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Trusting Your Gut: One Mom's Guide to Saying No, Slowing Down, and Living Boldly · That Mom

• Maria Woods: Mm-hmm. Welcome to That Mom, the podcast where we explore finding more joy and more meaning in the beautiful chaos of motherhood. I'm your host Maria and I'm so glad you're here. Welcome back to That Mom. Today I'm talking to a special guest, Colleen Esposito. She is a famous mom, Candy O'Terry, but she's here to talk to us about following your gut and motherhood. Come hear Colleen's story coming up next. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Thanks for having me. And you have an interesting story, I think, for a few different reasons. You're a mom, you're an entrepreneur, you were a working mom and currently a stay-at-home mom, although you have some entrepreneurial projects for sure. Yeah, so actually I was I wasn't a working mom. I decided to, after my first daughter was born, I was in my maternity leave and realized I don't want to go back to work. I had a about a 10-year-long career in advertising and I was fully in the trenches and it was a lot and it was a big job. ⁓ I traveled a ton. It was exhausting. I loved it but I couldn't see how I would do that with a baby. ⁓ And so I wanna say I was like halfway through my maternity leave and also had no plans yet for childcare. So I think I kinda knew that I wasn't gonna go back. ⁓ but I did go into it with every intention of of going back to work and then one day decided, you know what, that's that's my old life, this is my new life, and I'm gonna dive headfirst into motherhood. ⁓ and that's I ended up being a stay-at-home mom. Yeah, was it a hard decision for you since you had a career, you were traveling, you were in it, and you mentioned you loved it? Was how was that process of deciding? It sounds like you decided pretty quickly and you just knew. ⁓ it was well, yeah, I think it kind of it happened gradually. I think there were moments along the way throughout my pregnancy where I realized the reality of what it would be like to go back to that job with a baby. there were a few things like I remember once I was I was very pregnant ⁓ and I sat down in in a meeting and one of my bosses came in and she had an infant at the time and she was like, all right guys I've got an hour before childcare calls me and realizes that my daughter has a fever. 'Cause she's like, I gave her time all and it's about to wear off. So I gotta hurry this up and go pick her up soon. And I was like, that's the expectation. That's what he people are gonna expect me to do. And it just didn't feel right to me. And I get it that that's the reality for so many moms. because it's it's a have to, you know, you have to and it's a want to. It's a have to if you have to have two incomes. It's a want-to if you don't want to give up your career. ⁓ and it's it's very much a hard decision, I think, for for all moms. but for me it it didn't feel right and I didn't want that expectation that I would still give 100% to my job. at the same time, I will say it may not have been my job's expectations of me. It was also probably my expectations of myself. I'm not a strive for mediocrity type person. I can't. I you interviewed my mom, you know who raised me. So I put everything I am into what I do. And I very much felt that way about my career. And so I saw it like I can't be this person and also the mom I want to be at the same time. Those two are not gonna be able to be compatible. So that decision came Pretty easily. ⁓ but it was also it was interesting because my husband, I remember one day came home from work and he said this was during my maternity leave, and he was like, Hey, so how's this gonna work? Like when you go back to work? Like who's gonna watch this baby that we have and w how's this all gonna play out? And I was like, I don't know yet. And he said to me, he was like, Listen, I'm not telling you what to do, but I want you to know that If you don't want to go back to work, you don't have to. We will figure it out. And that was amazing. It was kind of like that open door where I, you know, I burst into tears and I was like, I don't think I want. I think I just want to do this, if that's okay. And he was like, yes, we'll figure it out. Yeah. And that was amazing. That and I I very much realized that there's probably a lot of moms out there who who want that and can't have that. And then there's also moms out there who don't want to give up their jobs, like I said. but for me it was it was awesome. I I loved every minute of it. ⁓ and it was a huge, really hard adjustment. Yes. Huge. Like it it was it was a lot. I remember that first winter feeling of course it just so happened that it was like the snowiest winter on record in New England history. And I was like trapped inside for months with an infant and I was just like, what am I doing? Like this I'm not cut out for this. This house is too