Empowering Women Through Education with Flora Garcia-Sepulveda

This week on Maximum Mom, your host Elise Buie is joined by Flora Garcia-Sepulveda. 

Flora Garcia-Sepulveda, a founding partner of Woodman & Garcia-Sepulveda and a Certified Family Law Specialist, is an experienced trial lawyer who practices family law exclusively, focusing on diverse financial issues including business valuation, property division and child and spousal support. Flora is fluent in Spanish. Flora also represents clients in difficult custody disputes and move-away cases.

Before she opened her practice, she worked at Bay Area Legal Aid a non-profit Agency representing victims of domestic violence in their restraining orders, divorce and immigration matters. Flora began to practice family law exclusively in 2005, and has focused in this area of law since that time. Flora previous work at the San Mateo Court and her domestic violence litigation background results in the smooth management of her family law cases as they progress to trial. Her attention to detail and knowledge of the intricacies of family law procedure enable her to strategically plan her cases and prepare for settlement or trial in a way that ensures that clients are receiving the best and most comprehensive representation available.

Since 2012 Flora expanded her practice to include probate matters such as wills, trusts, guardianships, conservatorships and step-parent adoptions.

Episode Highlights:

05:34 The importance of education in building resilience

07:53 Teaching her daughters to be self-sufficient 

11:00 Discussion on the need to educate people about the long-term ramifications of staying at home 

19:08 The value of teaching children self-sufficiency and the importance of not doing everything for them

30:58 The need to let go of bitterness and victim mentality 

34:14 The importance of educating and empowering women

37:30 The benefits of remote work and flexibility, particularly for working mothers, and how it can lead to increased productivity and work-life balance

📹 Watch the interview here.

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Transcript: Empowering Women Through Education with Flora Garcia-Sepulveda

Speaker 1 (00:00:01) - Welcome to Maximum Mom with a least boy, where you'll hear from women who are navigating the same messy journey as you lawyering, entrepreneurship and mothering. What a trifecta. We're here to share tips, resources, wins, losses and encouragement for moms who are raising a family while building a law firm so you feel less alone in your journey toward a fulfilling career and being the best mom you can be.

Elise Buie (00:00:28) - Welcome to the Maximum Mom podcast. I am so happy today to have Flora Garcia Sepulveda. Did I do it right? You did perfectly. We were joking about we both have a lot of vowels in our names, so it's just super easy to mess up. Thank you so much for joining me today, Flora. Thank you for inviting me. I was so excited when I was invited, to be honest with you. I love that. That makes me happy. Well, first, tell us who makes up your family. We're just going to get that out there. And then we can talk about all the other things.

Elise Buie (00:01:01) - Tell us who's in your family for women, actually. So it's in it's three generations. So it's my two daughters. My oldest actually is away at college, my teenage daughter, who's 16, and my mom, who is 80 years old and myself. That's amazing. Oh, my gosh. I went like a video camera on this family. Oh, okay. We'll dig into that. Tell us about your farm as well. Where do you practice? What do you practice the name of your firm, how long you've been doing at all those good things? My firm is a law firm. I practice in California in mostly San Mateo County. I've been practicing for 25 years, mostly in San Mateo County, but I do practice in Santa Clara, Alameda, San Francisco and Contra Costa County, Santa Clara County, but mostly San Mateo County. I started practicing when I graduated from law school. I got very, very lucky that I got a job working at the courthouse in San Mateo County. Oh, wow.

Elise Buie (00:02:04) - So you really have been there, I mean, since the beginning of your practice? Yes, I have been there. Yes. I was very lucky. You do family law as well as some probate work and guardianship. I do family law, primarily family law. I do probate and probate wills and trusts. I do guardianships, conservatorships, the whole gamut of family law mostly. And I do stepparent adoptions also, which those are the happy. I call them the happy part of family law, which are the adoptions. Absolutely. I used to love Adoption Day. There was a time in my practice I did a lot of dependency work and so was in court regularly. And you would see on Adoption Day, you know, everyone was dressed up, everyone was super happy and the families would come in. I just loved Adoption Day. Correct. I love it because the judges, they are so nice. It doesn't matter which county and the adoption judge in every county and it doesn't matter. Like I said, they have like on the side, they have a shelf where they have toys or whatever for the kids.

