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Work like you’re not a parent.
Parent like you don’t work.
What if that whole system is wrong?
This is Full Stack Moms, and we are Mallory Lee and Shannon Curran, two working moms navigating tech careers, parenting, and everything in between. We talk about why the traditional rules of work don’t fit modern parents and how women in tech are doing things differently. Through honest conversations and behind-the-scenes stories, this show explores careers, caregiving, ambition, and the messy reality of having it all, just not all at once.
Connect with Mallory: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mallorylee/
Connect with Shannon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannon-sweeny-curran/
Produced in partnership with Share Your Genius
www.shareyourgenius.com
[00:00:00] Emilia D'Anzica: I had someone on my team say, "Why do you always leave at 5:30? Like, we're all here slaving away." And I said, "Well, do you see me take a lunch hour? Do you see me hanging out having coffees in the afternoon in the, in the break room for 20, 40 minutes? playing games, starting beer hour at 3:00?" I said, "Don't tell me that I can't leave at 5:30."
[00:00:24] Mallory Lee: This is Full Stack Moms.
[00:00:27] Shannon Curran: This is not a parenting podcast nor a business podcast, but a place where we talk building careers in tech, raising kids at home, and making it work in public. . thank you for coming to join us, Emilia. It's great to meet you. Uh, the opening that we like to do for the show is just to learn a little bit about you. So sort of the fast facts, where do you live? Who lives in your house? How many kids do you have?
[00:00:51] Mallory Lee: What do you do for work? All of that stuff
[00:00:54] Emilia D'Anzica: Well, Shannon and Mallory, thanks so much for having me. I am really excited [00:01:00] to be here today, talk about being a mom. I live in Sonoma County, California. It is just a little over an hour outside of the San Francisco, uh, proper Bay Area.
And, um, I have a little furry friend sitting right beside me. He is, like, my right-hand shelter dog. And, uh, then I have a 15-year-old going on 20, and then I have a 20-year-old. And they both happen to be in the house, uh, this week. One's moving to Florence to do a semester abroad and study international business, and then the other is a junior.
So we are, uh, crazed right now with kid stuff. Football game tonight, hoco tomorrow, and then the oldest is flying out on Sunday. So squeezing everything in.
[00:01:53] Mallory Lee: Wow. Wow. How long is the stint in Florence? Is it a semester or longer?
[00:01:59] Emilia D'Anzica: It is [00:02:00] just until January, so we're excited for her. I was born in Naples, Italy, the south, and, uh, the north doesn't really appreciate us, so I told my daughter, "Don't... You don't have to tell everyone your mom's from Naples." Um,
[00:02:17] Shannon Curran: Are you gonna go out and visit her while she's there?
[00:02:19] Emilia D'Anzica: We'll go for Christmas, yes.
[00:02:22] Shannon Curran: Oh,
[00:02:23] Mallory Lee: Oh, that would be fun
[00:02:24] Emilia D'Anzica: Yeah, we did it two years ago. We spent it at Lake Garda, and it was dreamy and wonderful, and all the little, you know, Italian markets. It was really nice.
[00:02:35] Mallory Lee: That's so cool. I'm excited for my kids to get older to be able to do some things like that, but we're just not in that phase right now.
[00:02:44] Shannon Curran: Oh, absolutely not
[00:02:47] Mallory Lee: They think that we are. Like, they want to go to Italy so bad. All three of my boys wanna go, but we're just, we're not there yet
[00:02:56] Emilia D'Anzica: it will happen so fast. Just embrace, [00:03:00] embrace it. I thought for a long time, "We should have a third. We should have a third." I missed the baby stage, and my partner did not miss it, so he won.
[00:03:11] Shannon Curran: I tell all my friends, "Kittens, not cats." Like you want another kitten, but you don't want another cat, and they always turn into cats. Like there's no, like you cannot, like there is no like, I would love another kitten, but I certainly could not manage another cat. That's what I tell myself. So there it is, yeah.
[00:03:29] Mallory Lee: Yeah. Well, that's so fun. And for work, there were a couple different reasons we wanted to chat with you. So first, you have your own business. I think, um, it's exciting to hear about how that's developed and, and how you manage your world. Uh, but also you have written the book, right, a book on being a working mom in tech.
And so it's, it's gonna be so cool to talk with you about what you've learned about literally pretty [00:04:00] much, like, our exact audience and our people and our stories. And so we're, we're excited to learn from you today.
[00:04:06] Emilia D'Anzica: Yeah, thanks. I, I will share, uh, what I do today. I left corporate, I left WalkMe when I... in 20- uh, 18, at the beginning of 2018 after three plus years. We went from sub 10 million to 70 plus. In that time, I also got my MBA and, uh,
[00:04:28] Shannon Curran: You're an absolute slouch.
[00:04:29] Mallory Lee: And had kids.
[00:04:31] Shannon Curran: Anne had two like medium k- medium-aged kids that probably needed so much, yeah,
[00:04:37] Emilia D'Anzica: And, uh, I am a, bonus mom to my, to my partner's son, Tyler. So he was living at home with us too.
So three kids at home, me going to school, uh, getting my MBA and leading a global team, was just a lot. It was a blur. I don't even remember that time really. It... [00:05:00] I will say I studied all the textbooks because even though, you know, people don't use techbook- textbooks anymore, I read them all on a treadmill.
