Men At Work Podcast - Moms I'd Like to...Work For

Episode Date: August 8, 2024

Kyle and Matt are at The Working Mom Conference to talk to a bunch of MILFS: Mothers in Love with Functional Society. We meet a mom who tells us that we can make the peanut only lunch table extinct. A mom who left her high-status finance job to raise a kid and develop a place where moms can go. We also talk to a painter who isn't a working mom, but he was cool. We finish with the founder of the conference, talk about tradwive influencers with the key note address, and a blue collar mom in construction tells us all about the American citizenship test. 00:00 - The Queen of Piss Tests (Intro) 12:20 - Food Allergy Prevention Company 19:45 - Nicky From the Block 28:05 - Painter 40:45 - Stationary Company 46:15 - Founder of Working Mom Conference 52:00 - Therapist 1:01:20 - Construction & International Nursing #workingmom #podcast #philadelphia Check out our sponsor Thrive Flower! Thrive sells real cannabis products outside of the medical system. They have 9 strains of flower, 6 strains of pre rolled joints, 4 strains of vapes, gummies, and lemonades. They are the first and only company offering same day cannabis delivery within Philly. Order your cannabis at https://thriveflower.com/ and it will be delivered in about an hour. Use code menatwork15 for 15% off orders. Simply choose “same day delivery” during checkout. This applies for Philly residents ONLY. About Us: The Men At Work Podcast asks one question: What do you do for work? After that the conversation flows from there. We’ve met substitute teachers, Bangladeshi t-shirt moguls, a real estate broker tight with LeBron James, and more. And we’ll record anywhere. Random sidewalks during an eclipse, a baseball game, a bar crawl, casino, and more. We like to find out what people do for a living. If you want us to come to your event email us at: [e-mail] Watch the YouTube episode: https://youtu.be/jpVMC_9HI8o If you want more bonus content from every episode check out our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/menatworkpod Follow Us: The Pod: https://www.tiktok.com/@menatpodcast https://www.instagram.com/menatpod/ Follow Matt: https://www.tiktok.com/@mattpeoplescomedy https://www.instagram.com/mattpeoplescomedy/ Follow Kyle: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kylepagancb/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@kylepagancb Follow Vito: https://www.instagram.com/vito_visuals/?hl=en

Three, two, one. Welcome back to another episode of Men at Work. I'm Kyle Pagan. As always, I'm joined by Matt Peoples. We are at a conference. It might not look like a conference, people, but we are at a conference. We're at the Working Moms Conference. We want to shout out the blue collar.

Baby. We want to shout out the white collar. Criminals. We want to shout out the middle class. Mommies. Mommies. Mommies. My God. Hey, shout out the white collar. Criminals. We want to shout out the middle clash. My homies. My homies. My God. Hey, shout out to everybody.

Thanks for getting us to 2,000 followers on Instagram. Yeah, man. Almost at 5,000 on TikTok. So we appreciate you guys listening and stuff. If you're first time listening to this podcast or watching this podcast, it's pretty simple. We just go random places like a conference and ask people what they do for a living. Today, we're going to talk to a bunch of MILFs. Yeah, boy, are we ever, dude. We're talking to strong, accomplished women. Kyle looks at them

that way. I don't. Mom's in love with functional society. Oh, bada boom. And also, folks, bada bing. Mom's in love with functional society. What a dirty dog, dude. Yeah, you know, I had you in the first half. I love that. I thought I was covering for misogyny for a quick second. I forgot that you're just too good of a guy, man. Dude, come on, man. I am the bit master. Wow. I am the bit master.

So, yeah, we're here at the Working Moms Conference. So we'll be talking to a couple speakers. We'll talk to a couple people that are attending and everything. Matty, was your mom a working mom or was she a trad wife or was she a housewife? I had the dominant combo, dude. I had a working mom and a smoking mom. That's a lady who puts in long hours. So I did have a working mom my whole life.

She let us kind of roam free the first couple years, but then she was back in corporate America, holding down a YMCA, membership director, 40 hours a week. But no, dude, my mom, it was great. My mom was a hardworking B-I-T-C-H, dude. She put the kids through middle school, high school, college, all that, while working. Is that my dad? Dude.

Well, I'm trying, Dad. I love when our fans come out to the podcast. Yeah, it's good to see the boys, dude. It's good to see the boys in public in the wild. But what about you? You had a working mom? Yeah, dude. My mom worked in HR, dude.

Really? Yeah, she was the queen of piss tests uh she used to she worked for um a I forget what it was called it's not a construction company but it's like a line management company like they would be on like the lines and stuff so dude she would deal with the the best of the best the good old boys and the good old boys guys in the midwest guys in the south guys in the uh in the west um that were linemen um so they'd be up on the uh up on the telephone poles all day and those dudes are insane hr for linemen sounds like yeah 90 hours a week minimum just imagine like hey dude

you got to go to this place and piss in uh piss in a cup yeah like she obviously did more than that but i always like she her main job was like pissing in a cup. Yeah. She obviously did more than that, but I always like, her main job was like pissing in a cup and child support payments. Yeah, and they're like, how do I get to this place? I need a ride. I don't have my license.

Because they were all contractors and everything, so they would go out to, you know, the Midwest and then another contract, they'd go to the West. So they had, you know, they had kids in Chicago.

Yeah. And then they would have kids in San Francisco. Fans in Atlanta. Yeah. Kids down in Texas.as like she was just chasing these guys all the time being like dude your child support is like six months overdue right yeah you gotta pay is your mama because you're a bit of a tough bitch is your mom a

tough bitch yeah how so give me a couple examples she kind of just like stern at the dinner table she kind of like doesn't laugh at your joke she smoked in the house sure i feel like that's a tough bitch uh. Yeah. I was scared of her more than I was scared of my dad when the teachers would call home. Yep. So that makes her a tough bitch. Yeah. I totally took her out of her sales, though,

when she used to, you know, moms were big on the slapping your ass when you were, what do they call that? Yeah. Spanking? Spanking. They were big into spanking. Did you just want to hear me say that, dude?

What, are you going to clip that one and listen to that in your ASMR? Are you Spanking? Spanking. They were big into spanking. Did you just want to hear me say that, dude? What, are you going to clip that one and listen to that? You're ASMR? You freak. No, no, no. No. So she was big into spanking. And I turned like six.

And I started laughing when she would spank me. And it totally just neutralized her technique. So then she just did the get the nails done finger point right from your two inches from your eyeball. Didn't know if your eyeball was going to, you know, she was going to poke you in the eye or not. Your poor mom

just spanked you and just one day you just somehow make it oddly sexual. I just turned on her and I fucking started laughing about it. Thank you,

can I have another? And she was like, this is over. Tell that story, what was that like where the first time you gave a couple gigs, was it when you found out

that your mom ain't shit and she's not that strong? Yeah. Because I had that in my life. Yeah, and then dad, and then, you know,

she calls in the bullpen and here comes dad. closer's here yep shit he's got a four seamer yeah and hasn't had a hit here he's got a cutter that you cannot bat around so you left i i'm sorry oh it's hilarious i actually remember where i was i got a call home from school i was probably like seven or eight i was probably six or seven obviously i guess i didn't play with i didn't i didn't share the blocks well that day or something like that or i was acting up in class you know somebody's trying to grab your head you're saying yeah i was a class clown blockhead it's very mean strong jaw you called my hair wispy last week so i've been thinking about that dude just because i look

like the i look like the rock uh the rock in bowser's castle doesn't mean you can just come at me all the time um sorry dude dude. You're a handsome guy. So, yeah. So I guess I got a call home from school where I got a bad report card or something like that and was just like up to the room. Yeah. My sister was a big, she had a potty mouth. Right.

She was a big soap in the mouth guy. Really? Oh, yeah. My sister talked like a goddamn sailor. And she got the soap in the mouth often? Oh, yeah. My sister talked like a goddamn sailor. And she got the soap in the mouth often? Oh, yeah, all the time. My sister would have been canceled in sixth grade when she called the gym teacher a homophobic slur that you should not be calling people nowadays. Really?

Of course the gym teacher, I'm assuming it's a woman. No, it was a guy. And you know what? She had a valid, she was valid on it, you know? Okay, but your words, not mine. Let's just say we were young, but we all thought what she was saying. She was just brave enough to say it. Dude, what kind of lunacy carnival did you grow up?

Your sister's got soap in the mouth. She's calling people slurs. You're getting spanked and giggling about it. What the hell is this homestead like? Bunch of freaks. Bunch of freaks? We're a bunch of freaks. So your sister gets in trouble. You get in trouble. You're getting spanked and giggling about it. What the hell is this homestead like? Bunch of freaks. Bunch of freaks. We're a bunch of freaks. So your sister gets in trouble.

You get in trouble. You get sent home. Your mom finds out what's going up. She sends you up to the room for spanking. Sends you up to the room. I'll be there in five minutes, which is the worst because you sit and you just stir and you're like, holy shit, I'm going to get the shit. What is she, slipping into something more comfortable?

All right, I'm done. Sorry. I'm just so happy that the spoon became out of touch. Yeah. Because my dad told stories about how his mom used to fucking break wooden spoons over his ass or over his head and stuff. Right. Thank God that kind of...

Thank God nuns got out of Catholic school and thank God wooden spoons became the way of the dodo bird. Seriously. Yeah. Those were a nightmare. I got a wooden spoon once or twice. Were you ever at corporal punishment growing up? What's that?