Elise Buie (00:03:09) - It doesn't matter. On the age, I just did a stepparent adoption for an older adult and they cry. It doesn't matter because it's so you're uniting a family. And this older gentleman who was being adopted by his stepfather, who had been in his life for over 20 years, and the judge said, you know, would you like something? And he took I think it was a very small stuffed animal. And they take a picture with the judge, which they they really, really treasure it. And afterwards, what they both told me, it's like I this was a, you know, really good experience. And it's great because it's a great experience for them to feel a positive experience with the court. 100%. Oh, my gosh. I so agree with you. I wish we could provide positive experiences with the court for everybody because, wow, do our divorce litigants not always feel that same way? Mean? And I feel for people because their only experience with the court sometimes is with a divorce or something that often is not positive.

Elise Buie (00:04:17) - You know, like I'm not saying courts, you know, might not treat them respectfully and do all the things, but mean it's very difficult sometimes, you know, for them to have positive experiences with the court process. It's very difficult because there are anxiety level is so high. And then because, you know, you're in this fight or flight situation, you're not taking in the information correctly, you're not absorbing the information. So in your reactions to whatever you're receiving are a certain way and then the person reacts to that. So there's not a positive reaction. So the adoptions, that's why I call them the happy. Part of family law is everything's positive. It starts out positive. It ends positive. Oh, yeah, it makes all the difference. Well, I mean, that really ties into what I really want to talk to you about is resilience. You think about how can you learn to handle some of those other those fight or flight kind of situations in a way where you can take in the information and you can hear it? I mean, talk to me a little bit about I mean, you must be yourself a very resilient person.

Elise Buie (00:05:34) - I mean, you have been practicing family law for 25 years raising these two daughters. I mean, tell us a little bit about your view on resilience and how do you help teach resilience to your own children? Well, the reason why I started out with resilience is because you need it and you have to have it. And the way that I do it is by education, education, education, education. And I started out with honestly, like I told you, I started out working at the court. I got very lucky when I graduated from law school to be hired as a research attorney. And honestly, the attorney that hired me put that label on me because she couldn't find a different label. But what I was there is to help people who are representing themselves. Then their family law cases give them information on forms, process and giving them the law on how to represent themselves. So what I was there is to educate them on how to fill out the form, what the process was. So what I've learned and it was a great experience I worked there for five years is if you educate people in the process and the forms they are, they are better prepared if they can't afford an attorney to represent themselves.

Elise Buie (00:06:50) - So I took that into my practice when I opened up. My practice is I am a great advocate of educating people about the process. I don't think, as I learned some attorneys as I know more than you do client and right that let me run your life for you know first thing I do is I explain to them the process. These are the steps. And I have broken them down to four steps and this is what needs to be done. And if it needs to be given to them again, I give it to them again. And if they need the information again, I give it to them again. And I tell them, Look, no question is stupid if you need an answer to it and I provide them, you know, the information or I give them a case, I said, You're intelligent enough to read a case, you're intelligent enough to read the forms. The forms are made for people who are representing themselves to fill them out. So that's what I think about resilience. And I've taught my daughters to be self sufficient young ladies.

Elise Buie (00:07:53) - And that's what I told them. If there's an issue that comes up, you try and deal with it yourself and if they won't listen to you, then you bring in Mama Bear. But they don't want Mama Bear to show up because then it's going to be, you know, then it's going to be an issue for them. But that's where I deal with resilience. The other thing is my husband, the father of my children, he lost his job three months after I gave birth to my youngest daughter. And so I was supposed to stay home for a few months after I gave birth to her. So here I was. You have to get up. You have to go to work, start open your practice again and work. And that's what I did. If it wasn't for my education and learning a work ethic, then we wouldn't have been able to continue and survive and support our family. So that's what I think about resilience. Absolutely. Oh, yeah. I mean, I think that immediate you need to work to put food on the table is a pretty powerful tool to building some resilience because I find it I mean, I've watched it both for myself.

