Josyel Santamaria | Motherhood: A Venezuelan Perspective

In this episode of The Mama Making Podcast, host Jessica sits down with Josyel Santamaria, a Venezuelan native, to explore the cultural differences in parenting and maternity care between Venezuela and the United States. 

Josyel shares her experience of becoming a mother during the pandemic, navigating postpartum recovery, and adjusting to new parenting styles. They discuss differences in maternity care, the education system, and the role of cultural traditions in family life. Josyel also reflects on the challenges facing Venezuela today and her deep connection to her home country.

This episode is sponsored by Collabs Creative - a digital marketing company supporting makers, creatives, and small business owners with all things digital and design.

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Transcript

Jessica (00:59)
Hello everyone and welcome to the Mama Making Podcast. If you're new here, I'm your host Jessica. If you're not new, then welcome Today I'm very excited to have Josielle Santamaria on the podcast today. Josielle is a wife, a mom, a CrossFit coach, and a native to Venezuela. Today we'll be talking a little bit about what...

parenting looks like and the differences and maybe some similarities between Venezuela and her experience here raising her son. Thank you for being here today, Josie. I'm excited to talk to you.

Josyel santamaria (01:28)
Yeah, thank you for having me

Jessica (01:31)
I'm excited to have you. think we have a ton

to talk about. So tell us a little bit about yourself, a little bit about your background, your family, whatever you want to share.

Josyel santamaria (01:36)
Okay.

Yeah,

so I was born and raised in Venezuela. I'm from originally from a small city called Puerto Ordaz. It's in the south of Venezuela. It's like close to border to Brazil. So it's very, very south. So for those who doesn't know Venezuela, it's South American country. It's between Colombia and Brazil. So we have the best weather all year long.

And yeah, that's it. I moved here to the US like seven years ago for all the reasons in the country. And I start with my husband. We got in love and I decided to stay here.

Jessica (02:20)
Do you want to talk a little bit about why you decided to move to or move from Venezuela?

Josyel santamaria (02:26)
Yeah, so what's the whole situation in Venezuela with the politics and everything? When I decided to stay here, we have like food problems, we have the gas problems, also electricity, all like the main things to live like regularly in the country was really bad in Venezuela at that time. So I was like, okay.

I have all my life in here, but it's not enough. You know, it's like you want more, you have more quality of lives. So that's when they made the decision. Well, I decided to stay here.

Jessica (03:01)
And how old were you when you decided to leave?

Josyel santamaria (03:04)
I was 24. 24 years.

Jessica (03:08)
Okay, and then I

remember you telling me previously that you went to Canada first, correct?

Josyel santamaria (03:15)
Yeah, but it was when I finished high school because in Venezuela you finish high school very young. It's not like here you finish like you were like 16 or 17 years. So my main goal is what to start college, but I have to move to another state because I want to go to dentist school and we don't have dentist school in my hometown. So I have to move to another city and my mom, she didn't want me to go like underage because you are older in Venezuela when you are 18.

So I was like, okay, have to wait almost two years. What I have to go, what I'm gonna do now? So I told my mom, I have to go to Canada and learn English and something and maybe for six months and wait for the time to be able to move to another city. I was 16 when I moved. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica (04:05)
So how long were, my gosh, I didn't realize you were only 16. So how long did you stay there?

Okay. And then you went back to your hometown? Okay.

Josyel santamaria (04:13)
six months.

Yes, I back to

my hometown and that the following year I started college. So when I was 18, yeah.

Jessica (04:27)
That's so crazy, you were so young.

Josyel santamaria (04:29)
Yeah, I go by myself.

Jessica (04:32)
Yeah.

So then tell me where you met your husband.

Josyel santamaria (04:36)
met actually in Venezuela in our hometown because we were from the same city but he's 10 years older than me. So one of my best friends she had a brother in love who is my husband's best friend too.

So we met in that time, but I was like, no, he's too old for me. I was like, okay. But after all this year, we start to talk again by Instagram. And then the rest is history. We start to talk and came here to visit him. And after two times I visit him, I stay here. And then we got married. Yes, he was here first.

Jessica (05:09)
So he was in the States first? OK.

OK.

you want to talk about becoming a mom?

Josyel santamaria (05:17)
Yeah, sure. So I have a four year old. I had my son during pandemic was really wild. my God was was crazy because we went like all by ourselves. We don't have any family here. Even though it was a nice experience at the same time was scary and very tiring because we don't didn't have like much help because all our family was in Venezuela.

Jessica (05:41)
So what was it like during the pandemic? You guys don't have a ton of family here. Did you guys have friends here at that point?

Josyel santamaria (05:45)
Yeah,

yeah, we had friends, but you know, with all the pandemic thing, we don't have like too much support and my husband has to come back to work like two weeks after I delivered my son. So I was like pretty well by myself when my son was born.

Jessica (05:53)
Yeah.

Yeah, know. I mean, being a new mom is very isolating. Like you feel very separate from everyone else. And I imagine that COVID doubled that. And then being in a country without your family, I imagine is even more challenging.