That's how I could keep sane. I bought a treadmill and put it in my garage, and I'd read it late at night after people were sleeping in my household, and that's how I, I passed. But yes, fast-forward to today, I am a fractional CCO. I'm wrapping up with a company this month. It'll be, it'll be a little bit sad.
I've grown close to this team. But I'm happy we found my replacement. I am a, accredited, International Coaching Federation coach, so I, I coach a lot of executives. And then I teach at Booth Business School in their chief revenue officer program. And speaking of kids, one of the women who gra- who's graduating soon, she brought her baby to class.
we're all online. It's a [00:06:00] global program. And it was so nice to meet her in person. I said, "Where's your baby? I'm so used to seeing you with the baby attached to you." Um, so it is possible to go back to school and get a degree or a certificate with a baby in your arms.
[00:06:15] Mallory Lee: That's so cool. Wow. All right. So when you decided to write a book, can you tell us when that was and, like, what the ages of the kids were and what was happening in life at that time?
[00:06:32] Emilia D'Anzica: Yeah, absolutely. So 2020 COVID hit. I was a chief customer officer at a CRM company and had to lay off more than half my team. Had maybe three or four people left in Canada and the US and the rest in the Philippines. It made zero sense for me to stay as a CCO. they needed people, not a leader.
Like it was just too top-heavy. And so I decided to [00:07:00] start my own company, and what came out of that was Growth Molecules Advisory. So at the end, there were about a dozen advisors. We were working as a team. And then an academy with like 40-plus customer success courses. And I sold that company to two different ones.
And during that time, Sabina Pons, who was ve- is very much one of my dearest friends, she was working with me. She left her company to come join me, and we decided to write a book together. We saw all these women leaving tech, and all these reports were coming out showing that it was the women making a lot less than their partners.
And when your kids are on Zoom, and the teachers don't know how to use Zoom, and there's chaos in the house, you're trying to figure out all how to work from home, a lot of women were quitting. And it was devastating for me to watch, [00:08:00] especially in tech. So we decided to interview a bunch of women, and we put out a survey, and we could not believe over 300 women globally replied and shared a lot of intimate information.
And so we decided to anonymize it all. And over the course of the year, we committed nights and weekends to writing this book. We flew back and forth. She lives in Orange County. And so she, she wrote half the book, I wrote half the book, and we feature 12 women in the book, um, that share their stories.
And we tried to incorporate women, of Chinese descent, Indian descent, African American. One of the women I interviewed, she was over 50 when she joined tech, and she had three daughters, now grown,
[00:08:53] Shannon Curran: and worked in the advertising world for the majority of her career. And, um, the CEO of [00:09:00] Givelify, it's an app to donate to your church, synagogue, non-non- favorite nonprofit, tapped her and said, "I think you'd be great for my company.
[00:09:10] Emilia D'Anzica: Come join me." And it's a tech company, and she joined after 50. And having three grown daughters and her, her daughters watching her transition after 50 from the advertising world to the tech world is... It's just such an inspiring story. and so we featured her, for example. we have a couple women with female partners.
So we, we fe- try to encompass all sorts of moms: single mom, married moms, women of color. And we just shared a lot of research and information, not only about women in tech, but why are they leaving? Why did some stay? Why did some leave? And, it was a hard book to write because I shared a lot of raw information about my own story, and so did Sabina.
She shared [00:10:00] us about her postpartum depression. I shared about all my challenges. The company I worked for was sub 50 people, and I had moved to Oklahoma for my husband's job for three years, and they said, "You moved out of California. We don't owe you anything." And so I had to take five and a half weeks of vacation, that's all I could accrue, to stay home with my baby, and that was it.
I had to go back to work, and it was actually traumatizing. I think that's one of the reasons I left corporate in 2018 and decided to go on my own. My daughter started wanting the nanny instead of me on the weekends. She didn't want me, and that just showed how much I was on the road and traveling, and she had developed a bond with someone who wasn't her biological mom, and it was painful.
I had to really hold back my tears. So yeah, those are the kind of stories we share in there. They're as [00:11:00] real as it gets, and the older I get, the more I'm willing to share. I think it's not as raw now. I can speak without crying and all the emotions. Um, so if I ever write another book, uh, I'll be even more forthcoming in, in my experiences and hope, hopes of helping others.
Because we've had women from all over the world write us and say, "I'm not in tech, but I could relate to this book and the different stories you shared. Thank you for writing this. I thought I was alone."
[00:11:31] Mallory Lee: That's Yeah, Yeah, it is.
[00:11:33] Shannon Curran: I actually had this conversation with my husband last night where he was like, "Well, you guys talk all the time on the show about how the system is changing." And I go, "Nope, I just think more people are opting out of it." I said, "I don't actually think it's changed that much." Like, it is, and I think that is the hard part, is that the, like, great talent needs to say, "I'm just not gonna do it," for any of it to change, right?
[00:11:59] Shannon Curran: Like, that [00:12:00] is ... You know, I was in person three days this week with a client. I missed four bedtimes, and it was awful. Like, I was like, "I can't imagine doing this every single week," which is what I would've been doing if I still had the same job that I had in 2021, right? Like,
yeah, it was devastating.