Elise Buie (00:09:00) - You know, I was a stay at home mom for a while. I had pulled back from my work to stay at home. And then when it was time to divorce and, you know, move on, being able to literally go back and be the one and be the sole provider for my children was a huge thing. And I know for me, that's one of the things I deal with a lot in talking with clients and people who are thinking about, you know, being a stay at home mom and not being a stay at home mom and really understanding some of those dynamics, too, of what is the decision you're making now, but what are the future implications of that decision? And obviously, I'm not saying that people can't decide to be a stay at home mom, like if that's exactly too great. But I think it is so important for people to understand kind of like what the potential ramifications are because it's a pretty eye opening experience when it's time to like all of a sudden you need to go back and become the breadwinner.

Elise Buie (00:09:59) - Have those clients also. And it's very the way that I explain it to them is, look, what would you have done if let's say you're not going through a divorce, but your spouse all of a sudden has a disability or your spouse passes away all of a sudden, and how are you going to support the family? And it's I'm not against mom staying at home, but I do want and this is one of the things that I that I find that we need to do for women is they should not give up their ability to work, keep a toe in the water, as I say, because you never know what fate life is going to give you. Yes, I dreamt of being a stay at home mom, but the realities of it is I couldn't. And so I did what I had to do. And there are women that are very lucky that they can. But there are, like you said, ramifications afterwards. There are women that are I am, you know, representing in a divorce, and they are in shock at me.

Elise Buie (00:11:00) - I'm not going to be supported. What do you mean? I can't live in this house that I've been used to, but I should be supported because I spent X number of years taking care of my children. And no, that's not the reality. That's not life. That's not long. Yeah, it's a very interesting thing, I think, to have those conversations and help people. I mean, to your point of education and really educating people on what is reasonable to expect. And obviously every state is different. You know, whether you're a community property state, not a community property state, all kinds of differences all around. And I think that so many people just don't have a clue about the ramifications of that decision to stay at home. And not only in the short term of like needing to get back to work, but sometimes very long term permanent ramifications of lost earning potential lost retirement savings potential that, you know, they will be dealing with forever for the rest of forever. Again, people can make that choice, But absolutely doing it from a place of education and empowerment is the key.

Elise Buie (00:12:13) - Exactly. And that's why I was talking about resilience, is you have to have that education instead of great. You want to be a mom. I wanted to be a mom also, and I became a mom. But you have to think about that. You spent however many years in college or doing a masters, whatever it is, and then you're staying home, but you're losing those years of making X number of dollars for yourself, right? It isn't just for your spouse, but for yourself also. Again, women are living longer. Oh yeah. And we need to think about how we are going to support ourselves for until our 9000s. My grandmother died at 101. Wow. Oh, my gosh. That's a lot when you really think about that, about supporting yourself to 100. I mean, that is a big difference, I think, between a lot of people. Kind of think of it as I'm getting to 65, 70 like and then I don't know what they think is happening, but they kind of think like Social Security is kicking in and like, that's not going to solve your day to day problems.

Elise Buie (00:13:23) - No, not for example, in California, where a one bedroom car, you know, rent is $2,000. That's just rent. We're not even talking about everything else. And Social Security, if you're lucky, you get 1200. How many roommates are you going to need, Right? No, it's a real thing. It is a real thing. I can only imagine what it is like living in your home. So is it is the four. I mean, I know you have the one daughter in college. Is it the four of you at home? Just the four of you in your home? Yes. Wow. That is a lot of powerful women like to have. I can only imagine the conversations and what it looks like. Mean it. I think of it. I mean, we have such a different dynamic in that we have a large brood. They're all young adults, so they're all out of the home. But when they're around and when they were in the home, it was, you know, three on three, three girls, three boys.

Elise Buie (00:14:18) - So there was like a massive, you know, give and take mean. I would have my like Smith graduate daughter, you know, who's like reproductive rights law school having these like very deep conversations with her Marine brother. Do you know what I mean? Like, I mean, like very different, you know, And we would just sit at the kitchen table practically, like with that ping pong, you know, get a glass of wine and just watch them go at it. And I was like, I want they're going to solve these world, you know, gender problems right here. Well, you know, picture this. My mom is from Mexico and she's 80 years old. She's very set in her ways. You know, the culture is so different and what she has seen in her 80 years. And then you have my daughter from Colombia with her ideas when she comes to visit us. And my mom is just shocked at the things that come out of her mouth because she's like, oh my God, let me throw some lolly water on her.

