Kisha Edwards Gandsy found out she was pregnant when she went to the doctor convinced she had dysentery. She became a mother at 25 with no roadmap and no peers who understood. So she became an entrepreneur and built World Explorers, the childcare and preschool community she and her growing family needed to survive. Amy and Kisha Edwards Gandsy have known each other for twenty years, since they were both pregnant at the same time in New York City in 2006. When Amy told her about this podcast, Kisha started talking, and with her permission, Amy pressed record. Kisha is a mother of three (her kids are now 20, 17, and 15), an entrepreneur, a community builder, and the founder of World Explorers, which began as New York City Explorers, one of the first indoor play spaces in the country. She built it because she needed it: growing up in a tight, multigenerational family community in Pelzer, South Carolina, and craving that same village in New York City. When she became a mother at 25, after a pregnancy she discovered while at the doctor’s convinced she had dysentery, she was, in her own words, "building the plane while flying it," mourning who she used to be while loving who was arriving, and holding it all together without telling anyone how hard it was. In this episode, Kisha shares two of her three parental leave stories: the early, disorienting transition into working motherhood with her first daughter, Haven, pumping behind a curtain in a shared loft office with no roadmap and no examples to follow; and the far more demanding return with her second child, Shelton, back at the front desk of her own business five days after giving birth. Her third story, about her son Isa, is still waiting to be told. Guest Kisha Edwards Gandsy is a mother of three, an artist, and a successful entrepreneur. She founded World Explorers (originally New York City Explorers) and has been a force for early childhood education and the protection of children’s creativity for two decades. In this episode Discovering she was pregnant while convinced she had dysentery, and the grief of a life she knew she was tradingBecoming a mother at 25 with no peers who understood what she was going throughThe realities nobody prepares you for: pumping at work, communal fridges, and the questions that felt too embarrassing to askReturning to her own business five days postpartum, with a toddler at homeWhy she built World Explorers: not just childcare, but the village she grew up with in South Carolina, recreated in New York City"No one tells you how you're doing": wanting someone to simply reflect back what she looked like as a motherWhat she'd tell herself now: "Say what it is. Ask for help. Slow down."Why "it's egotistical to think everything depends on you"RESOURCES The National Maternal Mental Health Hotline: 1-833-852-6262 (1-833-TLC-MAMA). CALL TO ACTION Have a parental leave story of your own? Any version of it, we want to hear it. Reach out at cplleadership.com/podcast. And if you're an employer, manager, or HR leader: the RETAIN Coaching Hub and App exist so the people going through this transition, parents, managers, and HR alike, don't have to navigate it without support. Find out if your company already has access through your Short Term Disability (STD) or Paid Family and Medical Leave insurance, often through your short-term disability or paid family and medical leave policies, at cplleadership.com.