Josyel santamaria (06:10)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah,

yeah. I FaceTime my mom every day. Every day like, my mom! I'm like, I don't know, I'm eating, I'm taking a shower and it's trying to help me like, you know, don't feel like too lonely and being able to talk with my friends too, because all my best friends from Venezuela, we are like all from over the world. So only one state in Venezuela. The rest of us moved from the country, so yeah.

Jessica (06:25)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

So what was different? I want to talk about what the differences are that you have seen. Obviously you have a friend still in Venezuela, but a lot of your friends are other places too. And then you're here in the States. I want to talk about what the differences are in parenting, but I'm also very interested what the differences are in like maternity care when you're pregnant in Venezuela versus here.

Josyel santamaria (07:13)
yeah, sure. So the biggest difference in Venezuela, like everybody has a C-section. It's like, it's not like here, like you have natural birth. It's not common in Venezuela. Like if you have a natural birth is because I don't know, you have to deliver in a public hospital because you have like two types of hospitals. So you have the private ones and then you have the free ones. Okay. So it's like, if you are able to pay for a C-section,

most of the people do it. It's not like here that you have to like natural birth first and then if you are something goes wrong then you have a C-section. That's like thing that that's the common thing. And you have you can schedule it's like okay so your due date is I don't know October 20. Okay so I want to do my C-section and then I team. So it's like you can you know schedule the C-section and

I you at the hospital maybe like, I don't know, one or two days, not like here that you have to stay one week if you have a C-section. So it's like a natural thing to have a C-section, you know? And the other thing, like people do like a big party inside of the hospital. So you are in the room, people like set up everything like with a cake, balloons and champagne. don't know. It's so, it's very crazy.

They don't think about too much in the mother, you know, cause you don't in that when you're like early delivery, you don't want to see everybody. And I don't know. It's so crazy.

Jessica (08:44)
Yeah, no,

I remember like I had a planned home birth. So I planned on having no one but my husband around and obviously like our our midwife team. I couldn't like the last thing I my birth wound up not going that way. And I had a birth in a hospital. But like the last thing I would want is having like a big party in my room. But I imagine like if that's like a cultural thing that is happening to everyone.

Josyel santamaria (08:54)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it's a culture

thing. It's like, okay, so I'm going to have my C-section on the 19th. So all the families and friends are waiting outside the surgery room. And when the babies come out, everybody's like, okay, so let's start drinking. It's crazy. Yeah.

Jessica (09:27)
my gosh.

Well, that could be also kind of exciting too. I guess it just depends on who you are.

Josyel santamaria (09:31)
Yeah.

Yes, yes, yes.

Jessica (09:35)
So in terms

of like pregnancy care, I guess it was a little different since you were like in the COVID era, but how, what are some of the differences or similarities between like when you were pregnant and the care you received here versus the care you would have received back home?

Josyel santamaria (09:55)
So it's a lot of different because the doctors in Venezuela do all the things by themselves. It's not like here, because you have here a technician for the ultrasounds. You have other technicians for, I don't know, anything. No, in Venezuela, the doctors do all. So the doctors do all the ultrasounds. Do your, if you need a PAPS or something, they do all by themselves. And you have

they do the ultrasounds every month. It's not like here. So every month you're able to see your baby. So it's not like here you only have like, I don't know, maybe two ultrasounds, but in Venezuela every month you can see the baby growth and everything by doing that.

Jessica (10:25)
Mm-hmm.

So you would have, is it similar to here where you have like a monthly visit essentially and then as you get closer you start to have like the weekly visits? Okay.

Josyel santamaria (10:42)
No, you have every month a visit, every month. Since

the pregnancy starts until the pregnancy ends. So you have every month one visit to the doctor and every time you have an ultrasound.

Jessica (10:54)
And is, are your visits all free?

Josyel santamaria (10:58)
No, it's private, so you have to pay.

Jessica (10:59)
Okay.

So when you say that there are like private hospitals and like the free public hospitals, how do people determine which one they're going to go with and how do, how do the doctors kind of go between or do they have like, I'm at the private, I'm at the public.

Josyel santamaria (11:07)
Mm-hmm.

So, yes. So normally, because, uh-huh,

it's not like here, because Venezuela is such a small country. It's like, this is my old GEO. Maybe you're going to your mother's doctor. So it's like a kind of familiar thing. I don't know how you explain it that. So it's like from somebody's recommendation. It's not like you search in a diet or something.

Jessica (11:31)
Yeah.

Okay.

Josyel santamaria (11:39)
So it's kind of like that. It's not like here that you have to find your doctor by the insurance. It doesn't work like that. But right now, for all the situation in Minnesota, the free hospitals are really bad right now. So normally, if you can afford it, you can go to a private one.

Jessica (11:53)
Mm-hmm.

And do you know like what the pricing structure is for either?

Josyel santamaria (12:04)
Yeah, I don't know how much for the maybe like $25 is not that expensive. The expensive thing is when you have to deliver the babies like $1,000 or something depends on all you need. But the thing is you have to buy your own supplies. You have to buy your own supplies and then give it to the doctor.

Jessica (12:31)
Interesting, and that's at both

hospitals?

Josyel santamaria (12:34)
yeah wait

Jessica (12:36)
That's really

So we talked a little bit about the cultural expectation of having the party at the hospital. What are some other cultural things that you guys do during pregnancy?

Josyel santamaria (12:44)
Yeah.