Well, I mean, it's like a joke. It's like military is like corporal punishment where they like yell at you and hit you and stuff. I used to do a lot of punishing myself and my parents would let me do it. Like a lot of times I would be angry. So you're masochist. Well, it was, it wasn't. Child masochist.

I was just bad at trying to prove. That's why I'd be the worst protest. 10 years later, you would have been a YouTube sensation. True. You'd be on the dark web. Like you'd be like the child masochist influencer. Well, you grew up in some carnival house and I was in like a dominatrix house, but I was the only dominatrix and the client just pouring hot, pouring hot wax on yourself. When you get a bad report card. That's what I did when my mom was spanking me. I never poured hot wax on my back. Like, I got a D plus in social studies. Like White Goodman looking at a pizza in Dodgeball.

Yeah, before my mom spanked me, I put a clamp on my balls. You should do the choking game whenever you got a bad report card. I just, I mean, I was so bad, but my parents were smart. Once again, we're at the Working Moms Conference. Yes, of course. A lot of the women that came on the podcast were like, oh, let me check out the first couple of minutes. We're not normally like this.

We're in rare form. This is the earliest any of us have woken up in the past nine years. It's true. But, uh. Go ahead. Sorry, I cut you off. No, no. I would punish myself if my parents would let me do it, where I would just do acts of

protest, where I'd be like, I'm going to go stare. What are you, a fucking Buddhist? I'm not having a single Cheez-It for the rest of the day. No, dude, I would go and be angry, and I'd be like, I'm going to go sit in this corner and stare at the wall. And they would just let me do it for like 35 minutes. And they're like, okay, you're losing this fight, brother.

You love timeouts. I timeout on myself. You would just stare at a wall for 35 minutes men at work podcast follow it follow it um yeah staring at a wall for 35 minutes by yourself that's like that's borderline psychosis yeah it was bad but then i would always you know finish it off with a bang and shit myself and be like now you gotta deal with that truly that was like my go-to move for a while. That was your protest?

Shitting yourself? Stare at the wall. I know nobody was coming. And then I'd be like, I bet you if I shit, you'll have to make it happen. No way. Eventually, it'll waft over to their nose and it becomes their problem too. How old were you when you were shitting yourself? 22?

No, I was probably like three or four. You were willingly shitting yourself while you were staring at a wall for 35 straight minutes. Yeah, that's what I did, dude. I had no other... I'm not a smart guy. You're very aware of this. Insane. What else can you do?

At three or four, I feel like you have the cognitive ability to not do that. I think you're getting... That's an insane protest. I think you're giving three and four-year-olds way too much credit. Like some kids stamp their feet. You were shitting your pants. Shitting my pants hard too. With, I'm guessing no diaper.

No diaper. And all you would see was the back. So normally you could see the face getting red and everything. They would just see gyrations. You were a red face kid? Dude, I hated you. Why? Dude, the red face kids were so weird because they would just cry or they would make themselves

red in the face until they either passed out or had an aneurysm. Yeah, that was me. I mean, I had no other... There was nothing else I could do. I had a gelatinous body. I was tall and uncoordinated. So the only thing I had was defecation. No breathing.

Dude, your Spider-Man undies literally just had poop stains all over them. Skid marks. I think I was rocking diapers until I was like five or six. No, you weren't. You're a liar. I'm going to start getting documented evidence to be my idea. Dude, I need to know if you were rocking diapers. I thought I was crazy because I peed the bed until I was like five or six. No, you weren't. You're a liar. I'm going to start getting documented evidence to be my idea. Dude, I need to know if you were rocking diapers. I thought I was crazy because I peed the bed until I was nine.

Rocking diapers at five to six. Oh, that's weird. No, it's not. No, it's not. No, it's not. I'll back that up. A lot of people piss the bed, okay? I was a sleepover nightmare.

Yeah, of course. It was a nightmare to have sleepovers, but you know what? I became better for it. You know what the good thing about pissing, about peeing in your bed when you're up to your nine. What's that? You don't ever really pee in college when you have too much to drink. I don't know how it's correlated, but that's what I'm thinking. Because I had a lot of buddies that were the kings of the sleepover because they didn't piss their shorts.

Sure. But guess who pissed themselves during college after 17 Bud Lights? That's kind of fair. I did actually not pee myself as a kid and did it in college quite a bit. Thank you. I think it's correlated. Maybe. I mean, were you drinking a lot as a kid? Had a couple of Mike's Hards. Had some BLs? Yeah. A little apple juice. A little

Martinelli's. This might just be something that we don't even use remotely, but my buddy made to me, me and my friends I think are decent at saying what somebody looks like. My buddy said, you know Mo Wagner on the Magic? Yes, Mo Wagner. Mo Wagner. Not Franz, you know Mo Wagner on the... Yes, Mo Wagner. Mo Wagner. Not Franz, his younger brother Mo, the blonde hair. Other one.

My buddy said that he looks like when he was a kid, he was the type that always had the red Gatorade ring around his mouth. Oh my god. Does that make sense? Yeah, but it wasn't always the red Gatorade. Some kids just had really chapped lips because they couldn't just stop licking their lips. Yeah, there was a lot of that. But there were the red Gatorade kids that were always a nightmare, dude. They were a nightmare. But they were always short and they were always really fast.

I don't know if any of this is landing, but it is. They were always the point guard and when they have the ball stolen from them, they would have a fucking tantrum. It's like, get on defense, dude. You just gave up the ball. Go push that kid into the stanchion. I am so happy. This is exactly the exact person I'm picturing. Alright, cool.

This one's landed then. We'll take that. And one thing we also want to talk about is our boys at Thrive. If you don't know about Thrive, Thrive Flower sells real cannabis products outside of the medical system. They have nine strains of flour, six strains of pre-rolled joints, four strains of vapes, gummies, and lemonades. They are the first and only company offering same-day cannabis delivery within Philly. Order your cannabis at ThriveFlower.com, and it will be delivered in about an hour. Use code MENATWORK15 for 15% off orders. Simply choose same-day delivery door and checkout.

This applies for Philly residents only. First name? Linda. Linda, how are you? I'm Kyle. This is Matt. Nice to meet you guys. And what do you do for a living? I am an entrepreneur. Nice.

Of a new entrepreneur. New entrepreneur. A new entrepreneur. Congratulations. What are you an entrepreneur of? A company called BiteBrave. Got it. Tell us about it. And we are a food allergy prevention company for infants.

Got it. I have two little boys. Okay. I've had to, thank you. What allergies? Nut allergies? Nut, sesame. That's a little one.

All of them. Oh, sesame is a very underrated one. There was actually a guy that played for the Sixers that found out he had a sesame allergy for the first time when he was like 19, 20 years old. Had an awful reaction. It almost killed him. When he was playing, right? I think I heard that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's nuts. It's crazy. He's never the same. So I've had to save

my Benji's life four times already. Oh my goodness. You can imagine, Kyle. What's he getting into? The sesame seed? You don't know if they're allergic to it, right? And then when you find out, it's too late. But then what people don't know and parents don't know is you can actually prevent it from ever happening. And that's the mission for BiteBrave is being able to help families. Is that testing or what does that look like?

No, it's just you just literally feed the baby food. I'm a penicillin boy. And we found out I was allergic to penicillin because I got sick. They gave me penicillin and then I got sicker. So you can't have penicillin. Don't we found out I was allergic to penicillin because I got sick. They gave me penicillin, and then I got sicker. So you can't have penicillin. Can't have penicillin. Don't even know what it's like. Same here.

Same here. You're a penicillin guy? Yeah. When I was a little kid, I went to the—we were at a diner. Look at that. It brought you two together. Allergies brought us together, yeah. I was at a diner one time as a kid, and they were like, does anybody have any allergies?

And I was like, penicillin. They were like, that's not even what we mean. So your company, is that part of finding out what the allergies are or ways to prevent it with certain types of food? Ways to prevent. So there's a clinical trial done in 2015 that essentially prevented food allergies from ever happening. And if you're early to, if you essentially introduce the allergen in the four to six month window, and you do it multiple times a week, you do it within a specific dose, 80% chance, plus percent chance of never getting the food allergy. Wow. Which.

Really? You know, and then essentially all the guidelines changed, but by then it was really too late. Because back in 2000, doctors were saying, don't introduce, don't give it to the baby until one, two, three years of age. You know know what I want to do is educate families on how to do it number one don't be scared to do it right like treat it as food it's not it's not something that's gonna really harm your baby and there's just so much fear tied to like introducing allergens which you know I really want to help these moms and these families work through is just let the baby eat let them eat eat what they are meant to eat, you know, give it to them as early and as often as you

can to prevent the food allergies. Wow. Are you, uh, are you pro or anti peanut butter table at lunch? I am pro pro. I am pro. And it's, and it's because we, you know, it's scary. Yeah. Right. But at the same time, it's like the children know that they're being excluded like my six-year-old is like i don't want to you know why can't i have that why can't i sit with my friends why can't i do this as a mother it's so hard to explain that so we actually talked to somebody and they were growing up and they said we went to catholic school so like they had a peanut butter allergy table at catholic school but public school they never had it they just mixed them in with the normies, which is crazy to think about.