I was like, "Is this what..." And I think back to, like, when I, I know that, uh, Mallory, we talk a lot about, like, when you were at ExactTarget and when I was at Quick Base, there were so many, like, women that were in leadership positions then, when we were kind of early in our career, that had kids. And they were the first one in, last one out still.
They were at every happy hour. They were at every event. They were changing in the bathroom to, like, go to the thing. And I'm like, "Oh my God, my heart breaks for them now," thinking about how much they were managing and juggling, and how much they were missing. Because they felt like they had to, right? And I don't know.
I've been ... It's really interesting, the timing on this, Emilia, 'cause I've been thinking so much about this this week. Like, is this something you c- like, when you're c- doing your [00:13:00] coaching work, is this something you help people with? Um, does it come up a lot, like, in your coaching, of like what to do
[00:13:06] Emilia D'Anzica: the biggest challenge that I coach people on is the imposter syndrome. And I can say it's not just women, it's the men too, that suffer from it too. And having a safe space where they know that I would never out them, is what people seek. Because not everyone has coaching dollars i- built into their budget at their company, so these people are paying out of their pocket.
but yes, I, I try not to share too many of my own stories. I try to be empathetic because coaching is not giving advice to people, but listening, letting them come to their own decisions about what they want to do about a challenge that they're facing, uh, and what skills can they apply to the, the challenge.
So, I will say though, since we're on a [00:14:00] podcast versus coaching someone, yes, absolutely, we, we discuss it all the time, that guilt, that guilt that gnaws at you, at night, wakes you up in the middle of the night and you think about it. How, how many more birthdays am I going to miss? I mean, both my husband and I have missed at least one birthday of our childrens'.
Now, my 20-year-old, she's like, "Mom, it's Sority week. I don't want you to fly to LA for my birthday. Like, can we celebrate it later?" but you know, the first 18 years, they don't forget that stuff. They do not forget it. So that kind of stuff keeps you up at night. And yes, of course, we, we talk about it. And the double standards.
I had someone on my team say, "Why do you always leave at 5:30? Like, we're all here slaving away." And I said, "Well, do you see me take a lunch hour? Do you see me hanging out having coffees in the afternoon in the, in the break room for 20, [00:15:00] 40 minutes? playing games, starting beer hour at 3:00?" I said, "Don't tell me that I can't leave at 5:30."
I said, "I have to pick up my child by 6:00 or I start getting charged by the minute. And if you do it too many times, your kid's kicked out." And I said, "Do you know how long I waited to get into this childcare?" I said, "Mind your own business." And then years later, he had a baby and called me and apologized He said, "My wife and I now take turns leaving at 5:30 to go pick up our child."
And I'll never forget how much anger I had at that moment. I just wanted to snap. Thankfully, I kept it together, but I felt so frustrated by the double standards because at the same company, I was watching the guys leave at 3:00 to go coach their kid's team, or leaving at 12:00 for a 90-minute workout with a personal trainer, or, the [00:16:00] haircut at 10:00 in the morning.
Like, no one's blinking an eye at that stuff, but God forbid I left at 5:30, uh, to pick up my child.
[00:16:09] Shannon Curran: And you're picking up your kid at 6:00. If they're little, that means you still only see them for an hour that day.
[00:16:16] Emilia D'Anzica: Yeah,
[00:16:16] Shannon Curran: It's not like you're leaving at... I leave at 3:30. I say, like, I am, like, I do. I, well, to be fair, I, I, I'm my own boss. I'm, I'm a little less mean to myself. But I don't take meetings after 3:30 because I wanna s- I want to spend three hours a day, heaven forbid, with my young children, like, before they go to sleep, right?
Like, that's not even an absurd a- 5:30 is a very reasonable time to stop
[00:16:40] Mallory Lee: Sounds late to me
[00:16:42] Shannon Curran: I know. That's what I was gonna say. I was like, "3:00, I could see someone give it a little side eye, but 5:30? Oh, my God." That's also, like, the San Francisco bubble, I feel like.
It's like everyone is just all work, a- well, I also think there were certain companies that that was the case. I guess that was for me. I did, I never left Quick Base before 6:30, [00:17:00] I think back now, like,
ever. Mm-hmm. Like,
[00:17:04] Mallory Lee: See, I might just be more naive than this because I live in Indianapolis, right? We have had a couple of really nice tech companies here and exits, and I was super lucky to work at one of them, and it was ExactTarget. And I did see so many awesome women there being moms, and they left at 4:30 because we were all downtown and everyone lived in the suburbs, and there was just no way to do your evening and be home to pick the kids up or, you know, be home for dinner unless you left at that time.
And I think that the culture we had, I know it was rare. Like, I already don't take that for granted, but You wouldn't have heard anyone ask that question or say those things or, or anything. So that's fascinating to me. I [00:18:00] can't believe that person actually verbalized that to you.
[00:18:03] Emilia D'Anzica: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, different cultures are, are different, you know? I, I can... I, I guess I understand it a little bit because of me being Italian, my parents had six kids. We grew up in a pizzeria. Just, like, the directness. Uh, yes, so just the directness. Different cultures, you know, have no problem vocalizing whatever it is they're feeling and not holding back.