Not that much. think the baby showers and things are kind of new. From my mom's time, it wasn't normal. So they don't do baby showers or anything like that. Maybe when the baby was born, they do a small baptism. And then when the babies have one year old, it's when they do the big baptism and the church and everything. But that's it. During pregnancy, they don't do too much things.

Jessica (13:20)
Okay. And then what about like, what about like postpartum after you have the baby? Is there anything like cultural that you guys do to like care for the mom or the baby?

Josyel santamaria (13:20)
Not like here.

yeah. It's crazy thing that if you have C-section they tell you, you don't have to talk because you're gonna be like gassy if you talk. You don't can like be barefoot because if you are barefoot you're gonna have fever. What else? It's not like here they tell you okay the babies can sleep on their tummies so they don't care that you have to their babies on their tummies. It's a my god. It's a crazy thing that is way too different from here.

Mm-hmm.

Jessica (13:57)
What did you do differently here being pregnant than you would have done at home?

Josyel santamaria (14:02)
All of that. I just follow my doctor's recommendations. Yeah, I don't think I follow our culture thing back in Venezuela because I'm here so the doctor has a different knowledge. So I just stay with the doctor's recommendation here.

Jessica (14:22)
And did you choose who your doctor was or you just kind of like want wherever insurance took you?

Josyel santamaria (14:29)
No, I just choose the network. So I choose one doctor, but because she works with a different group of doctors, so I stay with her. But sometimes I wasn't able to see her, depends on the date. So all the doctors who stay in the network, they made my appointment.

Jessica (14:34)
Mm-hmm.

And then when you delivered, was it the same doctor that you had been seeing or you just kind of got whoever was there? perfect.

Josyel santamaria (14:59)
Yeah, she was that day. She was that day when I

have the delivery.

Jessica (15:02)
Obviously it's a little different because of COVID, but what did you do differently postpartum that, than you would have done at home as well?

Josyel santamaria (15:05)
Yeah.

So because I just wanted to breastfeed my son exclusively, I don't care about anything that my mom says because you know when the babies start to get cranky or they have how you call it English? I forgot the name. No, when they start to eat more than normal.

Jessica (15:26)
colic.

Like a growth spurt?

Josyel santamaria (15:35)
Yeah, the girls birth. So if you're in Venezuela, they're gonna tell you, no, you have to give a body because you're not producing enough milk and blah, blah, blah. No, I tried to study as much as I can during my pregnancy. because that was my dream to only breastfeed my son. And that was it. I only trusted my body, gave him breastfeed as much as he can. And we made it. I breastfeed him three years.

Jessica (16:00)
my

gosh, that's awesome. Good for you. What were other things that you did differently in terms of like caring for yourself in postpartum?

Josyel santamaria (16:00)
Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I wasn't prepared that much. I wish I could be like more prepared, but I don't know. I was trying to keep like myself, like care, know, like take a shower, eat as much as I could, drink water, just like, you know, the regular things like when you have a small baby, maybe you're not able to and even more because I was by myself. So I talked to my husband and was like, okay, I need help.

with the food at least because every time I tried to cook my son started to cry on need a change diaper everything so was really crazy. So we arranged that so he was in charge of the food and I can stay like you know getting a worry about that. So that would said you know try to not die in the first couple months.

Jessica (17:01)
I know it's so hard. What

would you have done differently in your postpartum if you knew what you know now?

Josyel santamaria (17:07)
Yeah, just like be prepared, like you know, have a frozen food, look, you know, like a couple proteins like in stock on the fridge, like get more prepared about that because making food in that stage take you a lot of time, even though you see, you don't see that that much trouble at the beginning. But the simple things when you have a small baby are hard to make and even take a shower, everything.

Jessica (17:34)
How do, in Venezuela, do people talk about what it's like postpartum or not really?

Josyel santamaria (17:41)
No, they don't talk too much about it. Maybe now, like the new generations, but when my mom get pregnant, they don't talk too much, you know, because the Latin moms, they have a culture that they can do everything. So they don't complain about anything. They can do everything. They have everything under control. And when I have my son, I was like asking my mom, why did you tell me that this was so hard?

Jessica (18:08)
Yeah, that's so

interesting because I feel like that's not uncommon here too. think I was very surprised about how, and I'm like immersed in this world, so I was very surprised about how no one really prepared you for what it was like gonna look and feel like when you were postpartum. And obviously that's starting to change a little bit, but even though I like did as much research as I could, I like really had no idea.

Josyel santamaria (18:13)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Jessica (18:36)
what I was in for in terms of like what my body was going to look and feel like. like, I mean, you had a C-section, right? So like that's so different from, I mean, here, that's so different than natural birth. Like you had a full surgery. So I think, yeah, I wish everyone would talk more about like what their experience was.

Josyel santamaria (18:42)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, because

I think it's like if you complain you're a bad mom. So I mean...

Jessica (19:03)
Yeah.

Or like everyone's everyone has gone through it or everyone is doing it. But like that doesn't mean that we can't be like, my God, this is horrible. Or if it's not horrible, if you had a fine recovery, feel like people should be able to say that, too.

Josyel santamaria (19:13)
Yeah!