Elise Buie (00:15:19) - Oh, my God. And so my daughter and I have these conversations and my 16 year old is just absorbing all of this. She's like, you know, her eyes are huge, like saucers because she's at rest. I can't wait to go to college. So it'd be interesting with my 20 year old comes home because we have the best conversations. I mean, we we face time 3 to 4 times a week still on my 20 year old. And I, you know, she calls me when she's back in school, when she has issues with some essays. And I love that. I love having those conversations with her. Oh, yeah. Watching them develop into young adults has been such a fun adventure for me. I have absolutely loved it. And watching that relationship, you know, change from, you know, that independent dependent, you know, whole thing, you're, you know, helping them grow up to being adults and being able to have those conversations. I mean, I love the bluntness of it, like being able to say to my children, like, you know, I wouldn't do that.

Elise Buie (00:16:23) - Like, that is not how I would do that. But I completely understand why you're doing it. And, you know, but being able to say like, this is what I really think about it, you know, and, and be able to hear them, what they really think about things and know that, you know, we're adults, we're on different paths. We have different ideas on things. And you want that, you know, you want them to be thinking on their own. Yes, exactly. Like she was having a conversation with me and she kept saying they they and I'm like, how many of you are there? And she's like, Just two of us. And it's that whole conversation about, So your friend is a day. Okay, I understand that because I'm still under the 80 words and it's trying to learn the vocabulary also of today. Is she like, Mom, get with it. I'm like, I'm trying to, but my 80s brain is trying to race towards today.

Elise Buie (00:17:17) - And so her friend, she's introduced me to a couple of her roommates and they're like, they call me mom. She's like, Your mom is so cool. And she's like, No, she's not. But I was like, Gosh, I love that. Now we're in college. Where do you. Oh, wow. Does she love that? She loves it. She loves New York. She is a go getter. She's a smarty pants. I just love it. I love that she's learning over there what she's learning over there. It's perfect for her personality. That's amazing. Have you been able to visit her and enjoy some time over in New York? I have. I visited her twice. I think the next time will be for her graduation. She is going to be a junior coming up, so it'll be for her graduation. But it's been fun visiting her. Oh, yeah. Well, it's such a great city. I mean, you know, learning and explore. I mean, there's just endless possibilities.

Elise Buie (00:18:09) - Oh, and she tells me about that also. So she is enjoying herself, which I'm glad. I'm glad that she's becoming an independent young woman in the city, which is great. She's learning a lot. And again, she's learning resilience. You know, whatever was not covered by the scholarship. She has learned to get a job. She's supporting herself. And that's the thing that I'm teaching both of my daughters. Absolutely. I was reading something just recently and somebody was talking about buying their child a car, their 16 year old. And it was like, oh, well, you know, he didn't gawk at like a BMW in an Acura. So I think those would be okay. And I'm thinking to myself, you are going to buy your 16 year old child a luxury car with just like, what crazy are we trying to teach our children? I mean, I am just the opposite. I was kind of like, how little can I give you to do anything? Like, you need to go figure this out.

Elise Buie (00:19:08) - You need to get a job. You need to understand the value of a dollar. And I mean, if you're going to buy a car, you're going to buy a car based on the earnings from your job. And likely it's going to be a 20 year old, something you know that you can afford. And it is fascinating to me because I just worry so much about children that are being raised like young, young children today. I feel like somehow the culture of our world, at least in the United States, has become this. Women are supposed to do everything like we're supposed to, you know, like work. We're supposed to bring in the money. We're supposed to also, like be the room parent. We're supposed to bake things. We're supposed to do this. And I'm like, this is just not reasonable. Like, there's not enough time in the. Day for us to do all these things. And children are so competent. All you have to do is teach them they can do laundry, make lunches, make breakfast, clean up.

Elise Buie (00:20:11) - I sometimes I read things in like Facebook groups and I'm like, oh my gosh, I was the meanest mom on the planet because, I mean, working, doing their thing. I mean, I didn't touch their laundry after they were like eight. I was just like, You can do your laundry. I mean, you don't need me push buttons on a washing machine.