Someone has a peanut butter and jelly, all of a sudden, you know, little Jimmy's in the hospital and stuff. So are they starting to bring the peanut butter table to public schools? Do you know this off the top of your head? They do. They are. And I think, you know, and there's two sides to that, right? Like, it's either you put them together and mix them with the other children and make, essentially educate them and broaden that awareness of like, you know, Benji, for example, my child has a peanut allergy.

That's a sick name, by the way. Benji's awesome. He says his name is Benjamin, you know, or he doesn't realize his name is Benjamin. I'm like, no, your full name is Benjamin, but we call you Benjamin. Dude, when he grows up, he's going to be in high school. And he's the first Chindian athlete you will ever meet, by the way. Chindian? He's an Indian, yeah.

Chinese and Indian? Yes. Oh, my God. So he plays travel sports. How sick is that? He plays travel baseball. He plays travel soccer. Holy shit.

So just you wait. He's going to be the first Chindian athlete. A Chindian? I've never heard Chindian before. That is pretty stunning. I love it. I think China and India make up 25% of the global population. We do.

You'd think more of a, it wouldn't be the first. That's cool. We do. Very nice. Shindians cool as hell. Like a young tiger was. Yeah.

Like the new age tiger. I mean, not to neglect my older one, Isaiah. What's his name? Isaiah. Isaiah. That's a pretty cool name too.

Nice biblical name, of course. Is it kind of crazy, and this will be the last one, I know you got to get in there. Is it kind of crazy that like, we be the last one. I know you got to get in there. Is it kind of crazy that we grew up in a society where, I didn't know what gluten was until I probably got to college. I didn't even know gluten allergy was real.

I know people are going to question this. Were they always there, or did we kind of develop them in a way? There was never soy. There was never gluten. there was never gluten, there was never an almond milk allergy. No, there's multiple factors to it. I'm not going to get all nerdy on you guys. There's a little bit.

I mean, over time, right? We like our listeners to learn something on this podcast. I'm a geek. But over time, due to modernization, due to the way that we clean everything, like, we are not exposing ourselves to the bacteria. So we should be licking more dirt as a child. Absolutely.

Eat more dirt. Like, when you drop that pacifier, don't clean it off. Clean it off with your own saliva as a mom or as a dad, and then give it back to your baby. Really? But, like, we have to expose ourselves. I was born in China, right?

So, like, I wasn't wearing a diaper. There was no diaper. It was just literally, like, hole in your... My goodness. There was no diaper. It was just literally like a hole in your... My goodness. That was the kind of environment that I grew up in. You know what I mean? But like that was the exposure to the bacteria that you need as a child. Children in Finland are getting dirt put in their playgrounds from the forest in Finland

to get that exposure to the bacteria. Yeah. So bacteria is one. Hard water is another, right? It essentially just like urban environments. The water is just so hard right now. It's harder on our skin. Got it.

Which causes eczema, and which causes your skin to be broken, right? And what happens is the allergen travels to the skin and your immune system hyper reacts. And it's scary. It just like, essentially it's like red flags, like blaring saying like when you ingest it, it thinks that it's a toxin or it thinks that it's going to react to you also why the bagels are so good the hard water i agree

so i guess that's the trade-off then fine all right fine fine i mean you know my skin's cracking and everything but i got great bagels my goal over here is to prevent food allergies and children yes you know and you know You know, delicious bagels. I'm excited to hear that. Here's a free one for you. Remember the Got Milk marketing campaign? Got dirt. Yeah, I love it.

Just start putting dirt around kids' lips. Genius, dude. You're a madman. That's what you are. Get the top 50 baby influencers on YouTube and TikTok and start putting dirt around the old mouth. Let's make it happen. I love it.

Let's make it happen. This is great. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. I appreciate you listening to our dumb examples and our dumb conversation. Any socials or anything you want to throw out there? Oh.

You just... Yeah, whatever. Oh, Vite Brave. Vite Brave. Okay, got it. Vite Brave. Yes. Follow it.

Follow it. Now. Look at that. Good old boy. That's a good boy. That's a good old boy. That's a great boy. That's a good old boy. And he's got a. Be brave. Be brave. Follow it. Follow it. Now. Look at that. Good old boy. That's a good boy. That's a good old boy. That's a great boy. That's a good old boy.

And he's got a dog, too. Come on, dude. That's good. Hack comedy. Well, I was VP of Finance when my son was born, and then shit got real after my son was born. Can we curse on him? Absolutely. Okay.

And long story short, I told my husband, I was like, there's got to be a better way. So I left. So I say fractional CFO, but it's bookkeeping, accounting. It's just I'm not employed. I'm an independent contractor. I do their books and I come and go. My second business is the Motherhood Village, which is why I'm here today. I'm representing at the Working Moms Conference.

Got it. All right. Talk to us a little bit about the Motherhood Village real quick. In a nutshell, it really really it's an organization that supports mom's mental health um for those moms that are stuck in the middle i think a lot of times when we hear like postpartum depression and anxiety we think of like the worst case scenario psychosis and there is that but then there are their moms in the middle like someone like me who's type a personality i worked in very high stress level organization so i was always on the

go and my son came and I was rocked. But it wasn't really postpartum depression. I wasn't depressed. I had a lot of anxiety. And I was like, what do I do? And I wanted to create a space for those moms. So long story short, I have a podcast. We do workshops.

We do support groups. I have my own summit that's every year. And it all focuses on mom's mental health. Sweet. I love that. That's very nice. Yeah. So when your son was. So what was,

when your son was born, what was going on? You're kind of just like, shit, there's, how long do we have now? Yeah, I know.

Was it more work and stuff? Like you're like, I just am not in love with like what I do. Cause I know like, you know, we don't have kids and everything, but like, I feel like we've both found that.

And at least in my work life, I was like, yeah, I got a good paying job and everything. And when you're like coming out of college, you're like, all I need is a good paying job and I'll be set up for life. For sure.

But then you go in every Monday and you cross that threshold and you're like, God, I can't believe I'm back here. So two things, because I know for time. So on a high level version, the first was, yeah, career identity. I have been working since I'm 14, built my accounting degree up,

my accounting career up. And then I was like, whoa, I kept saying I'm going to come back to work. Yes. And then my guy, my little son comes and I'm like, well, maybe I don't want to go back to work. And what does that mean when I've worked my whole career for this? It literally was like a shift change for someone who's very hardworking. And then number two, I think a lot of times, especially again, the type A, like someone like me, I was a controller, VP of finance. When you think of those positions,

what do you think of those positions? Very rigid. There's input output. Well, when you become a controller, VP of finance. When you think of those positions, what do you think of those positions? Very rigid. There's input output. Well, when you become a mom, shit is a shit show. You could read all the parenting books and they can tell you to do this for your kid and your kid can come out like, fuck that. I'm going to do whatever I'm going to do. We have this perception of what it is. So that was my thing. And then, and then just the anxiety of like, I thought people were going to judge me. I was breastfeeding and just all of those things mentally and just very isolated and overwhelming. And I just wasn't expecting that. And number three is how it affects your partner.

I had listened to something recently that said, you don't realize how much you miss your partner after your kids are born. And I mean, my husband and I did it the right way on paper. We're both educated, great jobs, dated five years before having kids. And my son came and we were like, F you. What does that mean? Can you imagine that transition though to go from your like lovey dovey? Now you're like, I can't stand you.

That's massive. And I felt like we didn't talk about it. Can't. Not everyone's experienced. I feel like it could though. But a lot of moms that I talk to, it's real. We had to have a lot of conversation. He had to have a lot of patience and understanding that I was like, I don't know what the hell is going on up here, but you're breathing right now.

Like, it's just not working. You're breathing too loud. You're breathing too loud. You're chewing too loud. Which I will say just real quick, if I interject. A lot of people say that the whole you're breathing too loud, it means you're being annoying. Sometimes people breathe in a too goddamn loud. It's unbelievable.

Yes. But in this case, he really was so sweet in doing that. He really, yes. Look, you can be sweet, caring, the best husband, and it sounds like you're breathing like an idle engine. Sometimes that happens. And truthfully, if we look at the science, it's the oxy-co-in, oxy-co-in, oxy-to- Oxy-co-in, yeah.

I could use one of those. You know, the positive feeling. The loud breather needs the octocode. Where everything is going to my son, and it's pulling away from my husband. So there's a lot of patience. And again, five years in, we traveled. I was like, we got this. We're going to be like, you know.

No, we didn't. So that was all unexpected for me. So what's the remedy to kind of get back to that part in the relationship where there's less of that tension and more of just, you know, the unity, working together, loving one another? You have to have honest conversations. I mean, I had to tell him a lot of it came from, I think, my needs being unmet. I think we're all grown here. I think if someone lashes out on someone, if you're lashing out even with your boys, if you're lashing out at work, you're projecting on them. But it's not really them.

There's something going on with you. So my needs were being unmet. I wasn't able to say, I need you to do this or I need this from you or I'm struggling with this. Thankfully, I have a lot of self-awareness. I had my son at 35. So I was older, you know, so that had the mental awareness to say, okay, it's not you, but we need to fix something. So we had to have a lot of conversations. And honestly, my husband had to be patient. And I'm very thankful for that, that he's also a grown man to accept that and not take it personally. So a lot of conversation, a lot of patience and to the moms out there, ask for help. And for the men out there who might be experiencing this, ask for help. Ask your wife, your partner, how can I support you right now?

