Untitled - February 9, 2026
00:00:00 Speaker: Not making a decision is actually worse than making the wrong decision. I read not too long ago that so much distrust occurs if we are complacent, or if we put off making a hard choice. I made a hard choice, and yet I still feel like I don't know if I made the right decision. Hey, it's Denise and you are listening to the Working Moms Redefined podcast. I left my son laying on the floor in pain because I needed to drive three hours to speak all day. There is such emotion with me saying that out loud, and you and I today are going to process through that. I think so many of us relate to making choices and then wondering if we made the right decision in that choice. Let me set the scene for you. Jeremy went on a trip to Florida with one of his best guy friends. There was a hardware convention and they did a lot of fun stuff. He has been gone or had been gone at the time of this recording. He is still gone. He had been gone Monday and he will come home on Friday. On Tuesday? No, on Wednesday. Isn't it crazy when things are very overwhelming and you lose track of the days? It's almost like Christmas break. But not in the good way. You know what I mean? On Wednesday morning, I love being woken from our children asleep with screams, don't you? Isn't that one of the best things about being a parent? If you are not hearing the sarcasm in my voice. Hi, my name is Denise and I use humor to avoid hard conversations from time to time, mostly with myself. Here's the perfect example of that. Hudson came screaming at four forty in the morning Wednesday morning, screaming into my room in pain. Like, you know that scream when there is pain? He came screaming in pain. He dropped on the floor and said, my neck. I cannot move my neck. And I was asleep. Not anymore. Popped right out of bed. And I am not that person to know what to do when things or people get injured. You know what? I say that out loud. And as I rethink when Hudson chipped his front teeth or some other scenarios that have happened in our household. I do pretty well in this situation, though I did not. Neck injuries freak me out. You do. You don't know what's going on there. I literally cannot see with my fingers when it comes to things like this. Jeremy can. Jeremy is our muscle bone guy to a T. Jeremy is not here. And so as I am holding his neck as he is withering in pain, first we gotta calm down. Both of us needed to calm down. And as I tried to touch his neck to see maybe if it was tight or cramp or whatever the case might be, it was not happening. He was not going to let me touch. He could not even hold this kid to walk. I am freaking out. We were both not good for one another in that moment. Seven year old Hudson was not great for me and thirty five year old Denise, and mommy was not great for him. And as I tried to get him to explain what he could have possibly been doing in his room at four forty in the morning to have caused this injury, I listened to him say, mommy, my hand, and if you're watching on our YouTube channel, you can see my hand was curled up under my head and I was sleeping. And then I woke up and it was hurting. And I'm like, okay, this is what happens. We know what it feels like when a when we sleep wrong on our neck and for two or three days we can't move our neck correctly. Happened to a seven year old. I'm also guessing he was dehydrated and didn't eat the right things that he should have been for the day. Nonetheless, Us. We're now dealing with what he described as his head falling off. We're not dramatic in this household at all. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do. It's five o'clock here at this time. And I'm thinking, you know what? Jeremy's a dad, whether he's here or in Florida. So we're gonna FaceTime daddy. And so we did just that, and he evaluated the situation. And lo and behold, the smart man, that was not heightened cortisol. Fight or flight mode said, how about you just put him in the shower, get that heat on there and loosen it up. And I'm like, duh, of course we should do that. Couldn't get him up. That was a struggle. Nonetheless, we got him in the shower and he stood there for probably a good twenty minutes and he goes, look, mom, I can move my neck an inch. But hey, progress is progress, whether it's an inch or a centimeter or five inches at this point. So we're moving right along. He gets out of the shower, lays in bed, and it's at this point where I'm like, okay. He seemed to walk better. And yet, does he need to stay home? But it was in that moment where I realized I'm not the one staying home with him today. Daddy is not here to stay home with him today. I don't know if grandmas or grandpas are available to stay home. Maybe. Maybe, just maybe, he needs to be around his friends to get his mind off of. Is this still painful as it was at four forty this morning screaming again? All of these choices as I'm still curling my hair, getting ready for this seven to eight hour training that I get to lead this day three hours away. And as I'm getting ready, he's doing okay and then he's not. Then Luna hops up on the bed for some puppy cuddles, and then he's doing okay. And I'm like, okay, I think we've got this. My mother in law is a physical therapist, and so I was like, if I can get her here and evaluate it and then I know that we are good to go, I am going to leave and go do my day because this is a big day. We meet with them once a quarter in person and they deserve me to be there. and at the same time, my son deserves me to be with him. These choices we often as parents consider, and I still a day and a half later, don't know if I made the right choice. I leave him crying on the floor when Mimi, his grandma, got there. She was like, yeah, Denise, it's definitely he slept wrong on it. I can feel the muscle. Muscle spasms. I think he's gonna be okay. We'll put some kinesio tape, we'll do some heat. He's got two hours before school. We'll be fine. I said okay. Had she not done that and, like, evaluated him with her medical license, I'm not so sure I would have been able to left. But that piece gave me a sense of, okay, I am going to go to work. So as I'm driving, she's sending me photos. He's looking fine at this point. I'm just happy that he's standing upright. I texted his teachers and I said, okay, this is what's going on. Day goes on, see some pictures. He's doing wonderful. I am in my second training that I get to lead with these people of the day. We are twenty minutes in and I look at my watch because it's buzzing and it's his teacher, and I say in that moment, mid-sentence, I look at those attendees in the room standing in front of them, and I say, you know what? I'm not even quite sure what I say, but it was said. But it was a good transition from I need to take a pause. My son is not doing super great after a rough night of sleep, and he just take this call from