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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] Suzanne Slaughter: One of the reasons I think it's so important to keep a foot in the door is because of how quickly technology is changing and this sense from employers of like, oh, I mean, I'm being honest, like, oh no, she-- It looks like she took a career break.
[00:00:14] Suzanne Slaughter: Like, I doubt she knows the latest and greatest. that feels like it's gone like 20X in the last 18 months because of AI which I think is a key unlock for part-time work in general.
[00:00:29] Mallory Lee: This is Full Stack Moms.
[00:00:31] 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. .
[00:00:41] Mallory Lee: Suzanne, so great to meet you. Thank you for coming to chat with us. Uh, the intro that we typically do is just sort of learning about you and what your family looks like, what you do for work, uh, all those, like, fast facts so people know who you are
[00:00:57] Suzanne Slaughter: Okay, that sounds good. my name is Suzanne. I live in a town called San Anselmo, which is about 45 minutes north of San Francisco. I have a two-and-a-half year old son. His name is Hank, he goes to daycare from 8:00 to 3:00 during the week, and otherwise I'm with him.
[00:01:18] Suzanne Slaughter: And before I had Hank, became obsessed with This pattern I was observing from my friends who were a couple years ahead of me in terms of having kids. And it felt like they seemed like they weren't reveling in all of it because it was so hard to figure out their intense jobs and their childcare and everything as a result that was happening at home.
[00:01:48] Suzanne Slaughter: And I knew that that wasn't a reflection of them, like they're badasses, and I knew that was a reflection of like more broadly and systemically like we make it incredibly hard to create balance in this phase. And, and this phase matters. Like, I don't think as I-- without being corny, like being very realistic, like I don't think my life will ever get better than this.
[00:02:15] Suzanne Slaughter: Like, I think this is it. And I-- that doesn't bum me out, but it makes me like, it makes me wanna pay attention and it makes me wanna like feel the joy as much as I can. as I was sort of thinking about having kids myself and having these observations, I became obsessed with this idea of part-time work, and basically just create-- helping to create a alternative option to keep a foot in the door, because so many of us love to work, and we should be able to, but to do so on slightly adjusted terms so that you can be with your kids and your family during this period that will end.
[00:02:56] Suzanne Slaughter: But while it's happening, it matters. And I knew like contract work and freelance work existed, but it felt like it was sort of limited to certain functional areas and, and I didn't totally understand what, what sorts of companies hired people in that way. But anyways, I, I ended up doing a lot of research and developing a thesis around this idea of early stage tech companies, like typically VC-backed, pre-seed up to Series B, hire people part-time all the time.
[00:03:25] Suzanne Slaughter: But they usually do it through their own networks and, those roles are often never posted. And so-- And then there's this cohort of candidates, like all of the, this like what now is probably like m- largely millennials, moms, some dads, but also people taking care of aging parents who desperately want an alternative but aren't necessarily raising their hand.
[00:03:47] Suzanne Slaughter: Because they're really hard-charging, and raising their hand makes them feel weak. So they can't like say it publicly that they want something different, but they do. then once that sort of crystallized, it was like, okay, there's these off-market roles and these off-market candidates, and they're missing each other.
[00:04:03] Suzanne Slaughter: And I think there's a way that a third party could help sort of bridge that connection. And so that, that's sort of what became this company that I'm working on called Groundwork, which is connecting tho- that candidate cohort with these companies and working with the companies to craft these roles that would be interesting and fitting for the candidates
[00:04:24] Mallory Lee: Love it
[00:04:25] Shannon Curran: I know as someone that is, works fractionally in early stage startups, I can confirm that
[00:04:30] Shannon Curran: this is true. and it's funny, even like, uh, one of my clients a few weeks ago, we were going through, like, what was going ... 'Cause the thing about startups is the work is very lumpy, right? Like, as, like, there's no system yet, right?
[00:04:41] Shannon Curran: So it's like we were going through one big sprint of, like, a certain kind of work, and I was like, "Wow, I really need support to do this." And one of the CRO was like, "Can you just find a Shannon 10 years ago to work for us for, like, four weeks?" And I was like,
[00:04:53] Mallory Lee: all the time
[00:04:55] Shannon Curran: "I know. Also, who was Shannon 10 years ago?
[00:04:57] Shannon Curran: Do you really want her?" Like, I, that's what I always say. I'm like ... And but yes, we did. Yeah.
[00:05:02] Mallory Lee: All that means is I want a Shannon, but I don't want to pay for Shannon. And
[00:05:06] Shannon Curran: no, I didn't want to do the work. That is the like, it was like project management. I was like, "No, you
[00:05:11] Mallory Lee: But when people come to you and say, "I need to find a Mallory, but I want you like 10 years ago," it's because they want the Mallory that made less money,
[00:05:20] Mallory Lee: And I've gotten that question so many times
[00:05:23] Shannon Curran: Really?