Yeah, yeah,

I have a friend, she delivered a hit too, but she delivered her baby like one year before me. And was of course we don't have COVID at the time, she have a natural birth. So we make like a group of person that we stay with her at the hospital. So was really fun. So she was like the next day like nothing, she was able to take a shower, you know, she was so happy. I was like, okay.

Jessica (19:38)
Yeah.

Josyel santamaria (19:45)
Maybe I was thinking maybe my delivery is going to be like that, but it wasn't.

Jessica (19:50)
Yeah. Yeah. And

everyone's, everyone's story is so different and unique. And I think with like, I think people are starting to talk about their births a little more now with like the, the birthing story podcasts and just being more open about what their experience was. And I think that was really helpful for me when I was pregnant to be like, I don't know what's going to happen, but at least like,

Josyel santamaria (20:09)
Yeah.

Jessica (20:17)
I've heard all these different stories and I know what's possible. Whereas like postpartum, feel like it's one such a blur sometimes and everyone's like, my God, I just got through it. That maybe that's why people don't talk about it. But I had like no idea. I think I like intellect, like my brain knew just from like absorbing so much information, but otherwise I like didn't know. Well, part of it was like,

Josyel santamaria (20:19)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You don't know until

you live it, like until you have the experience you don't really know.

Jessica (20:47)
Yeah.

Yeah, and you don't want to like scare pregnant moms.

Josyel santamaria (20:54)
Yeah, I'm

like, if you want a good experience, ask me because my experience was and I have a lot of anxiety after the delivery last was really bad. Was really bad. Like the the most thing that have anxiety was the night time because I was like, my God, I'm going to I'm going to sleep. Even when the start gate light, the sunsets and every time I decided to start to come back and I was like, my God, this is horrible.

Jessica (20:59)
Yeah.

Mm. Yeah.

Yeah.

How long did it last for?

Josyel santamaria (21:25)
It's taken me a while, like, I don't know, six months. That was for the main reasons my husband pushed me to start working out, to start CrossFit. Because he was like, my God, you need to do something because you're going to get crazy like all day here in a not home.

Jessica (21:41)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I, I definitely identify with that. Mine was more about like safety, like making sure he was safe. Like I also have OCD, so that's not great. So I would like make sure the windows were locked, the doors were locked. he slept in our room with us. And so that was like the one way I was like, there's no way anything bad can happen if he's right next to me.

Josyel santamaria (21:52)
huh.

Yeah.

Jessica (22:10)
But I think, I think that's

also common too. Like I read a book, I don't even remember what it's called, but it was about like those first few months postpartum and like where some of like the anxiety or like postpartum depression and anxiety can come in. And it's like, if you think about humans a million years ago when they were like fighting off bears and stuff and like our job was to

Josyel santamaria (22:35)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica (22:39)
be on high alert to protect. And so we still have that instinct, I think, but life looks so different now. We're not fending off predators. Yeah. Yeah.

Josyel santamaria (22:40)
Yeah.

Yeah, that's why babies don't sleep. That's why. Because

they are connected to our past. So as you're growing up, you are losing that. That's why. Yeah.

Jessica (22:53)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

So I think that, I think it's normal to feel that obviously an extended period of time. I'm a big advocate for like seeing a therapist or seeing a specialist. But I think, I think what I learned through my experience, like it's normal and natural to want to make sure your baby is safe or, or like have anxiety about the next day and what it's going to look like.

Josyel santamaria (23:10)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jessica (23:27)
Obviously there's barriers to that too of like when it's too scary to like reach out. But I think that there is some portion of it that is normal. But again, we don't like talk about it a ton. I think we only hear like the really, really bad experiences. Yeah.

Josyel santamaria (23:34)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Because I really

know about depression, postpartum depression, but I didn't know too much about baby blues. That I have it. I have baby blues. I was staring and started to cry. I was like, my God, what's going on?

Jessica (23:54)
Mm-hmm.

I know. And I, yeah, I think, and I

think like here we talk about the baby blues, like we started talking about it initially. And I think like the baby blues versus like postpartum depression, like to me in my head, the differences like baby blues is the first two, maybe three weeks, like your hormones are still leveling out. And so I think that's a lot of it, but then when it extends, like mine was not great. Like when it extends to like.

Josyel santamaria (24:15)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Jessica (24:31)
all I can think about are like these, these thoughts that are just intruding in my head or I'm like.

Josyel santamaria (24:35)
Yeah, and you can

work normally. You don't want to get up the bread or take a shower or go eat. Take care of yourself. So, yeah.

Jessica (24:39)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I think part, I think part

of it is normal, but then I think if we talked more about like, this is when I realized it wasn't normal. feel like, I myself would have felt a little more prepared for what to expect. And then just body wise, that's like a whole other thing. yeah, I just didn't know what to expect and I didn't recover well. And that definitely like,

Josyel santamaria (24:56)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jessica (25:11)
I suffered in the long term from that. But how did you, like what recovery did you have to do for a C-section that you didn't expect or was different from, I mean obviously C-sections are more common at home, but how is it different for you here?

Josyel santamaria (25:28)
Yeah.

Here is different because they told you you have to walk right away. It's not like in Venezuela. You have to stay in like, I don't know, one week or something. When I have my C-section, because I have some complications after the C-section, so I have to stay in bed like three days more or so. And then after that, I try to, you know, they told me, okay, that's enough. You have to start walking. And then when I came home, I said, I...