small. Like I remember telling my husband, we need to move, like we need a new house, like I can't live in this tiny space anymore by myself with this baby. It was just like it's it's an adjustment like anything. But I figured it out and you know, as soon as you feel like you're adjusted, then you know, your infant's a toddler and then that's a whole newball game. And then You're pregnant again, and then now you're you're pregnant and you have a toddler. And it's just this motherhood is adjusting all the time. Yeah. ⁓ but it's it's also what makes it fun too. ⁓ I remember one of the things that the questions that I got the most often when people would find out that I was a stay-at-home mom, which was very rare. I think in New England it's not something that People do. It's it's strange. Still to this day. I'm my kids are eleven and or yeah, eleven and eight, about to be twelve and nine. And I still have zero friends who are stay-at-home moms. I'm the only one of my friend group. And the question I would get all the time was, W what aren't you bored? And I was like Well, I don't think anyone who would ask that has ever stayed home with children. I'm like, Am I bored? No. I'm exhausted, yes, but wish I was bored. I would love to be bored. it's definitely not boring. There's something to do all day every day. Whether it's the things I would like to be doing is a different question. ⁓ but you know I I we we made our own way, me and my daughter and then my second daughter and we figured it out and you find ways to fill your days and your time and it's part of the whole adventure of it. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's so interesting because I think whether you're a working mom or a stay-at-home mom, or somewhere in between, there's so many in-between spaces where someone ⁓ takes a break and then comes back or shifts, does a career pivot kind of in the middle, or decides to do something a little more entrepreneurial. So I really think, you know, I it was interesting. I was talking to ⁓ Karen Johnson, the 21st century stay-at-home mom, and I read her book. And really I think there's so many overlaps between working moms, stay-at-home moms. I think they all feel this sense of, you know, how can I do both if you're working? I think is a question. Like you were asking, how can I do this? And I have a suspicion that it might be harder for high achieving women too, because like you said, you hold yourself to a particular standard at work. And of course you're gonna hold yourself to a similar standard in motherhood. So how do you do both? ⁓ and I think that's It's just a question I think a lot of us are are grappling with. Well that was part of part of my decision was I very much realized I can't if I stay at work and also have a child, I'm not gonna give, be able to give my job a hundred percent like I've been able to in the past. And I don't wanna know what that's like. I don't want to not be at my best at work. I I don't want people to say that I'm slacking. I don't want the perception that I'm not giving my all anymore. And that burden of being like a high achieving person is heavy. And it's it's a lot of you realize like the pressure you've kind of put on yourself for so long. And that's fine. Yeah, you're it's just you. But I realize I can't put that pressure on myself when this little person is also depending on me. And I also my husband and I went through infertility issues and it took us about two years to get pregnant. And so I was like, I just worked so hard for this baby. I want to be there for it. I don't want to miss out on anything. and at this at that moment and still I wanna give a hundred percent to this as opposed to that feeling of like I'm only giving some to work and some to her. and for me that just didn't it didn't feel right. Yeah. Well I applaud you in trusting your instinct and listening to yourself because I think that is brave in and of itself. you know you mentioned a couple of times the pressure to do it all, and some of the pressure was your own pressure, your own standards, which I think is similar. I think for a lot of high achieving or ambitious women. I think also though there are a lot of pressures put on women and then mothers to work as if they had no children, right? And so although the pressure is coming from you, I think it's also it's like hard to tell the water that we're swimming in, right? Because it's coming from outside and we do start to internalize these messages. And I do it too, where, you know, whether it's the perfect birthday party or My son just had a school parade today and they had to wear costumes and or the perfect costume, right? Like we put all this pressure on ourselves, but I think it's also out there in the world, and then we tend to internalize it too. Yeah, and that's I think one of the hardest parts of being a mom in 2026 is keeping up with that pressure of trying to balance it all. And honestly, one of