I feel like you're going through this. What's the disconnect here? How can I help? Don't take it personally because more than likely it's not you. It's, it's everything else that's going on in their brain. Sure. I love how like tough it was for you. And then you go and you become an independent contractor where I feel like it has to be even more, it's even more stress to like start your own business and be like, well, I gotta go get these clients now. It's so proud. It's so true. But that's, I think the, um, so I'm originally from the Bronx, raised in Florida. And I'm Puerto Rican and Sicilian. So kind of crazy, you know, like kind of in the sense of like you just figure it out.

And that's been, you just kind of grind and figure it out. That's how I was raised. Nikki from the block. Nikki from the block. So, yeah. So because of that, you just kind of figured out. And it wasn't serving me. Like I had to keep going into work. I mean, granted, my son was almost three years into it. So we, you know, kind of

found some, um, um, normalty or normalcy, but, um, yeah, you're right. It was, it was difficult, but I knew it was the best choice because I was tired of having to beg for time off or when COVID hit. And I'm like, wait a minute, like I'm busting my butt here and I have to beg for time off to go take care of my kid. Fuck you. No, I'll do this shit on my own because I know I can. Sure. And that's what I, that was more important to me to be able to have that freedom to spend with my son. Such a Nikki from the block attitude.

I love that. That's true. New York had to just like define you in terms of like how you're doing. But that's what I was for. Oh. But then you went to Florida. But then I went to Florida. Then you work at the South.

But remember, this is, that is so true. There's so many New Yorkers. But I was just raised in a household. And I'm sure you, are you guys from Philly? Surrounding areas. Okay. But I say all that because I think the Northeast, like, it's embedded in you. Like, the hand, even people are like, oh, you're from New York.

I'm like, I'm really not. I'm a Floridian. I'm a sunshine beach girl. But when you're raised in a household, Sicilian and Puerto Rican, like, it's hands. It's loud. It's a culture being from up north. Take the hoops out if I got to. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

I think there is just, from my experience, the Northeast has its own type of people, I think because we do deal with all the seasons. Like we're exposed to happiness for like seven months a year. And then they're like, oh, you can't go outside or else it literally hurts. It's that cold. And I think that kind of does something to you as a person. It does. It's so funny because my husband and i talk about that like how are we going to raise our son who's now in like ideally where everyone moves to south florida yeah where when we look my husband's from brooklyn we met in florida and all of his friends from brooklyn from the hood they're all successful people sure but you know some of his friends in florida they kind of still live at home

so i'm like i wonder if it's something to your point like there's a grind being from the northeast yes like you're like we got to figure this out we got to do it but from florida it's like what are you aspiring to yeah so we're like how do we put our like grind and work ethic into our son to not get complacent like oh well i'm in florida so you know i'm here type of thing so to your point being from the northeast it gives you get a certain kind of bravado i think so i don't think I'd ever get anything done in like a California or New York where everything's just like all warm and stuff.

Yeah. If you're 11 years old and you're down south in Florida and you see that there's a dude who drinks from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

and he just sits on the beach, you're like, I'm not getting a job. That's my whole point. But what if you're in the east coast and you're like, okay, it's winter,

like I gotta get out of this. I gotta get the heat on, yeah. I gotta turn the heat on. For sure, for sure. Well, thank you so much for hopping on. Thank you for having me. Have fun today.

Yeah, please. Thank you. And enjoy it. Thank you guys and good luck with podcasting. Thank you. You too, yeah the heat on. For sure. For sure. Well, thank you so much for hopping on. Thank you for having me. Have fun today. Yeah, please. Enjoy it. Thank you, guys. And good luck with podcasting. Thank you. You too. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.

This was great. Nikki from the block. Go check out Motherhood Village. Yes. Thank you, guys. Bye. Thank you. So we're at a Working Moms conference right now, if you didn't know.

It's right behind us. But we always want to talk to some dudes, too. Just grab the mic and put the headphones on. Sorry to be directing you like this. It's very... Make yourself comfortable. Whatever is most comfortable. Yeah, sorry. directing you like this. Make yourself comfortable. And you know what? Talk to us. No, I'm just kidding. What's your name, dude? My name's Colin.

Colin. I'm Kyle. Matt. This is Matt. Nice to meet you. What do you do for a living? I'm a painter. Shit. No kidding. Houses? No, fine art. Okay, so like real stuff. Yeah. Not to any of our painters out there, but I'm just saying. You're more squiggly lines and less up and down. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. What have you painted before? I'm working on 20 paintings right now. Wow. About to be done with seven of them today. Really? Yeah. So I work on usually like 16 to 30 paintings at a time. Why? So I don't have to sit and watch paint dry. Oh, nice. Let's go. So I can just keep moving around and keep working throughout the day.

Do you ever talk to paint drying? No, but there is an animism in the work. What's an animism? Like there's like a spirit to it. Yeah. Got it. Yeah. So are you painting a ton at once?

I'm sure there's like an artistic kind of notion to it, but is it also kind of like for the financial aspect of it where you are selling these and need to produce it or what does that look like? Yes and no. I mean, I think it makes each painting less precious, so I'm able to take more risks. Sure. Do bigger moves and

kind of push it a little bit further. It also lends into the conceptual element of the work. I'm working on plastic with plastic acrylic. Okay. So the paintings are completely plastic, and I'm making these sublime landscapes that are about ecological collapse, but there's a sincere irony in the fact that they're made out of plastic. Sure, yeah.

And I'm aestheticizing our demise. Sure, okay. And they're beautiful. Yeah. So I'm interested in this sincere irony that's present in the work. It's like a sunrise on post-apocalyptic planet. Exactly. How many edibles do you do a day?

None. Wow. You came up with that all by yourself? No, it evolved over the course of five or six years during my MFA program at the San Francisco Art Institute. Very nice. Wow. Okay.

Shit. So you obviously have an aesthetic you're targeting for these particular pieces. Do you have any thoughts about other artists that I've seen a lot on like social media with like the throwing the paint and it's the interpretive. And I know that might be a hack question, but like, what are your thoughts about that kind of art or do you have any thoughts? Is there any, I do, um, I'll never knock anyone who's producing something. Yeah. So many people don't produce and just consume. So I think that producing anything is a radical act in and of itself. Okay. However, I'm a painter. Yeah. And so I don't know if I think of that as painting. I think that could be art making. But for me, I think painting really is about having intentionality

and directing it with a little more agency and control. Okay. But for each their own, you know. Sure. And you also got to be quality over quantity in my mind. Sure. We could we could record you know 3 000 podcasts but if they freaking suck and nobody watches them who cares sure but you know some of the most famous artists burned 90 of their work really to keep the scarcity up but you gotta produce every single day and you can't be afraid to overproduce you just need to know how to edit it's kind of like rappers because like every time a rapper dies they always release a new album because rappers have like a thousand songs they just only release 12 for their album and stuff yeah that's a lot of it as a comedian every time i'm drunk and can't

remember my set i'll just do jokes that i wrote 15 years ago that i've never used yeah that's the go-to yeah and you have that material to go back to to reference and then i think what you know when you get good it's like you just have a more developed eye and you're able to discern what is quality and what's not. Sure. But I think that it's always valuable to do the work. And so that's the thing I meet other, you know, people that are like, oh, yeah, like I used to draw, but now I don't because everything I do is crap. And it's like, no, just keep doing it. Like there's no other way to go about it. And like, you know, it takes time to, to like, everything starts off poor. You've got to edit

it and keep moving on to it. And that's a good way to put it. The editing is actually bigger than you, you realize the more you do stuff. The fuck do you know about editing? Nothing. It just seems bad when you have to do it. I feel bad. At least the guilt is in me while you're doing it. No, it's all good. So MFA, Masters of Fine Art, right? Yes. Did you have a grander project that you had to build to for the Masters, or was it smaller stuff throughout? What did that look like? So I was doing a lot of painting, but I graduated 2020,

and so I lost access to my studio. No shit. And I had to finish my thesis while sheltering in place. And so I had six weeks left of my program to reimagine my thesis project without access to any of the facilities that I had had before. So I pretty much just had to think about a whole new thing. And I started going on these neighborhood walks and taking photographs of pretty everyday things and then selecting areas in the photograph and deleting it and allowing photoshop's algorithms to auto populate that space wow so i started doing this collaboration

with artificial intelligence yeah and then i started plugging in like language and my artist statements and poetry into uh like a really early um chat GBT kind of thing. Yeah. And it pulled out the craziest stuff because it was just not really on point. Is that cheating? No. Okay.

And so then I edited what it gave me into lines of poems. But they were all about COVID and societal collapse and kind of heavy stuff. Yeah, it was the time you were dealing with. dealing yeah it was the time i was dealing with and then that project i thought was very successful it was really cool and then uh it kind of informed the painting that i did after that once i was able to get back into a studio and get back to to my paint now this is what i've

always i've one more question about that So obviously you're finishing up the degree during COVID and we're all in lockdown. This is obviously informing every aspect of our life at this point. And the art I'm sure is inspired by COVID and the lockdown and things like that, but it's inspiring every other artist. So are you kind of like, well, this is hack at this point I'm talking about, or I'm drawing or doing the same thing that everybody else is, even though it's such a grand experience for all of us like did you have to think about that at all I think it was such a historical time that you know having content that was informed by it is not problematic or you know and in like 20 years a lot of the artists won't have

had that experience so yeah you'll look back on this time, and it's like, you know, if you're still doing the exact same thing and your work wasn't affected by it, it's kind of strange. Sure, sure. So obviously Picasso had, like, his blue period and his red period. What period are you in, the ecological disaster period? Yeah, I'm in my Anthropocene plasticity landscape period. But I think that'll shift at some point.