I have to do all by myself. have to take care of myself and I have to like, know, cleaning and I have to take showers. So I wasn't like, okay, I couldn't like stay in bed and try to recover. So I have to just to keep moving and that's it.

Jessica (26:16)
So in Venezuela, when people come home from the hospital, do you guys have people that like come and help take care of you?

Josyel santamaria (26:24)
Not only your family, normally it's like your mom or your...

Jessica (26:30)
And do they like stay with you for how long?

Josyel santamaria (26:33)
Yeah, they stay with you.

They normally stay like the first month. Yeah.

Jessica (26:39)
wow.

Yeah, I know that's really common in like many other cultures, but we just don't. I think our world does not operate that way. Like my mom was not taking a month off to. Yeah.

Josyel santamaria (26:45)
Yeah.

Yeah, because here you Yeah, because you have to work here like, you

know, the business stuff here. That's the difference in Venezuela. In Venezuela it's like more chill. Like most of the people have the the house pay. It's not like here that you have to pay a loan or something. In Venezuela, most of the people back at the time earn a good money. So they can buy the car, you know, one payment, buy the house with one payment. It's not like here. So

Jessica (27:06)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Josyel santamaria (27:18)
For like our parents, they can stay with you as long as they want, you know? And that is the good thing, that the biggest difference, because you know, my husband has to start to work after two weeks. So I have to stay in my home alone during two weeks with a small baby. So, mm-hmm.

Jessica (27:39)
Yeah. And I think that's what's hard here is that they're like, don't

pick up anything heavy and stay in bed and rest. But then it's like, if you have other kids, that's never happening. Or even like, if you, if you have to pick up a car seat. Yeah.

Josyel santamaria (27:47)
Yes.

Yeah, that's why I only want one baby.

I only can go to the postpartum again by myself. my god, no, I can't.

Jessica (27:59)
Yeah,

I mean, yeah. And I think that like we don't, our system here is not set up to support moms and as a general, but I think especially in postpartum, it's like, don't do X, Y, Z so that you can recover, but like our system isn't set up to do that.

Josyel santamaria (28:10)
Yeah.

Yeah.

This country gives you lot of opportunities, but they have to work on that, like have more time for people to recover, even the new moms. Maybe at least six months, because some people have like 90 days early for something from work. That's not enough.

Jessica (28:26)
Yeah.

Yeah, I mean we don't even have paid leave here. Most people... Yeah, I was gonna ask.

Josyel santamaria (28:38)
In Venezuela you have, even though it's not enough,

it's not enough, but back at the time you have one year leave in Venezuela with payment.

Jessica (28:50)
my God. It's still like that now.

Josyel santamaria (28:54)
Is it now but it's not enough it's not enough yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah

Jessica (28:57)
Yeah, that's so crazy. Yeah,

I think other countries do it and we're supposed to be the most affluent and developed country, but for whatever reason, we can't figure out how to give people time off for their family. So what are some other things that come to the top of your mind that are different for women when they're

Josyel santamaria (29:07)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jessica (29:23)
trying to have a baby or having, or pregnant or in postpartum or like that first year that are different between Venezuela and here before we move on to like parenting styles.

Josyel santamaria (29:36)
I don't know, think maybe if you want to try to have a baby, I don't know, it's the same. You just go to the doctor and said, okay, I want to have a baby. I want to start to take my pre-conception or something. And then they're going to go through it. And they almost tell you, you have to wait one year. It's the same as here. So you have to wait one year. If you don't get pregnant, okay, you have to do more studies and something.

yeah, I think this is like, for all the situation in there is hard right now, because if the babies get sick or something, sometimes they can find the medicines or the medicines are too expensive. If you don't have like good icon in there. But when I was a kid, it was, it was a different, it was really nice. So the moms can stay home. My mom stayed at home.

Jessica (30:10)
Mm-hmm.

Josyel santamaria (30:28)
until I was like 13 years she started to work again when I was 13. So all the moms there, they stay at home. It's not like they have to work because they have to work, it's not like here. So it's nice, I don't know.

Jessica (30:33)
Okay.

Yeah. I think that has to make a big difference on like raising your kids and like building your family to be able to be home if you want to, to be home, to do it and not have to be back to working when you're

Josyel santamaria (30:52)
Yeah.

Yeah, yes. Most of

the moms who have to work because they want it. Because back at the time with one salary, you will be able to live and support your family. Yeah, now it's different, but in my time was like that.

Jessica (31:11)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay. So what things are different in terms of like raising kids? So your son is three or four. Okay. So what are some of the things that are different about raising kids in Venezuela versus here?

Josyel santamaria (31:24)
for.

like in general or something specific.

Jessica (31:36)
Yeah, like how does

culture view kids? Like here, I feel like people are starting to view kids as like their own, they're born how they're born, like their own individual person. Whereas some other places, or even in the past year, we thought that they were just like extensions of us, or like not to be seen or heard. Okay.

Josyel santamaria (31:56)
Yeah, well, that is the same in Venezuela. It was like,

okay, you're going to be extension of your mom or something. You're not able to say anything. You have to follow my rules and that's it. Yeah, so what's the same? What's the same?