my favorite Things that my friends are always like, ⁓ my god, Colleen, shut up. Stop telling us what to do. But I'm like, guys, I love to say no to things. Just say no. And I see so many of my friends trying to be eight different people at once. I'm like, you can say no. Your kid doesn't need to be in nine sports. They just don't. You have two other kids that also need your time and attention. And You you're one person. You can't possibly be driving to all these fields every day. Like that's not you're trying to be eight different people. Yeah. And say no. Tell them to pick one sport or two. It doesn't have to be seven, you know? Yeah. So I'm a huge say no advocate. I'm like it that doesn't work for us. I think that's great. I I am a little bit of a say no person too. ⁓ not a h you know, I'm still working on it, but doing less sometimes is more. ⁓ and we do have a podcast conversation upcoming about what children actually need to thrive. And I haven't recorded that yet, ⁓ but with a professor from Harvard. So I'm curious to hear. I suspect children don't need nine different sports obligations to thrive. That's my that's my guess. But I can't wait to hear it from an expert as well because we do feel the pressure to to do all the things that everyone else is doing. Yeah, and well, so this past year, we actually Talk about being brave. We actually made the decision to homeschool, and that was wild. but it's been awesome. And it again to the notion of of saying no to things, it school was working great until it wasn't. And like traditional school, I mean. And my kids were thriving on paper. Their teachers were shocked when we told them. we weren't coming back next year and that we were gonna home school, they were like, Why? The kids are great. And for my husband and I, we were like, but they're not. And at home, they're not thriving and they're exhausted and they're at each other's throats and they're not even barely friends at this point. And they don't have time to do activities that they want to do. They were each only choosing, they only have one thing that they could do after school because they had too much homework and For me, I was like, I I would love to just say no to homework. I I've tried, I've tried telling their teachers, we don't do homework, this doesn't work for us. But that doesn't work for school. And so we were noticing and we were seeing that they the the emotional toll that school was taking on them was too much. And it was a big decision. My daughter, also my oldest, worked on for her entire Fifth grade year worked on a PowerPoint presentation called Reasons Why We Should Homeschool. So when she finally presented it to us, we I was like, these are really great points. And I want you to know that you have a say and that you're being listened to and that we'll consider things that are important to you. And at the end of the day, it just felt like the right decision. And it's not forever, but I think for now it's It's working really well, but that was a really wild, felt like a wild choice because it's so against the grain, I think. people often like look at you like you're crazy when you tell them you're gonna take this on. And it's been hard, but it's also been awesome. And I think that's one of the biggest lessons that I've learned in motherhood is that notion of bravery and doing stuff. even if it scares you because it could just be great and it could be worth it and it could be everything your family needs. Yeah. Permission to think outside of the box a little bit. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. And your girls, ⁓ I've heard a conversation with your mother. By the way, we've referenced her, but your mother is Candy O'Terry. So she was on the show and a big radio personality in Boston. and you guys wrote ⁓ children's book series together. So let's hear about that because I know this also ties into your family and lessons that you're teaching your girls. Yeah, so we gosh, it was when my oldest was born and I was on that maternity leave and her and I, my mom and I took a walk around the block together and she was in the middle of doing the mor she was doing mornings on Magic 106.7, which meant she had to get up at 330 every morning and go into Boston and do the morning show. And she was exhausted by it. She was like, I'm getting too old for this. I don't want to do this anymore. And I was like, I think I'm gonna stay home with with the baby. And this is kind of like a whole new chapter. And she said, Let's write a children's book together. And I was like, so out of out of left field, but I was like, I actually love that idea. And that was kind of how the first book happened. And it's about it's we like to say it's a mostly partially true, mostly made up story. ⁓ so it's a it's based on a real person. His name was Nelson McNutt and he lived down the street from where my parents still live today in West Enmass. And he lived to be 105 and he