You just made that up. That was the coolest word of all the most made up thing i've ever heard um yeah no i in that period my clothes it's shifting it's changed over the past five years um so because it's actually like the antithesis of what my work was before uh my m program, I was doing like eco-masculine earth magic. Again, another phrase you just made up. Eco-masculine earth. Magic.

Magic. What's that look like? Like Yu-Gi-Oh cards? No, like they were like, they almost looked like hieroglyphs, super flat drawings, meticulous detail. I would spend like 80 hours on each one. Yeah. Why don't you become a tattoo artist?

Well, all my tattoos I drew. Yeah, that's a hieroglyph. Oh, that's pretty sick. That's a hieroglyph? Kind of like this kind of style, like this flatness. That looks like a hieroglyph? That looks sick, yeah. That's sick. So anyway. Sweet, dude. King Tut. Yeah, so it's kind of the opposite of what I'm doing now, that I'm

instead of working 80 hours and just doing tiny little dots on everything, it's like I'm working across all of these substrates and working on 20 paintings at a time. What is, so obviously we have like our impressionism era and we have our, you know, other errors and stuff. What's the error? I just can only name one. Impressionism.

Sure, sure. What's the error that we're in right now? I mean, it's hard to define because there's so many people doing so many things, but I think that the big trend has been figuration for the past ten years. What's that? Like, just bodies. Okay.

Figurative things, things that are not, like, so not abstract art. Okay. And I think that there was, like, a large trend of, like, faux naivety where people were painting children on purpose. Yes. And that was pretty hot for a while. And then now it's gone into doing figurative painting that has wild color palettes with cool bright underpaintings.

But I think that's shifting too. So it'll be interesting to see what happens next. Yeah, probably a dumb, bad question that won't make any sense, but I thought about it the other day. So you brought up the term faux naivety, and that there was like for an era, I noticed that on like a lot of like skate decks, like skateboarding companies had a lot of that on their skate decks, of like, it looked like a little kid went down there and held the pencil like this and drew something. When you're looking at that, obviously on first glance, it looks like, why would this be art?

It looks like a kid did this. But there's like an understood irony between the artist and the person looking at it that it represents something greater than that. If somebody doesn't perceive that, there's a way that I want to get to this. You two are on a wavelength that I am not even riding on right now. The other day I wore a camo trucker hat, and my sister said she didn't like the hat. And I said, well, I'm wearing it in a way where the irony actually goes past white trash and it's back to something cool. Just say you're wearing a shitty hat.

Yeah, well, yeah, I did do that too. But does that make any sense? Am I saying anything that has any... Yeah, for sure. I think that you can see when someone does it well still you know okay all right so like even if you know like there's faux naivety and then there's naivety and to have the faux like you actually have to be informed and know how to you know do it and have oh you have to have practiced it right okay that's fair. For how bad my question was, that's a perfectly great answer.

So I'll accept that, absolutely. Dude, I just got a contact high talking in between you two. Yeah, I almost passed out asking that question. This is insane. I just don't think I'm ironic enough or care enough about art to really get on the same wavelength of this conversation. You explaining that hat was insane. In my head, it still makes sense.

Are you still rocking that hat? No, I stopped wearing it because my sister's so mean. Dude, your phone I have, it sucks. Where can people follow you? I'm sure you've got Instagram. Yeah, for sure. So, I guess Instagram, at C-O-L-L-I-N-M-C-E-A-C-H-R-A-N, art. I know it's a lot.

Colin McReacher? Mick Eckron. Mick Eckron. Mick Re Art. I know it's a lot. Colin. McReacher? Mick Eckron. Mick Eckron. McReacher. I was going to say McMeachin. Okay. We weren't too far off. Pretty close.

Damn. So obviously you have your highs and your highs, and then I'm sure there's been some lows in painting. Anything you do creative, you definitely go through mentally or physically or low and stuff. For sure. When you were at your lowest point, do you ever think about cutting your ear off? Well, it was during COVID, so I spent all this money to get my MFA. And usually you have this large launch into the art world and you have this giant vernissage show and everyone in the industry

comes to see the new fresh talent graduating. And mine was canceled. So I didn't get to show all the work. And I had made so much work over the course of those two years. To not show it was, like, devastating. But you kept your ear. But I kept my ear, and I just kept doing it. Sweet. Well, thanks for hopping on. Yeah, for sure. Thanks for teaching me about art.

This is very cool, dude. What's the name of your podcast? It's called Men at Work Podcast. He has all the socials. No, we don't have cards. We probably should get those things get cards yeah yeah okay we'll get cards good have fun yeah dude thank you so much this is awesome i wish i had more art prowess yeah i mean you could see what it looks like when you think you have it and you try to have a conversation with a dude who's clearly good at it and i'm like so um when people scribble

is that ironic do you think that's cool do you approve of what i'm trying to say to you right now i literally had nothing to talk about that guy. I'm so uncultured. It's insane. I disagree. I thought you were... I'm more fascinated. I asked if he cut off his ear, Matt. Yeah, I enjoyed that. So what's your first name?

Cherie. Cherie. Nice to meet you. What do you do for a living? I actually have a business. It's called Poison Paper. Poison Paper. I'm interested in it now. Yes, it is a stationary company, and it is in support of supporting women and mothers. Wow. Yeah.

So I develop products that a mother can use. It's just about being able to save time. Because as a mom, you have so many hats, and you're doing so many things, soccer mom, football mom, whatever it is you're doing. And so I just want to make life easier for you. I'm a mom, so I know what it's like. So pretty much it's making products that you can actually use in everyday life, not like something that can just sit on the shelf, but pretty much like something that you can just, you know,

if you need to write your to-do list, put it on your fridge, your grocery list, or, you know, something you can carry around in your purse, just pretty much, and inspirational products as well. Got it. You know, something just like to keep you going when you look down, you see maybe just a short little message to, you know, that keeps you motivated. You might be having a bad day or something.

You just never know, you know. And so you see something that says, you know, smile or like you're worth it. Like keep going, you know. Don't forget the lunch meat. Yeah. How about that? Yeah. That'd be a good one.

Yeah, it would be. Because I go to the grocery store all the time. I forget so much stuff. Don't forget the milk. Don't forget the milk. Bread. Bread. bread bread mimosa that's overrated right every time we have like a little interest now it's like get the milk get the bread it's like eggs now get the if you notice if you go into the grocery store whenever it's like supposedly a big store if you look at the eggs the bread and the the milk, like it's gone.

Every time. It's gone every time. I'm like, so are you eating milk, eggs, and bread? I mean, you're just eating, what, grilled cheese all day or like an egg sandwich? I'm confused. We're getting an inch and a half of snow. You'll be okay. I hate to say it.

As somebody who doesn't cook, I thought that was everything you need for every meal of all time. I thought you could make a steak with that. I'm not going to lie to you guys. I thought. My to-do list is usually DoorDash, DashPass. Yeah. And then those are kind of.

His fridge is like a cop. You never use DoorDash? You got to get in there. So listen, my friends, they're like ordering things for their kids. They do DoorDash, Uber Eats. Yeah. And what's the other one? Instacart.

So, oh, wait a minute. Now, I do use Instacart. All right. Instacart's sick. Now we're talking. Instacart is like my best friend. Yeah. It's like use Instacart. All right. Instacart's sick. Now we're talking. Instacart is like my best friend. Yeah. It's like DoorDash except for grocery stores.

Yes. I love it. Like, you know, and, you know, there were times like I was cooking during the holiday season and you always forget like something. And I'm like. Lunch meat. Lunch meat. Eggs.

Bread. For the charcuterie board. Charcuterie board. I love charcuterie boards. I think we have to forget the lunch meat because the listeria thing going on. No, I don't want to talk about that. I'm a big lunch meat guy. We're going to let that go.

Yeah. We'll let it rise. You guys are right. I'm sorry. Didn't the allergen said who came on earlier, she said we got to eat more dirt because we don't have... Well, maybe not what she said verbatim, but something along those lines. We can't eat listeria, but we got to eat more dirt because our immune systems are a little sad right now. That's fair.

I think poison paper is great. I immediately caught on to it. I latched on to it. Right. So when I was throwing names out, I kind of sent them out to my friends, and they were like, we like to play on words. You know, poison paper, like pee-pee. You know, like pee-pee. Pee-pee.

Yeah. So, you know, and I kind of did like a vote, and everybody kind of like that had got the most votes. You down with SPP? Cherise poison paper. Cherise poison paper. Yeah, you know me and I kind of did like a vote and everybody kind of like that had got the most votes. You down with SPP? Cherise Poison Paper. Cherise Poison Paper. Well, CPP. Oh, you're Cherise. You down with CPP?

Yeah. Is that Communist China? I think it's China. Is that Communist China? Yeah, that's a good one. I see why you went with Poison Paper. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. We do love Poison Paper. Nice. That's so cool. So how long you been? What did you do before you became an entrepreneur? So I still do have a full-time job. What do you do?

