{"id":101415,"date":"2019-10-07T16:17:31","date_gmt":"2019-10-07T16:17:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.microsoft.com\/?p=434769"},"modified":"2019-10-07T16:17:31","modified_gmt":"2019-10-07T16:17:31","slug":"microsoft-employee-and-nonprofit-founder-brittany-valdes-is-rewriting-the-narrative-about-working-mothers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2019\/10\/07\/microsoft-employee-and-nonprofit-founder-brittany-valdes-is-rewriting-the-narrative-about-working-mothers\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft employee and nonprofit founder Brittany Valdes is rewriting the narrative about working mothers"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/microsoft-employee-and-nonprofit-founder-brittany-valdes-is-rewriting-the-narrative-about-working-mothers.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p>Brittany has always been driven by her career, she explains. During college in West Palm Beach, she ran multiple student and community activities. Then she moved to Chicago and worked in marketing and events at a publishing company and a tourism group. By age 25, her professional achievements were mounting, fueling her growing ambition.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was working 60-hour weeks in a big city, and it never felt like work,\u201d she says, laughing knowingly at her younger self. \u201cI thought I was invincible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And then, she was contacted by a recruiter. Did she want to lead local community programs for a new Microsoft retail store in Miami? It was the career move she\u2019d been waiting for.<\/p>\n<p>Three weeks later, Brittany received the job offer, but then her life took a twist.<\/p>\n<p>She found out that she was <span class=\"emdash-wrap\">pregnant\u2014and<\/span> was immediately overcome with doubt and ambiguity.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought that if I wanted to raise a family, I couldn\u2019t be a working mom,\u201d she says, her cheery voice turning suddenly serious.<\/p>\n<p>The decision felt especially fraught for her, given the culture in which she was raised.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy dad\u2019s side is Cuban, and my mom\u2019s side is Puerto Rican. People from cultures centered on family like mine often particularly struggle with the guilt from wanting both,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n<p>She was tortured with questions: \u201cWill I get to spend enough time with my kids? Will I be able to devote enough energy to my clients? My baby will only be little for a short time. . . . If I take a break from work, will I be able to pick up where I left off?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Even though she was uncertain and scared, she had a village around her and decided to make the leap. <span>She took the position as a community development specialist with Microsoft and helped open the first <a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/store\/locations\/fl\/miami\/dadeland-mall\/store-38\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Microsoft retail store in the Miami area<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Brittany has always been driven by her career, she explains. During college in West Palm Beach, she ran multiple student and community activities. Then she moved to Chicago and worked in marketing and events at a publishing company and a tourism group. By age 25, her professional achievements were mounting, fueling her growing ambition. \u201cI [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":101416,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[134,50],"class_list":["post-101415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-microsoft-news","tag-microsoft-life","tag-recent-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}