loved to garden. He had a beautiful garden. He was out there every single day, and we would drive by his house and he'd always be out there waving to people passing by. And we stopped and said hello to him one one afternoon. And that's that's it. That's the extent of Our relationship with him. We didn't get to know him beyond that. ⁓ we just introduced ourselves one day and he said hi and nice to meet you. My name's Nelson McNutt. And my mom and I both were like, that is not a real name. Like that's like a character in a book name. And it just stuck with us. And so we used him as our main character. And the story is that he teaches two little girls who are my daughters how to grow a garden. And it has, I mean, we've written five. Book number two just came out, but it's got it's it's about, you know, an an older guy in his garden teaching children how to grow things. It's got endless kind of content and possibilities. So we hope that it will keep going, the series. but the second book came from my our garden that my girls and I started years ago. ⁓ but in more recent years, a couple years ago, we started we had too many flowers, like we were I was growing tons and tons of flowers and we started just giving them away and we made a free little flower stand and put it at the end of our driveway. And we would just collect glass jars, like pickle jars, sauce jars, whatever, and create these little bouquets and put them out. And I wanna say it was that first summer we gave away a hundred and some odd bouquets. The second summer, which was last summer, we gave away over six hundred. Wow. And are they similar to the ones that you brought for me today? That's an example. That's beautiful. And they're they're gorgeous. And since then we've completely gone off the rails in terms of the garden. We did a whole garden renovation, we added hundreds more flowers. Like it's completely exploded, I think. ⁓ but it's so fun. And the kids and I do it together, and my husband built all of our garden beds and helps me with all the the manpower and manual labor that's involved. ⁓ but it's it's turned into this whole family kind of project and the flowers are free. And that's what the second book is about. It's about sharing kindness and the impact that a simple act of kindness and especially flowers can have on a person. and so it's been really interesting and really fun to kind of share that just with our community. And then now with the book we can share that message even beyond just my little town. ⁓ but they so when you see flowers, whether they're real, fake, a drawing, a painting, it doesn't have to, they don't have to be real flowers, it triggers the release of dopamine and serotonin in your brain, which makes you happy. So that's the that's the magic behind them. is that it's just sharing happiness with people. And when you drive by and there's just a a bunch of bouquets for free on the side of the road. That's what we wanted. We wanted people to just be like, do that double take and be like, ⁓ my gosh. And people stop all the time or leave. We have a little num like a guest book out and people will be like, are you sure these are really free? Please can I leave you money? And they'll try to like tuck money into the pages. And people have asked me a bunch of times. They say, you know, why don't you charge for these? And donate it to charity. There's a lot of those little flower stands all over the place where people, it's like an honor system, and they'll say, you know, just leave what you can and we'll donate the money to breast cancer or we'll donate it to whatever. And I always say, no, that's not the point. That's lovely if people want to do that. The the point of this free flower stand is to keep them free. Yeah. I don't want to be collecting money for something else. This is the charity. The fact that they're free and it's free kindness and it's making people happy. That's the the good deed in it. ⁓ and that's enough. That's awesome. And I think too it's important to show my kids and people in general that you don't have to give money in order to do something good. Yeah. It's that's a great message. That ⁓ help, you know, brighten someone's day a little bit. Yeah, and I love those facts about flowers because I love having them around. I think it does offer a little picture. Me up every time if you put them on your counter and you're moving around in your kitchen. ⁓ but that's actually science-backed, and you shared some facts about serotonin. There's tons of studies about it, and there's actually ⁓ there was one I was reading recently about flowers and memory, and that's why they're typically in ⁓ like retirement homes have tons of flowers because they actually help spark memory for people. There's all sorts of science behind. the smell of flowers too and how that can like incite a memory ⁓ and a positive feeling of happiness as well. So it's their magic, yeah. That's great. And I will say I've