I work for the federal government. Okay. Government boy over here, too. So I work my nine to five that supports my five to nine, as they say. Yeah, that's the move. That's the move, right? So I've been in business for a little under two years so I'm still in I'm still in a starter you know I'm still right at the very beginning just you know figuring things out I'm about to go through a relaunch to kind of just really just focus on who my target audience is make my website pop a little more because when people go to a website even though they may want your product but people are drawing out what they see right so it has to it has to catch the eye so I'm going working on that making

it just a little more um you know like so when when you click on it, you're like, oh, well, what's next? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. There's two handsome bastards in February and March. How about that? Get a load of that. Telling me about it. So, you know, that's what I'm working on, making it just a little bit more, you know, to pop.

Yeah. Catch people's attention. All about the pop. Any storefront plans? Any like a physical location or for now? No, not for right now. But the goal is to do wholesale to get my products in stores. Nice.

I think that's the move. That's the move. So more so than having a storefront, it's more about getting into like more like boutique stores. Because, you know, people shop really boutique stores now. Yeah. They really do. Tell my fiance about it. Yeah, I'm stuck there every weekend for nine hours a day.

And it's great, you know, but, you know. Right right so that's the goal to get into like more boutique stores yeah you know and like those nice mom and pop shops because another small business supports another small business and then into some of the bigger you know um stores as it goes along but that's the plan is to do more wholesale yeah and to get it into those uh more boutique how does someone because obviously like post-it notes. Oh, I think I have to go now. Oh, you got to go now? Yeah, I have to go. That's fine.

But it was nice talking to you guys. You paid for it. You better go in there and get as much as you can. How about that? Thank you. Thank you. Poison paper. Poison paper.

Check me out. Be down with CPP. Be down with CPP. Yeah, you know me. So what's your first name? Krista. Krista. Yeah, I actually already knew that, but I just wanted to set up the listeners.

You are running the Working Moms Conference. Well, at least you're the person I talk to the whole time. Yeah, I'm the founder of the Working Mom Conference. Sweet. Very nice. Yeah, I'm super excited to be in Philadelphia. This is my city, my stomping ground. I love it.

I mean, they might not like me saying that because I'm from Jersey. Well, that's fine. He's from Jersey, too. Still counts. Are you South Jersey? South Jersey. 22 minutes. minutes same delaware valley we're all in delaware valley together yeah so so why not yeah i absolutely love philly so this is the first time that we are here last year we were in dc nice wow i'm really excited to have the mothers here have you interview them how did it go it went well we met a lot of awesome mothers yeah yeah they have

super big communities over 70 000 working moms or just mothers in general come to their communities to just vent. Yeah. There's some venting. That's what it seems like. I enjoy the venting. I would say there's some venting. Yeah, there's some venting, relate, some networking, some resources, some services. So this is just like an awesome thing.

They're just up there laughing. So what made you want to start the Working Moms Conference? Well, I'm a working mom. Sure. That's fair. I like that. It'd be hilarious if you weren't. That would be ironic. And then, two, I'm displaced. So I'm prior service, Army.

Thank you for your service. You're welcome. Thank you for your support. So with that, I didn't have a village. So when you don't have a village, you don't have your parents to rely on. Jennifer, I think, was talking about having a village because his sister just have a village. So when you don't have a village, you don't have your parents to rely on. Jennifer, I think, was talking about having a village because his sister just had a kid. Oh, yeah. It's super, super important.

So normally, service members who don't build their own. So that's what I do. I'm building a village for other mothers and bringing other mom communities together just to make sure that they have something and to say, no, I might not have my family, but I have another mom with the same kids at the same age. Sure. Or I go to this class, Pilates class or whatever, and we can go together and then somebody else watch the kid. So that's really what it's about is just bring all those communities nationwide together so that we can see where you fit in. I love that. Yeah. I love that. How long have you been doing the Working Moms Conference? This is our second annual, so not that long. Sweet. I'm hoping that we can see where you fit in. I love that. Yeah. I love that. How long have you been doing the Working Moms Conference? This is our second annual, so not that long.

Sweet. I'm hoping that we can grow and more people know about it. The mission is good. The need is definitely there for working mothers to just find that balance between motherhood and careers. But not many people know about it. So when you reached out, that was like, bam. I love it.

Absolutely. Yeah, you'd be surprised by how many people are like don't come near my conference which i actually do agree with we've got a lot of that yeah yeah yeah we've gotten more way more no's way more no's and yeses it's you guys and we have a furry convention next week i mean the same we're just practicing for the furry convention it's basically the same communities that's hilarious. Not if it isn't. I don't see why. There are so many people that have different interests, and you may be able to reach someone or someone who could say, hey, I listen to them, and I think you would like them.

So the more we talk about it, the more moms we can reach. Any working moms out there, come to the Working Moms Conference in 2025 because I'm having a blast out here. This has been a darn tune time. Yeah, absolutely. So what's the itinerary look like for the conference? So we have speakers, we have things like that. What else is on the, on the agenda? Yeah. So we have awesome, phenomenal speakers. Like I said, they have over 70,000 working moms that are in their communities. These are experts from tech experts to HR. She's an HR expert, our keynote, the HR plug, she's awesome. Nice. So we have a really good

lineup when it comes to speakers. And then after that, we have a Moms Only Happy Hour where we're just going to kick it. Moms and Music is going to sponsor that and presenting some performances where moms are going to sing. We have open wine. And we have a speaker network. We also have Mompreneur

Marketplace where mompreneurs, they're moms and they're entrepreneurs and they're going to sell things. So you can come here to Wax and Wine today and tomorrow to just shop in the front store and do that. We also have a speaker panel to talk about beauty, confidence, and self-love

because that's very important for women to feel beautiful in their own sense of whatever that means. And then we have another keynote. So it's a packed Saturday and Sunday. We do that on purpose just to make sure that they are present and that they have the best momcation they can. Awesome.

Can I ask you? Yeah. What's the wine budget on a mom conference, a working mom conference? You know, it's unlimited. It's open. I like that. It's very nice. It's open wine.

That's your selling point right there. Yeah. Hey, ladies, come by, get some self-help, get some love and some care, meet some great working moms, and then we're going to get after it. Yeah, and by the way, after the workshops, we're going to have some fun. I've tried to drink with my mom and her friends before, and I ended up under the table. Yeah, it definitely happens like that.

Last year, we were in D.C., and we had a packed program, too. Nice. And the moms were like, we're just going to head to the Lauryn Hill concert afterwards. Love it. Oh, my God. And then we're going to go to the club. Love it. I'm just like, okay.

Make a day of it. Yeah, that's what it's for. Why not? You're on a mom kitchen. Leave your kids at home. Leave your husband at home. Leave your son and your other at home, and come to the Working Moms Conference, and get after it.

We'll go clubbing later. Is there anything better than that? Sure. Folks, come to the Working Moms Conference next year. Learn about yourself. Learn about other people. Work your core. Make connections. Work your mind. And then have some wine, baby. Have some wine. Have some fun. Make some connections. You'll see. You'll meet these mothers and they can really hit you or go towards the goals that you need. I love it. Krista, thank you so much for first letting us sit outside,

letting us be here. We appreciate it. And thanks for coming on. No, thank you guys. I hope to see you around. Yeah, oh, definitely. Thank you again. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Cool. Don't keep shitting and sniffing. That's fucking life over there. That's good stuff, yeah. If aliens came down and they were like, those humans are picking up the animals' shit. Yeah.

The animals run this joint. Or it goes back to like the Roman times where they got so advanced that they got like tantrically sick. How are you? What's up? Hello. Jennifer, how are you? Perfect. Nice to meet you.

I'm Kyle. How you doing? Yeah. Matt, great to meet you. How are you? Sorry. You sit here, so it's a little bit of shade. So what's your first name?

Jennifer. Jennifer. And what do you do for a living? I am a therapist. Therapist? Yes. What kind of therapy? I tend to work with moms, new moms who are adjusting into motherhood.

Got it. How's that going? It's going really well. A lot of people need the service. I'm guessing you're a mom yourself. I am. That'd be hilarious if you weren't a mom yourself. Funny enough, I did provide services to moms before becoming a mom,

but I didn't necessarily know the need until I actually became a mom. Got it. So how'd your training change after you had a kid? It's completely different night and day. The lived experience gives me, I think, added oomph when it comes to the wisdom and the ability to relate to my clients. Did you refund the clients before that you didn't have? Come and see me again.

I've doubled in service. Yeah, that's very nice. But my rates have also gone up. Yeah, of course. It's actually true. I like that. Good move. I like that.

So how'd you get into that? Did you go to school for that or did you kind of just fall into that? Fall into therapy? Yeah. I mean, you can fall into therapy, I guess, in terms of like client base, right? Or do you have to like go to school? that or did you kind of just fall into that like fall into therapy yeah i mean you can fall into therapy i guess in terms of like client base right or do you have to like go to school i fall into therapy many a time but i've been a person paying i've fallen out i've fallen in falling back out absolutely um i actually i guess you could say i fell into it i went to school to become a pediatrician and then i was like oh i really don't like biology and all these

courses that i'm taking um and i felt that I was really just trying to fulfill my parents' dream. Yeah. First generation. Got it. American. And so I found a psychology class and I was like, oh, my God, this is it. Like, I love learning about how people think and connecting the dots between past and present. And I'm naturally just a really good listener. So it just kind of made sense yeah that makes sense yeah

yeah checks out to me what's one thing that people should know about working moms Wow it's a big question that's a loaded question yeah I'll give you an example I found out I was doing some research out to me moms working moms are making or getting more jobs that are paying six figures. It's funny because men feel like they can apply for a job when they only have like 60% of the qualifications. But women apply for the job when they feel like they have 100% of the qualifications, which is such a man thing to do. Like, you know, I'll put some stucco up and everything. We'll put it together.