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Elise Buie (00:21:21) - I told my assistant, You know, she's young, she's 32, and when she first started working with me, she was like, I had to make the lunches for my kids. I have to do this. I'm like, No, you don't. They are competent. They can do it. I haven't been doing that for my kids since they were in kindergarten completely. When they were in kindergarten, I told them, Here's the food. You can make your lunch, each of you. If you don't make your lunch, then you don't eat. It may sound harsh, but they had to learn that when they were 7 or 8 years old, they each were learning how to do their laundry. They had a uniform. Wasn't that difficult to put the uniform at the end of the week or uniforms at the end of the week. Put it in the washer and the dryer. They had learned that again, resilient self sufficiency, learn how to be and do as an adult later on.

Elise Buie (00:22:10) - And so and she's like, you did that. I had to. And I said to her, look, the reality is you can't give 100% three times. You can't. I mean, that is you have hit the nail on the head. You cannot give 100% three times or four times or five times or six times. And women are making themselves so miserable in this life right now. I just I see so many women who are just absolutely I mean, fundamentally, deeply unhappy because what they're trying to accomplish and I'm like, I don't understand why you would be trying to accomplish this. I'm like, it's impossible. I don't understand it either. And I think part of it is trying to I don't know, trying to create a false reality of what home life is like, what I saw in the Bay Area and I'm glad I moved when I did is this competition and it's not good competition. Competition of who has the best life, who has the best car, who has the best house, and talking about cars.

Elise Buie (00:23:20) - My oldest daughter got a scholarship to go to a very expensive high school in the Bay Area and she saw that and she saw when the kids, most of them turned 16, their parents gave them Teslas or Mercedes or BMW. And so she didn't get one, obviously, because she was on scholarship and she still doesn't have a car. My 20 year old, she's like, I don't need one. I'm in New York. But at the end of there was one of her classmates that got two cars. So his dad I know for this for the auction at the school, his dad auctioned for two parking spots at the school for the son to have the option of parking the car in the middle of these two parking spots so the car wouldn't get scratched. But but I agree with you is that when kids are given all of this, they don't value anything. And what she saw in some of her friends and some of her classmates, it's that they didn't understand the value or the where the money came from.

Elise Buie (00:24:22) - I've been very honest with my children from the beginning what the cost of everything is, and especially since my divorce, this is how much the rent is, this is how much electricity is, this is how much food is, and this is what the budget is. So we need to know what our budget is in order to understand what we can and cannot afford. My 16 year old asked me, Can we afford this? I would like this. Can we afford it? And I tell her honestly, yes or no, or let's see if we can next month or in a couple of months. So she asked me and she understands. They both understand the value of money and the. Value of work. Right. And I think that's the key. Understanding the value of the dollar and what it takes to get the stuff you want. I mean, I have found helping your children really early get learn to work. I mean, my children all started working. I mean, at like 11. I mean, whether it was yard work in the neighborhood, whether they were a babysitter, I mean, camp counselor, you know, those little they all have worked really early and it has helped all of them truly understand, you know, how many hours it takes to get a certain thing.

Elise Buie (00:25:37) - And for a child, I think that is critical to be able to put like fundamentally, oh, I'm going to need to work six hours to get this, you know, video game I want or whatever it is, you know, And that really puts some perspective, I think, for them on just everything. I mean, even at groceries, you know, just understanding that you go to the grocery store and you drop $300, I mean, figure out how much that would have taken you to pay for it on your wage. And that just helps them to understand all around, I think. Yes. And if we extrapolate that and go back to the the woman who is the stay at home mom, the other part of that is that they give up their their rights or their benefit or whatever you want to call it. They give up on the financial part. Okay. You want to be a stay at home mom. Great. But don't give up that right to know how much money is coming in, how much money is going out, how much money you are spending on food, on clothes, on, how much is the mortgage, how much is in the bank, How many bank accounts does do each of you have? And I don't I can't tell you how many women I have.

Elise Buie (00:26:52) - I am divorcing. I'm representing a divorce. They don't know how many accounts they have. They don't know how many how much money is on a retirement account, how many retirement accounts there are, how many credit cards. Their their name is not even on title to the properties or property that they have. Why not? I don't know. He told me. I couldn't you know, it wasn't my money. You give up that, right? You know, in California, whatever gets accumulated assets or dates from date of marriage, the date of separation, our community property, you know, he puts everything in his name. She's given an allowance. But yet you don't know how much is coming in, how much is going out. You just signed the tax returns without reading them. You still can't do that. You should do that. You should know how much is coming in and going out. Honestly, I will tell you, after I got divorced, I was in financial ruin. I have had to bring myself out even here as a family, you know, as a family law attorney, I'll be honest and I'll tell you that.