read the second book, Nelson's Garden and the Free Little Flower Stand, and it was so adorable. And you definitely get that sense of the respect for elders as the little girls are working with Nelson. ⁓ and how much the community is touched by the Free Little Flower Stand, which Is a real life experience that you're having, but I know reading it with my daughter, it was just a nice moment and so many nice messages in in the book. Well, thank you. Yeah, and the one of the characters in the story, his name is Doc, and that's also based on a real person. And he was Nelson's best friend, and he was much younger than Nelson, but he was a neighbor, and he they met one day during a snowstorm and he offered to help shovel his driveway. And then from there their friendship kind of blossomed. And they would sit together almost every day and just chat. He'd help Nelson in his garden. He would help him much more as he started to get older if he needed groceries or whatever it was. And since when Nelson passed away, he actually left his entire estate to Doc and his wife, who then built their own beautiful home on his land. And I mean, this is a huge plot of land in Weston Mass. It was worth quite a bit of money. And it I mean, he was this little old man who was sitting on this gold mine basically. And all he wanted was his tiny little run down cape and his and his garden and that was it. ⁓ but he left everything, the the property and everything to Doc and his wife. And so that's who we dedicated the book to, and then we put his little character in the story too. And that was for us a really nice way of honoring these people that really existed and lived. And there's a little kind of the story behind the story at the end, which I think is is always fun. ⁓ My kids and I love reading books that have that some truth to them. My kids always are super excited when we get to the end of a story and there's that extra page that tells you like a little bit more sales. Yeah. And those are surprisingly hard to find. which is also why my mom and I wanted to do this this series is because the fact that they're I mean it's it's not easy to find like really good children's books that tell a good story and that have a good message. So many of them are just focused on bright colors and rhyming and a silly little story. But when you can really connect to the story, that's the magic behind it and that's what we wanted to do. So hopefully we did. I think so. And there's beautiful illustrations as well. Yes, the illustrations are gorgeous. Our illustrator's name is Olivia Bowson and she's very talented. Yeah, they're beautiful. So Colleen, you've really You went from working in big PR in advertising to stay-at-home mom to writing these children's books. What do you think it is about your history, your experience that makes you so confident in making these life decisions and just going down the path that feels best to you? That's a great question. Oof. I I honestly I do think my mom has a lot to do with that. ⁓ she she raised me to think this way, I think. ⁓ she taught me to advocate for myself, she taught me to speak up for myself when I need to, she taught me to seek out information from other people and not to be afraid to ask for help. Those are things that a lot of people struggle with, ⁓ and especially adults. And she taught me that. at a y very young age. She was a single mom, so she needed a lot of help. And I learned from a very young age that it's okay to ask for that. Whether it's a lot of times she needed, you know, a friend to pick me up at swim team practice because she was at work. Things simple things like that. And that was that was always kind of the norm for me. But now that I'm a mom, I realize how hard that is for a lot of moms to do. And that's not that's not been something that's hard for me. So it's it's it's funny because when it's not until you grow up almost and you're in those positions that you realize, ⁓ wow, yeah, I was really learning that along the way. And she was setting these great examples for me. she worked really, really hard and it was twofold. First it was out of necessity because she had to, she had to provide for my brother and I. And Then it became a passion for her, and she dove headfirst into her career and really loved it and really got a lot out of it. And so I saw the importance behind both sides of it, but I also didn't want to follow the same path that she did. And I didn't have to. So that was the piece where I was incredibly fortunate. I I had the drive, I had the passion, I had the education, I had the ability to have a a thriving career and I was in it and I loved it until I found something that I wanted to focus on more. And I also had the freedom to do that, which a lot of people don't have. I had my husband is incredibly supportive. And you know when we decided to have me not go back to work, he He sells real estate and so he was like, Listen, I can go out on