[00:05:23] Shannon Curran: 'Cause it, for me it was less of that. It was more like I need someone that's like a jack-of-all-trades to do a bunch of like administrative work that you no longer do. Which is, so it was actually like a little bit more about the type of work. So interesting. That is interesting.
[00:05:37] Shannon Curran: But either way, it was like we needed part-time help, and we also didn't want the ... The biggest thing too is like you don't want the liability of hiring full-time employees, right? Like, it's like you want to keep your balance sheet real light at that stage, you know?
[00:05:50] Suzanne Slaughter: Totally. I think that's such a good point. And like that is one of the core benefits to the employers is it just like lowers the stakes. Like you bring someone on, they don't get, get on your cap table, they don't get benefits. And like effectively, even if no one's calling it this explicitly, it's a trial.
[00:06:10] Suzanne Slaughter: 'Cause if it is a fit on both sides, they can convert, or they can stay like long-term part-time. But like it, if it feels good for everyone, like there will be a sustained relationship there. But if it doesn't, it's like it's no, not a ton of skin off anyone's back.
[00:06:27] Shannon Curran: And I think there's also a really interesting concept around, like temp to perm has always existed, right? Like this is not like a concept that is not, that is new. But it's interesting because I do think it had, it had bad branding, right?
[00:06:42] Suzanne Slaughter: It has shitty branding. I like struggle with those terms. Yeah
[00:06:46] Mallory Lee: Mm-hmm.
[00:06:47] Shannon Curran: I do think a lot of the time, so fractional has the same bad branding, I will tell you.
[00:06:50] Shannon Curran: Like, uh, it's like
[00:06:51] Suzanne Slaughter: I don't love the factional branding either. I try and not use the F word
[00:06:56] Shannon Curran: so I tried not to until people were just asking to buy a fractional CMO. So I was like, "I should just offer you the thing you're buying." You know, whatever. Like, I have no ego, I don't care. Um, but yeah, exactly. I'm like, "I'm working inside your business, not outside of it.
[00:07:10] Shannon Curran: I'm like partially your CMO." Whatever. Um, but I do think there's this idea that like historically it was only for talent that could not get a full-time job, right?
[00:07:21] Suzanne Slaughter: The attempt to perm branding.
[00:07:23] Shannon Curran: job. Temp to perm
[00:07:24] Shannon Curran: and some fractional branding. or they were like, "They've never been a real CMO." It's like, okay, um, sure.
[00:07:30] Shannon Curran: Um, so like most of us have. and also, or we've now been fractional CMOs for many years and can do the job well, and have many people ca- can say that they want to continue to work with us, right? so I think that there's, I think it was a little bit of bad branding, whereas like now these are like highly capable people that just actually are so capable that they've accidentally ended up in jobs that are 60-hour a week jobs, and they no longer want to do them, right?
[00:07:53] Shannon Curran: Like, at this stage of life. this is something I hear all the time from my friends. Like, I'm sure like we have the same friend groups that are all high-achieving women talking about how like they only see their kids for an hour a day and it kills them, right? Like,
[00:08:07] Shannon Curran: and it's, it's hard. and I know that lots of people have done this for centuries, but I think we just don't wanna do it anymore.
[00:08:14] Shannon Curran: Like, I think there's like a want of wanting something different, right? And so these temporary or part-time employees are actually amazing talent, like no one's losing out on either side.
[00:08:23] Suzanne Slaughter: you're hitting the nail on the head in terms of the branding and, like, this not being a novel concept. and it doesn't happen with every client or prospect, but there's definitely a, like, wait what moment that can happen when they see the candidate quality. And they're like, "Lauren wants to work as like my part-time office person?" Like, "No, she doesn't." And I'm like, "Yes, she does."
[00:08:48] Suzanne Slaughter: And that is a big part of it, is this like, it feels like dating in a way, where like everyone feels like they won the lottery, and everyone's really grateful to be in the room with the other. But there is like that, it's not instantaneous to get to that moment. And so that's like a lot of what I need to focus on creating more of
[00:09:08] Shannon Curran: there like a technology that you're building or is it like a community you're building? Like what's the l- the l- like actual offering?
[00:09:15] Shannon Curran: the way it works right now is we have a website and candidates and employers can sign up on our website. So from a candidate perspective, there's 2,700 candidates now. But it's not a community because they're not talk... I haven't created a way for them to talk to each other. And I think that that is something that need-- is inevitable.
[00:09:40] Suzanne Slaughter: It's just a matter of when, not if.
[00:09:43] Suzanne Slaughter: I think the closer proxy is a search firm because it's sort of like we have these candidates in our database. And when they sign up, we get a lot of context about what they've done, what they're looking for. And so when we sign a cl- an employer or a client, we can, like, we can find them candidates very, relevant candidates very quickly.
[00:10:06] Suzanne Slaughter: but the community piece I think is, like, crucial. I just want it to feel at some point when we do it, I want it to feel like cool and fresh and valuable. And I don't know the core ingredients to do that yet.