Elise Buie (00:27:56) - Absolutely. Oh, I, too, had to do the same thing. I mean, it was definitely a process and it's an ongoing process. I mean, I stayed at home for a decade, and that was probably I mean, from a financial standpoint, worst decision I made financially for sure. I mean, for me that time with my children, I wouldn't give it up for the universe. I loved it. My kids loved it. You know, we had a great time. It's created bonds that, you know, are pretty amazing. But, I mean, there are repercussions for that, you know? And I think, you know, I surely didn't understand them going into it. You know, I was super young and just, you know, what do you know at 23, 24, You know, you just you just don't have the same insight. And so, yeah, it is it is a really hard thing to watch. So many stay at home moms, you know, come into the law office of a divorce attorney and really get some of the the real realistic views on what their finances are going to look like and what they do look like.

Elise Buie (00:29:00) - And it can be pretty daunting. Well, and then to having to tell them that they have to go out in the workforce and they're like, but my skills are rusty and I'm I understand that. But you're going to have to go work and be anxiety. And the a lot of things that come up is like, you mean you want me to go work at $10 an hour or $15 an hour at my age? You have to start somewhere, right? And it's difficult and and it's extremely daunting, but you're going to have to start there. And then the saddest part that I see is the divorced mom who is fighting every single month waiting for that check to come in. And the check comes in on the fifth. On the 10th. On the 15th or and you're just waiting for that check. And I could not I could not do that as somebody who did it for a couple of years. I mean, and realize at some point I was like, oh, there is no way I'm going to live like this.

Elise Buie (00:29:59) - I just thought, this is never going to be the way this is going to work out. And I literally just said, I'm going to figure out how to earn circles around my ex so that, you know, I just I don't even care what he pays. Doesn't pay. You know, I just I was so determined to not be waiting for a check and not be a victim of this. This whole thing further past my divorce. I'm like, you know, I need to be able to move on from this. And for me, that was definitely making some very fundamental changes. I mean, a lot of personal development, but really figuring out how could I become 100% self-sufficient without, you know, his involvement. Exactly. And it's not I'm not talking about, you know, you become a man hater. It's not that. It's just standing on your own two feet and you become self sufficient. And it isn't that you later on, you don't have a partner. It's just you become self-sufficient.

Elise Buie (00:30:58) - You support yourself and abundance comes in. Yeah, it's kind of amazing how that works. It does? Yeah. Yeah. You let go of the bitterness and the abundance comes in. Oh, I wish somehow you and I could, like, make people understand that she started. Oh, my gosh. It's. I think that is one of the biggest things. Divorce thing people have to overcome is overcoming that bitterness. And that feeling of this person owes me something or I gave up X, Y and Z, you know, but being able to get rid of that victim mentality and really cease the benefits and see like their new life ahead of them as such a transformative opportunity rather than this tragedy. Oh, I totally agree with you. I was with the father of my children for 30 years. We met when we were both 21. You know, people. Do you regret it? I don't. I have two beautiful children because of it. I learned a lot. A lot. And that's how I see it.

Elise Buie (00:32:02) - It's taken me a number of years to grow from it. Therapy also works, and that's the I recommend that to people therapy. But and that's if you see it as a growing experience and this is not fake positivity. It's a it's been a growing experience for me and I've seen it. And it takes two people for the relationship to to, you know, grow apart. But I and this is the best part, the best time of my life to. Yeah. My daughter see it. I love that. That's so amazing. I mean I think you just hit the nail on the head, though. The biggest one your children are watching. I mean, in talking to divorcing parents, you know, all the time about reminding them about what are you modeling? I mean, are you modeling the ability to learn from your your situation, to have a growth mindset, to be a creative problem solver? Or are you modeling this victim mentality where nothing is your fault? Everything is, you know, the people outside the window's fault and you can't control anything.

Elise Buie (00:33:12) - It's just like one bad thing after another after another. And it's like, Oh, come on, what are we trying to teach the next generation? You know? Exactly. Bad things happen to everyone. Learn from it. So why did this happen? Or it just happens. I mean, have you ever had a bad experience that you have not been able to learn something from me? No, Never. No. Think that's possible? Like just turn that mirror on yourself for just a brief period and you will find some area that you can improve. And people. Yeah, powerful. And that's what I've done since my divorce. I looked back and I said, okay, back in whatever year. Oh yeah, there we go. Oh, my gosh. Well, I just love that. I love talking to you. It has been such a joy to have you on the podcast. I mean, your attitude and your way of looking at things, we just could bring so much more of that into the world.