This person is not Italian, but
[00:18:37] Mallory Lee: I think I'm just in my, like, Midwestern nice bubble
[00:18:41] Shannon Curran: are crazy. The coasts are crazy, Mallory. Stay where you are. I know
[00:18:45] Mallory Lee: oh my gosh. I, I mean, I was the type who got to work super early, and so that was my, you know, like, competitive edge was getting to the office at 6:00 AM, always turn the lights on. Like, [00:19:00] putting in a lot more work at the beginning of the day so that I could beat the traffic home.
And, um, and I didn't even have kids yet at the time. You know? It was just, it was accepted and, and everything like that, so that's crazy. I'm glad that he figured it out and called you back and, and said that
[00:19:21] Emilia D'Anzica: Right. Right. Yeah, no, I was, I was surprised and thankful. But, you know, I think what COVID taught all of us is you can still work and work from home, and everyone needs some sort of special exceptions even if, you know, you're, you're required to go back to the office two to four days a week. I mean, some are even requiring five now.
Um, but you can still work from home and be productive. And the flexibility around hours, you're talking about traffic. In the Bay Area, a lot of, you know, teams [00:20:00] work from, like, 10:00 to 4:00 just because of this crazy traffic situation in the Bay Area now. And for me, I love to work out in the morning. I want to go to the gym or go for a run or a hike or whatever before I talk to other people.
I'm just a better human that way. And I think, you know, COVID allowed and, and brought, surfaced a lot of these differences in people and how we work. I mean, some people are night owls. Some people are morning people, like Mallory. So I am, too, but it's not for work. I want to focus on, like, my inside, my mental and physical wellbeing before I can be a good citizen, mother, all the things.
[00:20:48] Shannon Curran: Emilia how has your changed over the years as your kids have gotten older?
Like, is this something where... I had the, a few of these thoughts. You can tell I've been thinking a lot this week. Uh, I've had a lot of time in the
[00:20:59] Mallory Lee: a [00:21:00] lot of
time in the
[00:21:01] Shannon Curran: Two hours to get into Boston three days this week. Two hours. but I've been thinking about, like, maybe when my kids were, like, 13, 14, I would lo- I would be happy to be in Boston every day.
I don't know. Like, I'm actually not sure. Like, is this something that has changed for you over time?
[00:21:17] Emilia D'Anzica: Yeah. I think I want to spend more time with them, if anything. Because they don't necessarily want to spend time with me. You know, they have so many activities. Uh, school is demanding. it's just a lot. Like, where do we fit in? So we've always been a family where we eat together, but as sports become more and more important and more competitive, the scholarships, all the things, it's just so hard.
So suddenly, uh, we're having dinner at like 8:00, 8:30, uh, just so that we can still find time to eat without cellphone distractions and all the things. And then trips. So I don't care how much it costs [00:22:00] during spring break or Christmas or whatever, I would rather have fewer trips and maybe not so far, not, not as exotic, whatever, just so that we can spend time together.
Things like booking train tickets, uh, where there's going to be spotty internet, or going to locations where in the main area where you all come together to eat, there's no cell service. Suddenly those kind of things, we're seeking out those experiences so that we can actually spend quality time with our children.
I think, I think that's really important, and they, they develop their own characters and perspectives on things. They're studying things you and I never got to study. So one of my daughter's in high school, she's taking AP Seminar, and she's learning how to debate and do research and question everything.
So we'll be listening to a podcast in the car, [00:23:00] something we do often, and she's questioning, like, "Where, where's that stat from? We have to look that up. That's questionable." Like, all of these things that, uh, have just become really fun and interesting to explore, I have to hold back. I can't give them advice all the time or, you know, be the know-it-all, because I don't know it all.
They, they are interesting humans that I'm, I'm curious to learn more about, and I think that's been the biggest change is, "Milia, shut up. Hold back giving your advice and ask more questions." I think that's been the biggest learning as, um, they've grown into these young women. They, they have opinions and their own goals in life, and I can't live vicariously through them.
They have to have and develop themselves, not who I wish I would've become.
[00:23:57] Mallory Lee: Yeah. [00:24:00] That sounds like an
[00:24:01] Shannon Curran: really come in handy here. Very, you talked about coaching very similarly. You're like, "I don't have the answers. It's not about advice." Like, it's about facilitating a space where they can come to their own conclusions, and like that's ... They're lucky their mom's a certified coach. That's pretty cool.
That's, Yeah. That's probably true.
[00:24:20] Emilia D'Anzica: even though, you know, I, I'm really working on more question-based communication with my children, which I think they appreciate. one day I came home from like, you know, an all-day meeting with a client, and we were making dinner and whatever, and one of my daughters said, "Mom, stop talking to us like a client.
Like, can you get out of your work mode? Like, can you just become Mom again?" And I had to take a minute and like, you know, let that sink in. I was talking to them like a client, like such a faux pas. So they pick up on that stuff, and probably because they heard me on Zoom for countless [00:25:00] hours during COVID.
They know my mom persona versus my work persona. So I always do that switchover now, like drop the formality. Yeah.
[00:25:12] Shannon Curran: hard. I,
uh... My husband said to me today, on Tuesday, I'd been on my, like my third day of on-sites, and he was like, "I can feel the bro energy on you." He's
like, "What is happening?" And I was like, "Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. I've been with so many boys. Sorry, sorry, sorry." I literally was like, "I need to, like, shake it off."
