actually, I think they’re all working mothers, whether, um, They’re working full-time in their career, but also have a side business, or they’re women business owners. so a lot of conversations come up with that. And I guess because I do have the. experience of number one, being in their shoes and being like, I have no idea where to go. But number two, I have the accounting background to really help them understand the data that they can bring to their employers to say, Hey, look, you know, it doesn’t really cost a lot of money, but there’s certain things that you can do to kind of help me or the other employees, um, and how to advocate for themselves. So I help in that way at the support groups. I also try and partner with some of the experts I have on my podcast, or whoever I collaborate with that I find, um, you know, in my own entrepreneurial journey to do webinars and workshops for moms. so Tangly, like I said, the Motherhood Village provides resources in that way. But as far as employee specific, that is something I wanna have a goal to do in the foreseeable future. Like actually have workshops myself that I put together to go into these small businesses. I think it’s important to start at the beginning with small businesses because as I’m sure we both, we all. A test, whether it’s our podcast or whatever things we have that we’re trying to grow, it’s easy to get caught up in that we don’t follow the processes that we put in order, we don’t do all the things. So I really wanna help business owners at the beginning stages of saying, well, let’s start putting these processes in place. Now let’s not overcomplicate it. So as you start to bring employees in, we can manage it, affordably, but employees will then want to work for you, which will help sustain the growth of your company. Right? So that’s what I hope to do in, in the future. [00:11:56] Susanne: What an awesome resource because yeah, there’s a lot of small businesses. Oh, did I tell you Onc…
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