Elise Buie (00:34:14) - We should try and figure out how to do it because I've been wanting to figure out a way to educate women, young women, to, like you said, if they had the education. Okay, you want to be a stay at home mom, do it, but do it with education. Right? Do it right. There has to be a way that you could be at stay at home mom, but yet still not lose bad financial security. I mean, at least here in our state, in Washington, I mean, there's a lot that can be done with prenups, post ups, you know, in setting up a situation. So if something does go awry, you know, you are protected and you are you know, things are put in place so that it's not this just horror when all of a sudden you're like. Oh, so my husband's been cheating on me for five years, and now, you know, I need a divorce, and I haven't worked. And I mean, yeah, there's so much education and empowerment that needs to happen.

Elise Buie (00:35:11) - I mean, it is. It's a huge, huge missing piece. I think. I think it's a struggle because I think you said it so well yourself how you wanted to be a stay at home mom, but you also were put in a situation where you couldn't at the time you had to step in. And I think so many women, you know, they don't have that happen right away at the beginning. So they do become a stay at home mom. It is something a lot of people want to do. I mean, being a mom is exhausting. Like it's Yes, you know, it's a lot. And I think that a lot of women see it as a way to really, you know, be a great mom, a great wife, you know, and they see it as a very positive thing. And I think it's hard to look at the future and really ponder the potential, what ifs. Exactly. It is. One great example I've seen is my niece, her husband, who was in the Marines, and they he just retired recently, but they went from state to state, you know, every few years they were in a different state.

Elise Buie (00:36:11) - What she ended up doing, because she had 4 or 5 kids, I think she ended up having her own business. And it started out, you know, just making these little bows for for girls that did cheer and gymnastics and all of that. That's how she started making pocket money. And so now she does the pop ups. She does it at the flea markets. So it's something like that. So she still made some money. She and she whenever she was still at home, but she made money and then she started selling it online. So there are things that can be done. She's very creative and she started doing that and it grew from there. Absolutely. Oh, there's so much that can happen now. I mean, with online social media marketing and now with remote work too. I mean, when I see these things where some, you know, law firm owners in particular are forcing people back to their office, you know, like you must come back to the office, I'm thinking you probably get to lose some of those moms that you have in your office who really appreciate, you know, the flexibility of being able to throw a load of laundry in in the middle of the day or, you know, throw some dinner in a crock pot and, you know, be able to get their work done around all of their other things.

Elise Buie (00:37:30) - Yeah, exactly. Know my assistant. We've been remote since Covid and we're going to continue being remote because it works for both of us. Actually, we have been able to get more work done remote than being in the office. Absolutely. Because of the drive time. Completely. Oh, I mean, the thought of ever commuting again, I'm like, oh, no way. Oh, no way. Well, I really appreciate it and hope you have a wonderful rest of your Monday and rest of your week. And you and I will definitely have to connect on this because figuring out how to help more women in this area is obviously the thing that keeps us both up at night. Yes, let's connect again. Send me an email, call me. I would love to do something else with you. That is one of the things that for me, I want to educate women about because it's sometimes it does wake me up at night. It's like, Oh yeah, we've been doing this. Well, now tell our listeners, where can people find you? What is the best way to get in touch with you? Or if somebody you know needs your services, they can look at my website, law firm or my phone number.

Elise Buie (00:38:35) - (650) 261-9791. My direct email is flora at law firm.com. Okay perfect. And we will get all that contact information in the show notes as well. It was a pleasure talking with you. I love to chat other one. Have a wonderful day, a wonderful week and I look forward to doing another one with you. Yeah, you as well and enjoy and tell your your mom I said hi. I just love grandmas. Grandmas are the best. I will. I will. Enjoy your day. Thanks, Laura. Thank you. Bye bye.

Speaker 1 (00:39:10) - Thanks for listening to the Maximum Mom podcast. A production of Maximum Lawyer Media. Be sure to subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode. See you next time.