He was like, "You feel really intense right now. Like, I don't know where..." I'm like, "Yeah." It's, and it, it takes me, like, a few days. I'm actually really glad we're going away this weekend, 'cause I need to, like, shed it. Like, I need... I'm like, "How did I used to do this every single day?" It just requires so much energy.
Like, I don't... Like, that is... And also, there were some women there. There were not only men. But it was a lot of, a lot of, like, hardcore, like, like, intense... We call it jock talk. We talked a lot about running. We talked a lot about all this... [00:26:00] I was like, he was like, "Can you just be like Shannon? Like, normal person?"
I was like, "Yeah, yeah, sorry." It's hard, though. It's hard to transition, like, when you're in one mode all day long. My kids aren't o- old enough to call me out quite yet. But, um, my kids still say I don't work, because they don't see me go to work. So they, uh, they're like, "Mommy doesn't work. Daddy, Daddy works."
I'm like,
[00:26:23] Emilia D'Anzica: In, in 2018 when I left corporate to start on my own, my daughters asked, "Mom, why are you home all the time?" Like, they were just so not used to it. It was weird and annoying. I, like, wanted to know everything they were doing and meet their friends and talk to their friends and they're like, "Stop." So yeah, I get it.
[00:26:44] Mallory Lee: My kids have only ever known me working from home, and I think it's, um, it's been great because there was an example once they were at school and they're like, "Whose moms, you know, leave to go to work [00:27:00] to every, every day?" And like, "Whose moms stay home?" And like all these things and they're like, "Oh, my mom stays home."
And, but they know I work, but they still feel like I stay home, you know? So I think it's become this like best of both worlds. Um, I truly can't imagine my life like any other way, so I love it.
[00:27:19] Emilia D'Anzica: I was just so curious, have either of you read Brotopia by Emily Chang? She's the reporter at Bloomberg
[00:27:26] Mallory Lee: No,
[00:27:27] Shannon Curran: it's been on my list. Should I read it? It's been on my
[00:27:29] Emilia D'Anzica: I think you should. Yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's-- I mean, just even, you know, earlier, Shannon, you saying around, like, how much has changed, has it really changed?
Um, I think some things have changed since Emily wrote that book, but it is really the tech world that I grew up in, uh, or built my entire career. And, you know, there's so many pros about it. Yes, I learned a lot. Yes, I learned to interrupt men when they've interrupted me [00:28:00] three times or told them, "Hey, there's a woman in the room.
Like, can we stop just using he for everything?" Or, um, when I'm trying to finish my thought and they keep interrupting and saying, "I haven't finished my thought yet, and you are, are not listening." Like just calling people flat out. And that's given me a lot of power, and I feel better coming out of those meetings, even if I still feel I wasn't heard or, like, a decision hasn't been made.
I still feel good about I was able to voice myself, whereas in the past, I would have been like, "Wow, that sucked. Why was I even invited to this meeting?" So I think women are getting a louder voice in the workplace, And then the second thing I want to say is, um, paternity leave.
That's changed. So someone on my team, his wife was struggling to go back to work. First-time parents. These-- The, the [00:29:00] child's four months old. She was afraid to go back to work and just was having a lot of anxiety, and he asked for a two-week paternity. I said, "Michael, of course, go support your wife. Like, you should be doing that."
And we all rolled up our sleeves and took clients, even me as the fractional. I, I said, "Yes, we all have to put our hands together and help this family." And he came back so refreshed, thankful. His wife's now transitioned. She's in a better place. And, um, he is so much more dedicated to the company. Like everyone wins when we allow for these kind of things and sharing the load.
Like it's hard to go back to work. I, I cried with both kids for days in the bathroom or would go pump in the bathroom or in a room where they just put kind of like, you know, that brownish white paper, that [00:30:00] recycled paper. I'm like, "Does the door lock, or do I have to put my chair against the door and pray no one comes in?"
You know. So yeah, I think those kind of things are moving in the right direction. but we need to keep talking about it and the benefits of it
[00:30:17] Mallory Lee: Yeah
[00:30:17] Shannon Curran: And you were probably pre-wearable pump. Like, this is not like you could walk around pumping. Like that is
[00:30:23] Emilia D'Anzica: No
[00:30:24] Shannon Curran: that has come a long way. That is the one thing that has come a long
[00:30:27] Mallory Lee: Hold on. Are you suggesting people do this in the office, Shannon?
[00:30:31] Shannon Curran: My doctor, my pediatrician came in to look at Sebastian the other day pumping. She said, "Hey, just letting you know, like, I have pumps on if you hear the sound." Amazing.
Badass. I was like, "Great. I love that for you." They are like, you can literally just wear them under your clothes.
[00:30:49] Mallory Lee: You know, obviously no one's really doing that, like, in a meeting. But I think maybe they're taking Zoom calls. Because they can have their clothes on, you know what I mean? Like, you don't have to... Those original, the pump that I was using, [00:31:00] I did have a wearable too, but I, like, there was no one coming in.