his teacher. I couldn't hide anywhere and they of course understood. So as I take this call in front of all of these people, it's this teacher and describing like, hey, he's he might be kind of in pain. He is faint, he is flushed. He doesn't have a lot of color like that doesn't match. You know what I mean? Like, he looks like he was in pain. And I said, okay. So in these moments, I needed to make instinctual mom decisions. And I had been in the brain of business owner Maxwell, leadership coach, facilitator, trainer. And isn't it amazing, as parents, how we can flop back and forth at a moment's notice? I'm not so sure if it's good decision making at that moment, but it was decision making. And remember, at the very beginning of this, trust is built on a decision that you make, whether or not it is the right one. Complacency or avoidance breaks trust more than a right or wrong decision. And so in that moment, I said when they were asked like, what do you want us to do? And I said, keep them off to the side. I'm going to call someone. We'll be there to pick him up. And they said, great, I think that's the right call. I'm like, oh, thank you. Okay, so then I call my mom, call my mom. She was going to be at home when the kids got off the bus. And I think that this scenario that I'm describing, so many of us can relate to, we like to think that these types of situations are few and far between. But let's be honest, if we start planning and knowing that at least weekly something is going to flare up, I feel as if I'm a little bit more mentally prepared. But this was a little ironic nonetheless. I call mom. She had not had a great day at work. I could tell it in her voice and I said, mom, I am literally in front of people I am training. I'm so sorry that you are having a rough day. I will call you back later and I want to hear what's upsetting you. But right now I know that you are not able to go get Hudson from school. I'm going to call my mother in law. I hung up the phone. Mind you, I did not remember that. I had texted Jeremy about five seconds before I called my mom saying, I need you to call the grandmothers and figure out how Hudson is going to be picked up from school. I know you're in Florida. Obviously, I don't expect you to do that. Please figure it out. I sent that text and then I called these people. Jeremy is five seconds behind me, all of these calls. So I called my mom. That wasn't going to work. I called my mother in law. She said absolutely. While Jeremy is then talking to my mom, my mom telling him I just spoke with Denise, that he's calling his mom. Oh, hey. Yeah, I'm gonna get him. And I'm like, I caused a lot of flare up in that scenario. And I go back and look at some of these text messages, because then I sent Jeremy text and said, you need to call both of these parents back. I screwed things up. I don't know, just make sure Hudson gets picked up. All of that happened within five minutes. My heart is racing just reliving that. And yet I wouldn't have wanted to do it any other way. And so at the moment that was handled, I would say it was probably within two to three minutes. We act fast in this household. I went back to teaching about generational diversity and how understanding from those that are baby boomers, down to those that are Gen Z is so very important because otherwise we have too much judgment. We went right back in, as I say that out loud, I'm pretty proud of ourselves for doing this. And they didn't skip a beat. Neither did I. And the emotion. I definitely was avoiding that until the end, because at the end of the day, we had three more trainings and we were able to complete those. And by three thirty that day, I very first thing is I closed. I said, hey, I want all of you in this room to know how much I appreciate the fact that you didn't even question or I didn't feel judged, at least in knowing that I'm going to choose my family first. Thank you for allowing me to show up as a mom in five seconds, and back as a leader in the other ten, and I started getting teary because isn't that the kind of business or relationships or leadership we want to model is that we know that life is a work, is a large part of our life, and yet work is not our life. I love to be able to think of that. Work is a large part of our life, but work is not our life. And in that moment I was able, and I don't want to do it all the time to integrate the two very quickly, and I hope that you can feel the sense of peace that I did. Now the questioning of my decision, I almost fell in inauthenticity. Inauthentic moment when I said thank you for allowing me to choose and put my family first. When I said that to them, that guilt creeped in because maybe I had wondered. Picking my family and choosing and putting them first would have been me not coming here at all. And that guilt, the devil, if you will, creeped into my mind in that moment like, ooh, is that statement actually true? And then I had to coach myself, if you will, down off that and say, Denise, he was fine when you left, even though he was crying. It was probably because mommy was leaving and he didn't feel one hundred percent. But Motrin and massage and heat helped wonders. You made the right decision even though you weren't the one that got the cuddles. Now, I might feel a different way in a month about that, but in that moment, I made a decision based off the information that I had, and today I would still make the decision that I did a few days ago. But that's the mom guilt or even, dare I say, just parent guilt in general of decision making. Did we make the right decision? And I had to remind myself the leadership thought I had recently learned is that indecisiveness is worse than even making a wrong decision. So right or wrong, make the decision and trust will be built because there are times when I know I was indecisive and something that I still want to work on, and keeping that at the forefront of my mind will only be more helpful down the road. Now an update on Hudson. He is two days past screaming and he's no longer laying on the floor. He is playing basketball and he is enjoying life and his head did not fall off. Perception is a beautiful thing, isn't it? I wish and hope all of you in your decision making in these coming weeks, that you question yourself less and that you realize that making a decision is better than not making one at all. And those are all hard things. Thank you for listening to the Working Moms Redefined podcast. It is not lost on me that you chose to spend time together. Thank you. Let's connect outside of this space on socials. We'd love for you to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest. We've got it all to connect with you! If you feel as if someone in your life could be impacted by this message, feel free to share it. That is the biggest compliment as we part ways together. Remember, you can do hard things.