my own, I can start my own business, I can dive headfirst into building a business for our family. And that's what he did. And not everyone is in that position. And I think that growing up, I saw, like I said, I saw how hard my mom worked, but I also saw that she missed out on a lot. And she didn't want to. But she had to. And I didn't want to do that. And if I if I didn't have to, I I wasn't going to. And so it made it kind of built that confidence, I think, and having that support of my husband too, which she did she didn't have, is a is a lot of what gives me that that confidence. So I think It's something that you develop over time, but it's also something that you can be taught too. but the advocacy piece has been as a mom, I think, has been Not the hardest to learn, but it's been it's been challenging for sure. There's there's so many times where people tell you whether it's doctors or teachers or parenting experts, whoever said or your own parents say trust your gut when it comes to mothering. But then for as many people say that, there's also doctors, teachers, experts who are telling you, no, I'm correct. Your gut is not right right now. And so that's very contradictory and it's hard as a mom to know who to listen to. For me, the trust your gut piece has always been the most important piece of it. And if it's not as soon as someone tells me not to trust my gut or that I'm wrong, I'm like, mm, that's how I know I'm right, actually. Yeah. but that took some learning. I I'll never forget. I actually had a doctor, one of my my oldest daughter broke her finger. She was like four years old. And I brought her to the doctor. It wasn't healing. It looked really funky. She wasn't really in pain, but it didn't look good. Brought her to the doctor. The special orthopedic specialist said, Yep, it's broken, but there's nothing we can do about it. It's just a finger. It'll be fine. I was like, that doesn't feel right. And let a few weeks go by. Next thing you know, her teacher calls me and says, I think you need a second opinion because she's starting to write with, and she was only in pre-K, but they're like, We're noticing she's coloring with the other hand. Like she's Right-handed and now she's using her left, and I was like, ⁓ for crying alone. Yeah. So I brought her to a different doctor. And that doctor was like, yeah, her finger's broken. It's also rebroken because it didn't get put in a cast when it should have. And it's not healing right. And it's broken on her growth plate. And that's not good. And he said, I was like, I knew it. And that other doctor told me she was fine. And he said, let me tell you something, as a young mom that you will never forget, he said, don't ever let anyone tell you they know your kid better than you. was like, ooh. And of course I felt bad at first. I was like, ⁓ my God. Like I felt like I was getting scolded. Right. But I didn't realize at the time he was giving me the biggest gift. And it was that permission to question authority and to question people who say that they're an expert. Whether it's a doctor or a teacher or anybody claiming that they know your kid better than you, they never do. And it's not true. And you have to listen to your gut. It's it's part of who you are for a reason. It's your biological instinct keeping that little baby alive. That 10-year-old alive, like it's there for a reason. Yeah. So once I heard that, it's kind of been like there's been no turning back in terms of trusting my gut. Yeah. I think you're right. People are given the advice, trust your gut. But here's a million expert opinions coming from social media, coming from from real life experts. So ⁓ I love the way you describe navigating that situation. ⁓ Colleen, I do have to ask you as we wrap up here, what does it mean to live better for you, to live with joy and to live with meaning? I think just finding those things that make you happy and doing them. for us, for me and my family, it's been this this garden has been really awesome. And it's not just in the summer, we start in the middle of winter growing the seeds inside, and it's a ton of work. And while the flowers are free and we give them away, it's a very expensive endeavor to take on. But We've all loved it and we've found so much joy in it that it makes it all worth it. and I think finding that thing that makes you happy and being able to focus whether it's a little time or a lot of time on it, it doesn't matter. As long as you do something that brings you joy, that's it how it can't help but kind of have that ripple effect. Yeah, that's beautiful. Thank you for joining me today. ⁓ my gosh, thanks for having me. This has been fun. This is Maria and you've been listening to That Mom. Thank you for being here. If this episode resonated, share it with a mom who needs it too. And if you're ready for more, your next episode is waiting, because every conversation here is meant to empower you to live better.