[00:31:03] Shannon Curran: Like, there was no way, like, we could interact. Like, there was, like, it was not working. It was so loud. Like, there was no, like
[00:31:10] Mallory Lee: Oh, was in the era where you're wearing covers and praying when you're standing giving a presentation that you're not leaking because you can feel all of the wetness and you're like, "Stay calm. Keep talking. Focus." And you're just talking through it and feeling so wet and praying that nothing's leaking through those stupid pads.
Yeah. And then once you recognize it and think about it, that's when it gets worse. And it's like, "No, don't acknowledge it."
[00:31:44] Shannon Curran: Well, this is the mental load, right? Like, w- uh, that term has certainly become, like, really, like, overused and, like, it's kind of everywhere now. But it's, I remember when I finally stopped nursing my last baby, I nursed her for a lot longer than I had planned, and I [00:32:00] left the house being like, "Oh my God, I can just leave."
Like, there is no one that is, like, I'm keeping alive right now with my body. There is no ... And I also don't have to worry that my body's gonna get to a place where I could get sick if I don't, like, find a way to pump. Or, like, it is crazy how much mental space nursing takes up. Um, that's actually the thing I noticed the most when I went back after my first, was all I thought about all day was, like, when am I gonna feed the baby?
Am I ready to feed the baby? When's the next time I'm feeding the baby? Look at my schedule, gotta make sure. Like, it's so much effort.
[00:32:36] Mallory Lee: Am I
hydrated?
[00:32:39] Shannon Curran: know. Am I, is my supply gonna dip because I'm not pumping enough? Like, it's just like, oh my God, what a nightmare. Like,
[00:32:46] Emilia D'Anzica: Totally
[00:32:47] Shannon Curran: ugh, it is so hard.
I give so much credit to women that continue to pump and, like, feed a baby for a year going into an office every day. Like, there were multiple women that were doing that at my tech job pre-COVID, and I was like, how? Now that [00:33:00] I've done it, I don't, that's a mental fortitude I don't think I have. So, like
[00:33:08] Mallory Lee: I was lucky one time. I went on a work trip and I was still pumping, and I was able to do that service with The Milk Stork, where you pump and then you mail it home, and got that reimbursed through whatever company I was with at the time, and I just thought, "That's pretty cool." You know? This is just one less thing for me to worry about is, like, the transportation process of, of all of this milk.
Um, but yeah, That's crazy. It is. Uh, yeah,
[00:33:42] Shannon Curran: Like, that they d- still work, but, like, wow.
[00:33:46] Mallory Lee: Yeah, it's just one less thing to have to, like, try to problem solve. And it is a lot of just mental math, Shannon, I agree with you. Like all day long math problem of counting hours and counting days and counting [00:34:00] ounces and counting so many things to keep it all afloat. I don't think I miss that.
[00:34:08] Shannon Curran: No, no. Um, Emilia, is there a second book on the horizon? Like, do you think you'll ever write another one? Like, what is, what is ... Also, what's, like, next for this, like, this business that you're running?
[00:34:21] Emilia D'Anzica: Yeah. So, well, the-- I'll answer the first one. I do get, hit up by companies saying, you know, "Would you consider writing another book?" Like, "We'll help you publish," all the things. Sabina and I chose to do hybrid publishing. We chose a female or-- led company out of LA who helped us publish. And, you know, all the Amazon stuff is just a lot of work.
Um, so I'm, I'm glad we did the hybrid route. But if I wrote another book, I'd really want to spend time writing a book that would have an impact and just sharing my raw, real story. [00:35:00] Um, and I think that takes a lot of mental capacity. Writing a book is so hard. I think Sabina and I did it in a year because we motivated each other and challenged each other continuously.
Plus, we had all these amazing women's voices we wanted to share with the world. was it our best writing? No, absolutely not. I wish we had done a better job of that, but, you know, we didn't know what we were doing. It was our first time. So I, I've thought a lot about it. I would definitely want to focus on something that I can share with others.
I think something around being an immigrant in this country, especially right now with all the feelings around it, uh, would be something that I'd want to explore. My, my family's story is Tragic, beautiful, uh, an opportunity. Um, my-- when my parents moved, they had three kids in New [00:36:00] York and three of us in Italy, and in between all of that, because they couldn't speak English, just trying to get by.
Half the kids have D'Anzica without an apostrophe in the name, and the other have an apostrophe and a capital A and an A at the end. So we're not even all named the same. So just all of these crazy things that can happen. I think I'd want to write about that. in terms of what am I doing, I-- when I left, right before I left in 2018, my husband and I had saved all our money and started investing in vacation rentals in Sonoma, and so we continue to do that.
I think that's... You know, they always say have a side hustle. I truly believe in that. Um, even though my dad had grade three education, my parents retired-ish from the pizza world, uh, when they were 50 and 52. All my dad did till he died at almost 87 is real [00:37:00] estate. He just bought and sold land. So he was the one who taught me, walked me to the bank at 7, 'cause I was getting all the tip money, and he said, "Save your money.
Buy land. Invest in land." I'll never forget that. He took me at 7 to learn to make-- do my signature. 'Cause I'd save, like, $700 in tips, just all those little quarters and,
you know. So anyways, yeah, so I will keep doing real estate. Um, and then I love coaching. I-- it's not for the money part at all. You're not gonna be rich being a coach.