I can't do almost half the job. But you know what? Screw it. Let's apply. No, that's good information. And it's very, very true. And I think one thing that I'm actually going to talk about today is how much work ties into our mental health. Like being fulfilled and feeling like you're seen and valued as an employee, as as a manager as you know whatever role that you

play it really does spill into how you show up as a mom and how you show up for your family i'm assuming you were practicing during like the pandemic how was zoom therapy was that kind of tough to navigate or no i love it that's actually what i do now okay but i actually became a mom during the pandemic oh yeah that was the catalyst for the work that I do now. It was really, really hard. It was isolating, to say the least. I had to deal with my own unresolved trauma. A lot of stuff just kind of came to the surface, and it was like, whoa, what is this? And I used motherhood as a lens, as a mirror to just kind of confront all the things that otherwise we'd

be able to just kind of function through. But I want to break generational patterns. I want to be an example for my daughter in terms of healing. And so that was the catalyst for starting my own maternal mental health private practice. How sick was it that you got to get rid of the rent payment too in your office? I like not driving more than anything. I live in Miami, and the traffic would drive you crazy. How many working moms are down in Miami?

Oh, I don't know the number. A lot? I'm sure there's a lot. I feel like it's all just single people living their best life. I've never been to Miami. This is what I just assume. I've seen Liv. I've seen Eleven. I've seen all those clubs and everything. Every time I see it,

it's people just going up on Sundays. I mean, you know what? I'm sure that that is a portion of the people who live here. That's not my life. That's definitely not my reality. Was that ever your life though? Um, I didn't work when I was, uh, during the first year of my daughter's life, I didn't work and I didn't like that. You didn't like, okay. No. I know that some people prefer to just kind of be with their kids when they have babies. But it was more so out of necessity because COVID was new and, you know, all the things. But there's a big part of me that's fulfilled by the work that I do and by being able to contribute to society. I feel that.

I feel that. I feel that hard. Are you on TikTok or do you ever go on TikTok? I don't even have the app, no. Do you have Instagram? No, I have Instagram. Okay. So maybe you've seen it on Instagram. The Tradwives? No. Have you seen Tradwives? Uh-uh. They're traditional wives, like homemakers and stuff. They take care of the kids. They take care of the husband. They make food from scratch. They take care of the farm. There's a really big one called Ballerina Farmer. Okay. So I guess would trad wives be in your certain clientele?

We're talking like basically take yourself and move yourself back to 1950s Americana. Okay. And where you're like, you know. Sounds like a nightmare. Yes, it does sound like. Dude, this woman. Sounds fucking awful. To each their own.

Yeah, she's got like 9 million followers. But since she has to wear all these old school school like churning butter blouses and stuff. So is that like religious? No, I don't even think. Well, I think, yeah, they're probably a little bit of Christian and stuff. But it's like a huge influencer dynamic on Tradwives. So like you think like, you know, I have a fiance. He's got a girlfriend and stuff.

So it's like it basically they're influencing other women that like would live in Miami. And these people live in like Wyoming. Yeah. But they're like influenced. It's like a whole new influencer dynamic and stuff. So I didn't know if the Tradwives have made your way over to the therapist. They haven't, but I'm open. I feel like they got a lot of trauma. I think they need the therapist.

They need some help. You take care of eight kids. You take care of some cows and stuff. That's what's going on. You gotta look up Ballerina Farmer after this. So it's T-R-A-D Wives? T-R-A-D Wives. So traditional wives. Yeah. Okay.

Got it. That's crazy. Yeah. That could be a new demo. I don't know. We'll see. Once they get out of there, like whole like trad wives. I'm open.

As long as you can identify that you have something to work through. You know what I mean? Let's talk. Okay. That's a nice open-ended way to put it. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. I think it's talk. Okay. That's a nice open-ended way to put it. Yeah. I like that. I think it's certainly an interesting dynamic you mentioned about the first year that you had your daughter,

you weren't working and it didn't feel right. Yeah. I think part of being a parent, at least in my perspective, because both my parents worked, was like seeing both of them kind of have to, not that it's nice to see your parents have to work through stuff, but it does give you even more of a respect to be like, there's my mom. She's out working and she takes me to basketball and all this stuff. So I think, yeah, that demonstration of like, here's what it takes to be a useful person

in somebody's life. It's kind of cool to see. Yeah. And again, I don't knock anyone who chooses not to. Like, I love that for them. But for me in particular, I want my daughter to see that you can do it all if that's what you choose. Yeah.

You know, no limitations. choose. Yeah. You know? No limitations. Sweet. Yeah. Oh, one more for you. Maddie just became an uncle. Yes. Oh, congrats.

Thank you so much. What advice would you have for his future working mom? Oh. Or his future working sister. Okay. Who is a mom. Is she already working? Yeah, she's a nurse.

Oh, she's a nurse. Okay. And so she's working like those long hours. Yeah, there's like 312s type deal. Yeah, she's a nurse. Oh, she's a nurse. Okay. And so she's working like those long hours? Yeah, there's like 312s type deal. Yeah, that's tough. I would suggest that you have a village of people that you can count on, that you can. So even now, my daughter is at home and I was watching her on the monitor yesterday. And her uncle, my brother, was reading to her before bed.

And it just warmed my heart. So I think the advice is for her to just have a village of people that she can like truly rely on. And I don't think that we ask for help enough as moms. Sometimes we feel like we should be able to figure it all out. And then that's where you guys come in too. Just kind of step in and tell her this is what I'm going to do. And not even leave too much wiggle room for her to have to figure it out because that's the other thing like let me figure out what I need to ask for help for it's like a one more to do so nice incompetence I've read that one before is that a thing weaponized

incompetence yeah that's why I stopped asking my girlfriend what stuff I should do it might be bad but I'm just gonna do moms that I talked to a lot of them talk about mental gymnastics that they have to do constantly with the running to-do list so for you to ask what do you need me to do it feels like one other thing on the list yeah so just step in i've noticed and you notice it for yourself too like you don't you don't realize you're doing it to somebody but the moment it happens to you you're like i don't know i don't want to think about what i have to tell you to do right now yeah it's like one more thing right yeah so just the village.

It's so, so, so important. Cool. Yeah. What do you think your role in the village would be? Maybe like dancer. You'd be the jester. Cool hangout kind of guy. Jennifer, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Thank you. And I think you guys should pull back to get

out of the sun. What makes you say that? I'm the palest guys of all time. Oh, yeah, get a better picture. Ready, one, two, three. Hi, Jillian. Hi. Welcome to a podcast. Hello.

I've never done this before. That'll be fine. Here, put the headphones on. We sound even better. Yeah. We sing sometimes, too. Hello, Jillian. Oh, my God, that sounds completely different.

I know. I know. Now you don't have to hear the Philly sounds of Philadelphia. And you still can hear them now. It's really the most busy time the street's ever been. It's like they knew you were going to be here. And it's gone a round block, and now they're telling everyone to drive by. We call it the cavalry.

We're the town criers. I know. Just criers. We just literally cry. If you don't watch this podcast. Me? Yes. So I'm here kind of on my own to join the Working Mom Conference.

I was kind of watching it because I am a working mom. I live in the South Jersey area, and I work in the construction wholesale industry. Wow. So I mainly came because I wanted to see the one speaker talk about moms working in a male-dominated industry because that is what I do. Now, would you consider yourself blue-collar or white-collar working in construction wholesale? I would say blue-collar. Blue-collar. We have our blue-collar babies.

Yeah, 100%. So I am the daughter of immigrants. Oh. 100%. So I am the daughter of immigrants. I am the wife also of an immigrant who has grown up in the construction industry, who my husband's in it as well, and is also now raising two daughters and showing them that you actually have a better future and happiness working blue collar than going to a university and having all of that debt. That's big. That's big right now. It is massive.

I mean, I saw an NPR thing like 15 years ago that said in the next couple of decades, someone who goes for a tech industry will actually be better off financially and emotionally than those who go to a university coming out with crippling debt and also being one of a thousand going for a business or a tech job yeah and it'll get to the point where people who are plumbers or electricians or hvac can more or less name your price because they're so few and far between because it was almost looked down upon in the late 90s, early 2000s to go for that for a future. And your boss would probably be a cyborg by then? Your boss would be AI anyway. And look, it is true.

I mean, somebody's got to build them. You can't just have some dork-drawing plans all the time. Eventually, we're going to have blueprints with nobody to build the thing. So it kind of makes sense that we need to. In construction right now, there is all of these people that went to school for the drawings and everything else. And yes, you do need engineers and architects and that. But if you don't have anyone to lay the foundation or build it.

You need the calloused hands. Exactly. A lot of uncalloused people drawing the plans. And that's it. And you get to that point. I'm in masonry and there's these people that want their $2 million houses. Well, if you don't have someone to pour the concrete or to build it or

to do any of the finishing, it doesn't matter how much money you make. You won't have anyone to actually do it. Yeah. Yeah, my dad used to say, you know, the world needs ditch diggers, too. Well, guess what, Dad? Ditch diggers are going to be the ones running this country one day. You know what? It is. It is 100% true. There are going to be six-figure ditch diggers out there. Unfortunately, the ditch diggers now are podcasters.