Jessica (32:12)
Has it started

to change to be more similar to how we do it here or not really?

Josyel santamaria (32:18)
Yeah, I don't like that because even though he's a kid, he's still a human, you know? He's going to have his own stuff. He's maybe not going to agree with me and that's okay. It's not a bad thing. Okay? So that one thing I don't tolerate is when he's unrespectful. That's the only thing. Okay? Because if you have to disagree with me, you can tell me with me, but you know, with tolerance and everything.

That's the only thing. But back in my time, my mom wasn't, I wasn't allowed to tell anything to my mom. Like, this is how I'm gonna do the things and that's it. You don't have any worry here. I was like, okay.

Jessica (32:57)
So do you think that, what are the different parenting philosophies in Venezuela? So here we have helicopter parents or parents who are super involved or parents who are kind of similar to that where they're authoritarian or authoritative.

Josyel santamaria (33:17)
Yeah, in Venezuela, the parents

are super involved and very, you know, like they are in your business all the time. Like all the time, all the time. If you want to make a decision, you tell your parents. If you want to do anything, tell your parents. Like very strict. Yeah.

Jessica (33:34)
And

how do you perceive that it's different here? Like what are some of the biggest differences you see here in raising a kid?

Josyel santamaria (33:43)
I think it's

a Latin thing, know, be like that. But I saw the difference between with American people, like when the kids are 16 or 18, okay, go by yourself. So you're not grown up now. So take care of yourself. In Venezuela, no, it's done like that. Like most of the people stay at home until they get married. like if you are 27 years old and you are not married yet, you can stay home.

It's not like here, so it's very different.

Jessica (34:14)
So there's like a difference in independence almost. What does it look like for like teenagers?

Josyel santamaria (34:16)
Yes,

It's the same you stay at home only a study because you're on you're not allowed to work like here until you have 18 so it's the same. Mm-hmm Maybe you can work like work if your parents have a business or something and you go to the to help But if you want a real job, you can so you have to wait until you have 18. Mm-hmm Yeah

Jessica (34:31)
OK. That's so interesting.

Okay.

That's so interesting.

What are some other differences that you've noticed here versus at home with like.

Josyel santamaria (34:56)
A lot

of difference. The education system is way too different. In Venezuela, we have two types of schools. You have the private ones and the public ones. The private ones, of course, are better. They have all the grades. You say grades? They have to pre-K until high school. It's not like here that you have to go to a different school.

Jessica (35:13)
Mm-hmm.

Josyel santamaria (35:20)
Pre-K is like three years and then you go to like elementary school is for first year until sixth grade. And then you go to high school. It's five years. And all of the same school. You don't have to go like another school unless you want to change. And you can go any school you want. It's not like here that you have to go like your district school. So you can enroll any school that you want. It's not like here.

Jessica (35:44)
Mm-hmm.

How  the schools different from each other?

all the schools are pretty much the same, the public schools. Like if you, each district has X amount of schools and they're all kind of the same, but if you go to a different district, their roles are like kind of different. Is it that way with the...

Josyel santamaria (35:55)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

No, the rules

are the same for all schools. mean, the only things that make change is like the areas or something. Maybe they can have like more activities. Like, I know, maybe one school has karate or school has football. I don't know. But all the rules are the same.

I studied at the same school since I was pre-K until high school. So I studied at the same school and I had the same friends all my life. It was pretty fun. So because we raised since we were kids. So it was really fun. Yeah.

Jessica (36:35)
Okay.

It is cool.

That's really cool.

How is the education system different? I know your son isn't in school yet, but what is your perception of the school system for each?

Josyel santamaria (36:52)
Mm-hmm.

I, what I saw with my friends, have kids in the school. Well, the education in Venezuela is very strict. Like you have to follow things. Even if you have to go do like an essay or something has to be all like handwriting, like have to be perfect, you know, and we use uniforms in Venezuela. It's not like here. So your uniform has to be, you know, like.

military thing like very you yeah yeah the guys can have long hair in the school they have to you know have short hair you are not able to use like nails when you're in school it's like you know very like discipline thing

Jessica (37:26)
Uniformia.

anything else that you have noticed that is really different? being a mom here in the States versus Venezuela.

Josyel santamaria (37:51)
I don't know, think like moms here are like more supportive. Even like each other, like you're like more open to talk about how you feel, how you know if you have struggled with something. Because it's the cultural thing that I told you in Venezuela, they still have talks about like, you're a mom, you can do everything, you don't have room for complaint.

Jessica (37:57)
of their kids or of each other.

Josyel santamaria (38:19)
And I think this is that I think that I like here. Like moms are more supportive with each other.

Jessica (38:23)
Mm-hmm.

are some of the challenges you've had here being a mom from Venezuela here in the U.S.?

Josyel santamaria (38:34)
like, raise a child by myself. Like, if you want to go out with my husband, we don't have to.

because he was too little to stay with somebody. If I go sick sometimes, I have to go to my hospital by myself because we don't have anybody to live with my son. So my husband can't go with me to the hospital. That's the one of the main things. If I get sick, it's the same. If I stay home, I have to stay home and raise a child at the same time. So it's hard.