Um, and I will continue as long as companies want me to come in and do fractional work. I really like go-to-market. I like working with teams and, um, aligning, building process to scale. I love the AI element. And I don't think customer success, where I focus, is seizing AI [00:38:00] enough to be efficient, and that's where I plan to stay.
I've got, I've got a- another at least 10 years in me. tech's, tech's a good place.
[00:38:09] Mallory Lee: We should trade notes. I share that opinion, Emilia. Fr- yeah, what I've seen in my own world too. Yeah
[00:38:16] Emilia D'Anzica: Yeah, absolutely. I'm like, "You all have paid Claude. Use it. Share projects. Like, leverage each other's brains." I'm not saying they have to write all your emails, but at least optimize your punctuation, like capitalize at least, you know.
[00:38:35] Mallory Lee: Yeah. Wow. Well, um, the name of your book, help me say
[00:38:42] Emilia D'Anzica: Pre- yes, pressing on as a tech mom.
[00:38:45] Mallory Lee: Pressing On as a Tech Mom. Okay, that's amazing. It's on my saved list, so I am very eager to go check it out. Um, for people who are listening who, you know, maybe haven't checked it out yet, I'm curious if you can just give [00:39:00] us like one sort of major takeaway from the book itself that would be applicable advice for everybody listening.
[00:39:07] Emilia D'Anzica: Yeah, absolutely. The advice is every woman's story is different, but we all share that universal need for support because we can't do it alone. We have amazing people in our community, whether it's online or offline. Lean on it. Ask someone to mentor you or sponsor you. Only when we're sponsoring each other in the workplace do we lift each other up.
Competing against each other doesn't necessarily always help us. Uh, we need to roll up our sleeves and support each other. We all have different ways of getting there. Let's respect each other's differences and celebrate them instead of work against each other.
[00:39:59] Mallory Lee: one more [00:40:00] tidbit that we'd love to hear from you.
[00:40:01] Emilia D'Anzica: Sure
[00:40:02] Mallory Lee: at the end of each show, we talk about things that helped us out in the midst of the week of being, you know, an insane working parent. So, it's called our save of the week, and it could be a person or a product or a process, something that you've kind of developed tips and tricks with, um, that made your life better as a working parent
[00:40:25] Emilia D'Anzica: Yeah, absolutely. Well, one I'm dying to try out, uh, I'm hoping they come to Sonoma soon, but they just started in San Francisco, are these robots. They're $30 an hour. These robots just come into your house and clean it, like vacuum and clean and all these things. I'm like, "I pay my cleaner way more than $30 an hour.
I want this, this company to come to San Fr- to Sonoma." So really excited about that. I
[00:40:53] Shannon Curran: That's the most San Francisco thing I've ever heard. Like, that is so...
[00:40:56] Mallory Lee: I know.
[00:40:57] Shannon Curran: In 10 years you'll get it, Mallory. 10 [00:41:00] years
from now it'll
end up in
[00:41:01] Mallory Lee: longer. Probably longer.
[00:41:03] Emilia D'Anzica: Yeah. Um, and then the second thing I will say is don't sweat the small stuff. I think I'm very much a type A person, and I love my house clean and my car and all those things. now after a trip, and I think this is post-COVID, takes me like a week to empty my suitcase because I, like, dread doing it. I'd rather just stay in there than see stuff scattered, and my partner hates it.
It's like one of his pet peeves. And I'm like, "Deal with it. Don't come in the bedroom. Go sleep elsewhere if it bothers you." I just, like, let it roll off me, and that's just one of many examples. It's like, so what? The dishwasher's not emptied for the whole day. I'll do it tomorrow morning, and I don't care.
Like, those kind of things used to make me crazy. I think I'm a happier person, and I think my family's happier that [00:42:00] I don't let this stuff get to me because especially as you get older, I'm like past the baby thing. I'm into, like, that perimenopause. Um, things can really annoy you suddenly for no reason, and what that has taught me is like, so what?
Just let it go. Like, walk away. And I'm a much better human because of it.
[00:42:23] Mallory Lee: All right. I have a dishes-related save, um,
funny enough. I had a mountain of dishes to do the other day, and I turned on our little kitchen TV. We've got this Alexa something or other. It hangs on the wall, and it's like the size of a, I don't know, TV, but small. And I turned that on and I watched Friends and I did the dishes.
And it was a nice little vegging out kind of moment where I wasn't thinking about anything. Um, Friends has been like my comfort show for a really long [00:43:00] time, but then I took a long break from watching it and just restarted it the other day
[00:43:05] Emilia D'Anzica: Love that
[00:43:06] Shannon Curran: Of... Oh, I love a like zone out and cl- like headphones in, something on, like
love that. I actually was gonna have one similar to that, but I just thought of another one. So recently I have st- I try and like implement some like standing traditions with my kids of like things. I just think back to my childhood and be like, I always remember on Saturday mornings I would go with my dad to like these things.
So I tr- I'm starting to try, my son is turning three on Tuesday. Ugh, he's turning
[00:43:35] Mallory Lee: wow. Three's hard.
[00:43:37] Shannon Curran: really unwell, but I'm just like very emotional about the fact that I feel like he's becoming very much his own person. Like, he has independent thought.