Here we are, folks. We're the new ditch digger. Sam, how are you? Do you want to be on? You can sit down and be on if you want. Yeah, please. Thanks for coming on. Are you a working mom as well? Yeah. Alright. What do you do for a living? I work with international nurses and I'm in nursing school myself.

Congratulations. How's the international nurses? What country are we talking? All over. Our biggest is the Philippines, actually. Really? Yeah. They have an overflow of nurses in the Philippines.

Did you know that? No, I didn't. The interesting thing about it is most Filipinos, their career goal for everybody is nursing. Really? That's what you're taught from the get-go. Why is that? I don't know. I think a lot of,

a lot of Filipinos, the goal is to get to America and they know that nursing is a big field. They can do that with. Interesting. That makes sense. You'll find a lot of the, the people working in like gas stations or grocery stores in the Philippines are also actually registered nurses.

Really? But there just aren't enough jobs in the Philippines for them to work as nurses. Wow. So then they'll also do volunteer nursing. So they'll work as a nurse and not get paid because there just aren't enough paid jobs for them. Dude, if I slip on a Slurpee machine in the Philippines

and I crack my head open, that's probably the best place to have it happen. True, the cashier's an RN. Yeah, he'd be sick. He'd be like, oh yeah, I'm taking his vitals. You know, just call 911 or whatever the Filipino 911 over there is. Well, if I did crack my head open about taking my vitals,

I hope there's greater urgency. Wow. Do you guys know each other? No, no. How about this? I know. Sam, this is Jillian. Lovely to meet you.

Nice to meet you. Just bringing working moms together. That's what we're here to do. And that's what it is. That's what something like this is today is to bring together a whole bunch of working moms that are in a whole bunch of different industries and different lifestyles and at different stages of motherhood to see there are opportunities or also that you're not alone. And some of us have really young kids and some have older kids. And it's also nice to see, like, okay okay they made it through yeah so then i can make it through yes yeah yeah it's very it's good to see people uh you know i've been through it yeah

go ahead you get a couple questions i cut you off no i think that was pretty i was pretty uh interested i was kind of curious about like the international nurses is it weird to navigate like are there different rules and laws for nursing that you have to find ways around like what's that look like yeah so all in order to come and work in the United States, there are some pretty strict regulations. They do have to pass the United States NCLEX, so that's the nursing test. They have to pass an English test, and they need to be proficient in English. And then they also need to have some sort of nursing experience in their home country. Do they have to be citizens?

No. They don't get a work visa? We work with them with all of their immigration status. So we pay for all of their things, and then they work for us for a period of three years-ish in return to kind of pay that back. But essentially, a lot of them get here for free. That's fantastic because as someone who's lived through the immigration policy,

a process with my husband, and English English was his or still is his first language it is extremely difficult to do that process alone alone let alone if English is not your first language that's a good point we support through the whole process um but they they get here and they work and some people struggle and some people just excel, and that is what it is. Our Indian folks tend to struggle with English the most. Got it. And then India happens to be our higher, like, technology. They're the closest to us technology-wise.

A lot of our other countries don't have computers in health care systems. Their systems are a lot less advanced than ours. So they get here. Not only are they struggling with adjusting to the American life, which is crazy as it is, English being the number one language here and the technology differences. It's a lot. So what we work with them, we have clinical people on staff who help. And then they have someone who's assigned to them through every step of their entire process. So do we have more or less nurses after the pandemic? Because I've heard a lot of horror stories that it seemed like it might turn people away from the profession. Just because of the issues with understaffing and things like that.

Or have you noticed a difference really i i think as the population grows the the staffing the staffing shortage is going to stay i don't know if we'll ever get on top of it just because we're growing at such a pass rate it's fast rate especially here in the u.s that i don't know if we'll ever be able to get on top even with covid there that did take a lot of people away but people are starting to come back okay um or are drawn to it for that reason. That makes sense. Is there a blue collar shortage? Oh God, extremely. It is extremely the shortage that there is like anywhere. I mean, there was always hard times finding laborers or, or good installers or anything like that. Especially if you're getting very specific in the type of construction that you're doing

or especially like in this area, like historical restoration. If you can find someone that can do that, it is few and far between. They can name their price. There's always been a shortage, but since COVID, even before COVID, probably in the last 10 years,

it's been an extreme shortage because the older generation has unfortunately died out. And then the younger generation was so tech heavy that they have not had anyone come up in the ranks or learn the apprenticeship or learn the trade that it is like the ones that are doing it can more or less name their price for a lot of it. It's pretty sick. At least they can name their price.

At the very least, yeah, you can make a little money. As long as they do half-decent work. Yeah. If they do crap work. Oh, you can curse all you want. I'm in construction. Yeah, oh my God, I'm sorry. If they do crap work, then they can't name their price.

But if they know what they're doing and are half decent at it, then they can more or less. I'll leave you with this one. Do you think you could pass a citizenship test? Do you know what is hysterical? So my husband has been here. Well, he's been here off and on for the last 24 years. But we've been back in the country for 12 years. He is actually going for his citizenship test.

Oh, wow. And his citizenship test is actually the end of this month. So we as a family have been studying for it. Me, my husband, and my two girls, or our two girls, just to kind of help him study for it. And I sat there, I said, most people could not pass this. It is absolutely shocking. And he's shitting himself during doing it. Oh, I'm sure.

But he's like, he's panicked. He's like, I've been here for the better part of 20 years. He goes, I speak English and I'm pretty well versed. He goes, and I'm terrified that I'm not going to pass this test to become a citizen. Wow. Yeah. I can't imagine that. I couldn't do it.

It is actually quite difficult. I'm born and raised. I think every once in a while I'll have a couple cocktails at night and I'll try to pass it on my own. Can't do it. Can't be done. Do you see a citizenship test a lot? I know you do more work visas and stuff. I actually haven't.

So where I am, I'm at the end of the process. So all the people I work with are here or getting here, like arriving. So I do welcome people into the U.S. That's one of the things that I do. But I have seen questions on the things that I do. But I have seen questions on the test that I don't even think I could do. Right? And I'm born and raised. Like what?

What's kind of, like any of the questions, any examples you can think off the top of your head? Who's the 12th president? Well, yeah, though I ask random ones like that. But some of them have to go with like the amendments and the Bill of Rights and different things. And like which amendment was this and which was that one and that. And he'll ask me, he goes, well, didn't you learn this in school?

I was like, yes, I learned this 30 years ago. And I've never needed it again. The thing about history is I feel like everybody who likes history or learns history, they all latch onto a certain pair. Like, I was a big World War II guy. People like Industrial Revolution. People like the Revolutionary War. Some people like more constitutional history and stuff.

Yeah, I'm like a World War II guy. So, like, I don't know. I couldn't tell you, like, the Sixth Amendment. I couldn't tell you really any amendment. I feel like they're all getting amended every now and stuff. Yeah, I'm like a World War II guy. So I don't know. I couldn't tell you the Sixth Amendment. I couldn't tell you really any amendment. I feel like they're all getting amended every now and then. Ask real questions, dude. What was Taylor Swift's third studio album? I got it.

Ask us the real stuff about America. I couldn't even do that one. Me either. It's a bad example. Yeah. Who's our queen? Taylor Swift. There we go.

Put her on the dollar bill. That's true. Yeah, who's on the hundred? Oh, Taylor Swift. Put her on the dollar bill. That's true. Yeah, who's on the hundred? Oh my god. Well, thank you so much for coming on. We really appreciate it. Sam and Jillian. How did you like your first podcast? It was quite enjoyable.

I mean, this is exciting. Don't start your own. There's too much competition, alright? You know what? As a working mom, I've got enough on my plate. I can't add one more thing. Well, thank you ladies so much. Enjoy Good, good, good. Well, thank you, ladies, so much. Thank you very much. Enjoy yourselves.

All right, people. That's the podcast. Thank you to the Working Moms Conference. Thank you to Krista. Thank you to you, the blue-collar babies. Thank you to you, the middle-class mommies. And thank you to you, the white-collar criminals. If you like this content, you want some sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet bonus content,

by the time you see this, we'll have a beer mile up on the Patreon. You can go to patreon.com slash menatworkpodcast. Email us at menatworkpodcast at gmail.com. If you ever want us to come to your conference or you want us to come to your business or whatever. And you know what? Just keep living, dude. You got anything? Any dates or anything you want to promote?

Dates we got coming up. A lot of stuff in August. Check my social media. I've been pumping it out. Got a busy week coming out. This will be by Wednesday. So Friday, come see me do a roast battle that Kyle had to bail on. Why don't you do it? Sure. August. Check my social media. I've been pumping it out. Got a busy week coming out. This will be by Wednesday, so Friday come see me do a roast battle that Kyle had to bail on.

Why don't you do it? I'll be judging a roast battle that Thursday beforehand. But yeah, dude, check the socials, and the next thing we'll be doing for Patreon is perhaps a T-Mile. No. Not at all. Our next Patreon is going to be me versus you one-on-one on a nine-foot

hoop. I'm going to annihilate this poor guy, man. So, alright. We love you guys. Appreciate you. Peace.