Jessica (39:09)
Yeah. what are some of the good things that are different here that you like better being a mom?

Josyel santamaria (39:18)
I like everything because I don't know even though I still by myself you know when you have family around they always have something to say you know and normally when you are Latin they always say bad things they're not gonna say my god your son is so so good behavior they only focus on the bad things you know so it's good here because my husband and I we are able to raise our son

Jessica (39:40)
Yeah.

Josyel santamaria (39:46)
how we want it, you know, and don't have anything outside pay you something.

Jessica (39:51)
Yeah, yeah, I could definitely see that that would be a little better to just kind of like not really have to worry about all the cultural stuff and just kind of pick and choose what you want. What kind of cultural things are you adopting to have for your family here?

Josyel santamaria (39:54)
Yeah.

huh.

A lot of things like Halloween, Thanksgiving, we don't celebrate that in Venezuela. Venezuela Christmas starts in September. It's not like because we don't celebrate Thanksgiving or Halloween. So as soon as September starts, can hear we have like typical music for Christmas called Gaita. So you can hear Gaita starting on September on the radio.

Jessica (40:17)
my

Josyel santamaria (40:32)
A lot of people like my mom started to put Christmas on our house since like my birthday is October 18th. So after my birthday was over, she started to put Christmas. No. I tried this year to put Halloween and Thanksgiving things on my home because my son, was like, I want to decorate the house with Halloween. was like, okay, I'm gonna do this year.

Jessica (40:44)
my gosh. So do you do that too? I know you had your Christmas tree up for a long time.

Josyel santamaria (41:01)
But maybe I will set up the Christmas tree in November.

Jessica (41:04)
So funny.

so it's being a mom, it's kind of hard to prioritize yourself. And I know you've have said to me specifically that you didn't feel like back to yourself till your son was like two, almost three. Can you talk a little bit about what you did to start to feel a little bit more back to yourself? How you kind of started to prioritize?

Josyel santamaria (41:19)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, just do the things that I like. I don't know, can be like vanity things, but I like to my hair. I like to do my nails. I have to, you know, have a cup of coffee, have a workout. You know, I always try to focus on do the things that I like even it's one hour a day. And that's try to help me, you know, like to feel by myself, to feel myself again and not to be like all day long with the kids.

Jessica (41:29)
yourself as your son got older.

Josyel santamaria (41:57)
So you know, prioritize the thing that I like.

Jessica (42:00)
Yeah. And how did you get into CrossFit?

Josyel santamaria (42:04)
For my husband. Yeah, he... No, he actually, he start first. And then when I start to do it, I was like, okay, this is an hour for me and I really enjoyed it. And then I couldn't stop. just stick with it.

Jessica (42:07)
Did he do it first?

Okay.

How long did you do CrossFit before you became a coach?

Josyel santamaria (42:26)
Two years.

Jessica (42:27)
Okay. And then what made you decide to coach?

Josyel santamaria (42:31)
I don't know. was, I was, was like the trick to coach. then when Greg told me that he wants to start to do Spanish classes, I was like, maybe I can do it. And I have one friend from the gym. her name is Jackie. And she always told me, you're gonna, you're, you're always like giving us some advice or something. You might've.

gonna be a good coach, you know, because you are so passionate about CrossFit that maybe that's gonna help you, you know? And I was like, okay, I'm gonna do it. It's something that I like and I'm gonna pay for it. So

Jessica (43:12)
has coaching CrossFit kind of taught you about yourself?

Josyel santamaria (43:17)
I don't know, maybe that I'm more like outgoing than I thought. I was at the beginning so scared to, you know, coach in English. The first time that I talked with Derek about taking the L1, he told me, you have one thing that we don't have. So you speak two languages. So if you screwed up, it's okay. It's like...

Jessica (43:38)
Yeah.

Josyel santamaria (43:38)
We only speak one language and we still screwed up. So don't worry about if you talk bad or something. Just do it. You're going to be fine.

Jessica (43:45)
Yeah, yeah,

so I don't think I mentioned it in the beginning, but Josie is a coach at our gym and we have developed a bilingual program and I think without you being a part of it, I think it's made a huge impact on our community as a CrossFit gym. think we live in a community that is...

Josyel santamaria (43:57)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jessica (44:09)
extremely diverse and a lot of Hispanic Spanish speaking people come to our gym. And I think, because of you and Daniela, who also does our Spanish program, think without you guys, we wouldn't be able to have the community that we have and have people come and feel like they're at home.

Josyel santamaria (44:20)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jessica (44:32)
And

you kind of have a special interest in like fitness for women specifically. We've been working together on repairing my pelvic floor, my very damaged pelvic floor so that I can start working out again and feeling more comfortable.

Josyel santamaria (44:43)
Yeah

Jessica (44:49)
you wanna talk a little bit about where your interest comes from and why you're kind of guided that way?

Josyel santamaria (44:57)
Yeah, because I don't know, I follow a doctor on Instagram. said she had like this funny quote and she always says, women are not a small man. Like we are all different than men, than a lot of the research and a lot of people don't study only women when it's about fitness. So we need like understand more each other because

Jessica (45:18)
Mm-hmm.