He has experiences that I'm not there for, like he has like the difference between like daycare, meaning like infant/toddler to preschool is like, I took for granted how big of a difference that was gonna be, right? Going from like six to seven kids to like 16 [00:44:00] kids, right? Like, and just, just it's very different, right?
And so a few weeks ago, I started asking him every night, uh, what he was grateful for today. So we're not, not a religious house, but I am like interested in him reflecting on, his day a little. And of course, the first few days he didn't understand, so I would give him examples of what I was grateful for that had happened that day.
And so now we do it every night, and he has like different things he says every night. And so, it's usually Ariel Elise, who's his teacher at school. Uh, Ariel Elise and the snail for a few days in a row. Um, apparently they found a snail. But things like that, like if I ask him how his day was, like he doesn't know how to answer that, right?
Like, it's like this is like a, oh, a thing I remember from my day that I'm grateful for. And, uh, I missed a bunch of bedtimes this week, so yep, punch to the gut on that. It was awful. And but I could ask my husband every night and go, "Oh, oh, oh, what did Sebastian say he was grateful for tonight?" And it felt like I was still really like locked in to like what he did that day.
and I asked, [00:45:00] of course, he said the same thing two days in a row, and I go, "No, you can't let him do that. Like I, you gotta tell him that he has to change it." Like, I Pete was like, "I'm sorry, I didn't know there were other rules
to the are rules to this.
Well, 'cause he will just like forget and say the same thing, you know.
But, uh, he did say he was grateful for school one of the nights, which made me feel really good, right? That meant that he was like having a good time with me gone. Um, and then the other day, I think he said he was grateful for, uh, ants or like bugs of some variety, 'cause he must have found a bug at school.
and it was sweet. I came home and I said, "What are you grateful for?" And he said, "Daddy." It's very rare that it's either me or Pete, 'cause usually we're the ones asking, and I don't think he knows that that can be an answer. But it was really sweet to hear him say he was grateful for his dad, who really stepped up this week and did a lot of solo parenting.
So, yeah, that little, little addition to our day has been a major save. Um, when I'm in person or when I'm missing it, I feel like I can still kind of be there.
[00:45:51] Emilia D'Anzica: I love
[00:45:52] Mallory Lee: love that. We had, uh, well, we still have this similar tradition we try to do at the dinner [00:46:00] table with highs and lows. So everyone goes around and says, like, what their high point of the day and then their low point of the day. And I remember when Cohen was probably about that age, you know, in preschool, every single day his high was that he got to play in the sensory bin everyday.
He just never deviated for probably, like, for like a solid six months, and it was just the sweetest, the sweetest thing ever, the way he would say, "Got to play in the sensory bin."
[00:46:33] Shannon Curran: Yeah, they love to like, got to go play with toys. I played with toys. And you're like, "That's great. Which toys?" "I play with toys." And you're like, "All right, we're not gonna get deeper than that. That's fine." Like I, you know, like that's ... I'll ask again tomorrow. We can try and like get a little bit ... Yeah. Uh, so cute.
So cute
[00:46:50] Mallory Lee: Well, thank you guys for hanging out. It's been so fun. And, uh, I'm off to the Fun Run, my third run [00:47:00] of the day. Third and final
[00:47:01] Shannon Curran: all at her ch- at her children's elementary school. The fact that they couldn't make them all run at the same time is, like, not very nice of them, Mallory, that you have to go to three r-
[00:47:11] Mallory Lee: you know... But then I'm thinking, "Okay, this is the last year I have three," 'cause Grayson won't be in the school next year.
So I just got back a few minutes before this call to do his final fr- his final fun run, and I was trying not to be sad. He, he, like, didn't care. He's like, "That's okay." I was like, "All right.
Cool. Thanks. Bye."
[00:47:36] Shannon Curran: There will be a fun run equivalent in the next school. It just, you just don't know what it is yet.
[00:47:40] Emilia D'Anzica: Yeah. They're rallies. That's what you get soon, rallies. Yeah.
[00:47:45] Shannon Curran: I know you have homecoming, Emilia, this weekend. What a big
[00:47:48] Emilia D'Anzica: Yeah. She's going to let us come to the party for 15 minutes to take photos, then we have to leave.
[00:47:55] Mallory Lee: Nice.
[00:47:57] Emilia D'Anzica: I'm like, "Do I
[00:47:58] Shannon Curran: Protect your boundaries, queen. [00:48:00] Protect your boundaries
[00:48:02] Emilia D'Anzica: Yeah.
[00:48:03] Mallory Lee: Oh, well thank you guys so much. Excited to see you again sometime soon. All right.
[00:48:08] Shannon Curran: All right. Bye
[00:48:10] Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to Full Stack Moms,
[00:48:12] Speaker: We'll be back with more episodes that help you see you're not crazy and you're not alone. If we might be your people, please make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:48:22] Shannon Curran: and she was an immigrant of a single mom from Mexico. Bear with me.
You think mine are bad? That is a Amazon driver or something. That is always the arch nemesis of my dogs
[00:48:40] Emilia D'Anzica: it's Friday, the pool guy comes and I'm sorry, I forgot he was coming.
[00:48:45] Shannon Curran: what an enemy that guy is. Good thing. Guard dog, guard dog