Josyel santamaria (45:23)
If you see at the gym, it's more women than men. So sometimes like you don't feel like yourself. Maybe you are postpartum. Maybe you are like 40 year old and you have,

Jessica (45:27)
Yeah.

Josyel santamaria (45:39)
So your hormone decrease are during menopause and all of the things affect you, not only like in your normal life, it's gonna affect you in your fitness, it's gonna affect you during a workout, maybe you have problems with your bladder or something like that. We are not the same. So most of the people have to study that too.

Jessica (45:58)
Mm-hmm.

Josyel santamaria (46:03)
And I know I'm a woman, I think I can connect more with women that if I be like a male coach, you know? So that's one of the things that made me like to study more about that.

Jessica (46:13)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that that is an area that isn't super focused on and that I think we all just as moms like deal with whatever the repercussions are of pregnancy and delivery and postpartum. And we don't have to, we can focus a little bit more in on.

Josyel santamaria (46:30)
Yeah.

Thank you.

Jessica (46:47)
scaling back and seeing where we can make improvements. I mean, I wasn't able to work out my entire pregnancy. I had really bad pubic symphysis pain. So like my pelvis was not going to allow me to do CrossFit. So I had been off for, I mean, essentially two years. So my year of pregnancy and then...

Josyel santamaria (46:49)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Jessica (47:13)
a year postpartum before I felt like, okay, maybe I'll give it a shot. And I think coming back to fitness after having a baby was really challenging for me. Like everything was different. And I think in each like life phase that we go through both like hormonally or mentally as women, like we have to

Josyel santamaria (47:26)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Jessica (47:38)
take a look at how to make adjustments. So I think it's really cool that you took an interest in like how we can be better.

Josyel santamaria (47:41)
Yeah.

Yeah, because men

are like more straight. Women are more like, you know, we have a cycle. So you're not going to be the same through the whole month. So you have to be aware of that. Sometimes maybe you're not feel good today. Okay, I have to scale down. That's okay. You cannot be 100 % all the time. The important thing is did you show up that day at the gym and you did your work, you know, even though you couldn't go like 100%.

Jessica (47:48)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

Josyel santamaria (48:13)
That's okay. And even for me, even for me, I have four years postpartum and I still struggled with, with movements, even though I don't have diastasis or anything like that, but I struggled doing toe to bar. All the gymnastics things are hard for me because you need to have like really core, strong core. And when you have postpartum, it's gonna take time to recover. So it's not like

Jessica (48:13)
Yeah. Yeah, I think like me.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Josyel santamaria (48:41)
It's not like, no, it's gonna be like one month and that's it. No, you have to take time.

Jessica (48:45)
Yeah, yeah, I think it's important that like, message of like being kind of kind to yourself and realizing like, if you just had a baby recently, or your baby is an adult, like your body just being a mom has gone through so much. Even for the women who aren't moms and didn't go through pregnancy and delivery and postpartum, there's so much changing in our bodies constantly that I...

Josyel santamaria (49:03)
Yeah.

Yeah, you

still have a menstrual cycle so yeah it's not like you're gonna be straight the whole month like men.

Jessica (49:16)
Right.

Yeah,

yeah. Anything else on the differences between what life looks like in Venezuela for moms versus here that you want to share?

Josyel santamaria (49:32)
Yeah, sure. I think life there is like chill because I'm gonna say it again, I'm from a small town and normally the work schedule is like 7 or 8 a.m. until 12. So a lot of people was able to go home, have lunch and then back to work. It's not the same as here.

In Venezuela, the main meal is the lunch. It's not like here this dinner. So normally people have lunch together, not dinner.

Jessica (49:59)
Yeah, dinner.

Josyel santamaria (50:03)
So dinner is like more casual thing. You know, you already whatever you want and that's it. But like lunch is when the people like sit on the table, talk about the day or spend time with the family.

Jessica (50:03)
Okay.

Right.

Yeah, interesting. else you want to chat about?

Josyel santamaria (50:21)
I don't know. And we have a lot of holidays in Venezuela. And when you have holidays, they have holidays for schools and from work. if like, know, Easter, you have break from school and from work too. It's not like here, more of the holidays are only for school.

Jessica (50:19)
I know we covered a lot of bases.

Yeah.

I see. Okay, interesting.

Josyel santamaria (50:48)
Yeah, so if you have

if you have Easter break, you have Easter break from work too. So it is like you have like more vacations.

Jessica (50:55)
That's nice. Yeah, and more like time

to be with your family. I feel like it sounds like family is really prioritized in terms of like making sure people have time to be with their family.

I know Venezuela is kind of crazy right now, and that's not really what we were going to talk about. But if you're interested in talking about it at all, you're welcome to.

Josyel santamaria (51:18)
Yeah.

love Venezuela. For me, it's the most incredible country, even though all the things is amazing. Because we have the same weather all year long. We have beaches. We have the cold side. They have snow in there. We have deserts. We have mountains. I mean, it's amazing. It's amazing.

Jessica (51:42)
right. Well, thank you so much for being on and sharing about your experience. Do you want people to find you anywhere?

Josyel santamaria (51:46)
Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, my Instagram is Josielstjostst on Instagram. Thank you.

Jessica (51:58)
Okay, awesome. Well, thank you for being on. I appreciate you being here.

No problem.