[00:10:20] Shannon Curran: I can only imagine, like, if someone was able to get a really great part-time contract with a company they really like and, I say this all the time in my business, like, me becoming a full-time employee is not success to me.
[00:10:31] Shannon Curran: Or m- you becoming my client forever is actually not successful to me for the way that I work, right? Like, I want to get to a point where, like, you exist without me. Like, and so that is also a really interesting part of, like, I don't want this job forever, only til my kids go to school. Or, like, only til my kids go to, you know, whatever.
[00:10:48] Shannon Curran: Like, it's cool to have a, a different job for a different phase of life, right?
[00:10:52] Suzanne Slaughter: I feel like a lot of these positions sort of like skew towards one end, end or the other, where they do, some do view it as a trial and they would want a person to convert, and some view it as like they want someone to come in and solve this problem and get themselves, push themselves out of a job basically.
[00:11:09] Suzanne Slaughter: And/or like know eyes wide open they're hiring this person for this phase, and that person can then help them hire their long-term full-time replacement. But it doesn't feel like it's as common for someone to be like, "I just want someone part-time forever." That happens too, I guess.
[00:11:27] Suzanne Slaughter: But it feels like they wanna go, they wanna graduate somehow at some point
[00:11:32] Mallory Lee: I
[00:11:39] Mallory Lee: did that whole, like, consultant turned full-time person journey like three different times. We've joked that it's like my fractional fail. Um,
[00:11:44] Shannon Curran: She's
[00:11:44] Shannon Curran: like a foster fail with companies.
[00:11:47] Mallory Lee: yeah. Yeah.
[00:11:48] Suzanne Slaughter: 'cause you're s- you c- you couldn't... They needed you. They became obsessed with you
[00:11:52] Mallory Lee: Yeah. And then I, and then I thought, a steady paycheck's not so bad. You know? Like, maybe we'll do that. And, you know, so for me it was when we were having kids, it was very up and down. It was like consulting and then working and then break, and then consulting, working, break. You know, that kind of thing. and I loved it, but the reason that I didn't keep doing it forever, there were a couple reasons, but one reason was that I was always afraid that my pipeline was gonna like run out. And so many of my relationships for the consulting were coming from introductions from certain people or certain VC firms and, you know, it's like the question of how long can I ride this wave? And I don't enjoy the process of like selling, you know, quote-unquote myself. And so I think Groundwork sounds like the exact thing that so many people can benefit from because you've got the matchmaking behind the scenes and it's, it's less on you to be always thinking about your next, your next thing.
[00:12:55] Mallory Lee: And that's why I love Emmy as well, Sydney's company, and Lauren. Because they do a similar thing. They staff marketing automation people,
[00:13:04] Mallory Lee: and they've got tons of part-time workers that they just swap 'em around, move 'em to the companies that are needed. And, the worker doesn't have to manage that part
[00:13:13] Suzanne Slaughter: I think that's such a good point because there is something that feels so different about you talking about you versus me talking about you. Like, no...
[00:13:26] Mallory Lee: Mhm
[00:13:27] Suzanne Slaughter: Like, I would love to talk about you, you know? And like, as soon as you have it be a third party, it's just like something feels different.
[00:13:36] Suzanne Slaughter: And for me, it feels so exciting and like I can like not hyperbolize, but like, just be like, "She's the best." Like, say all these things that you can't as, in as good faith say about yourself, and they matter. so I feel like that was, that was like kind of a key insight of like, what's the work I actually wanna do?
[00:13:54] Suzanne Slaughter: Like, oh, raving about my like, this like basically extended group of friends. Like, yeah, I would love that.
[00:14:00] Shannon Curran: this is where so many more people would do this like part-time fractional consulting work if they didn't need to build a business. Like you are building a business. Like I'm an owner of a business, right? And I like have a problem and love the building. I like, you have to love the game, right?
[00:14:15] Shannon Curran: Like you have to love
[00:14:16] Shannon Curran: the like, I know, but it's also, but it, it not a problem for me, but I can see how it'd be a problem for like a lot of other people, right? Like you have to, I've had a lot of, I've talked to a lot of people that are like, "Oh, so like, like I'm, I run my own accounting. I run my own," like, "And I run all my own marketing programs.
[00:14:32] Shannon Curran: Like I am creating content all the time." That's how you would never actually have pipeline that dried up, Mallory, because people will see you all the time. Like you were actually running marketing for yourself, you just didn't realize it. you know, it's a certain kind of personality that wants to go into a discovery call and wants to pi- like, and I now have a clear offer that I provide.
[00:14:48] Shannon Curran: Like I'm not just like d- So it is a really different muscle that
[00:14:52] Shannon Curran: does result in working flexible hours, part-time contracts for as many people as you want, right? But it is like the what you have to do to get there is something that most people certainly would not want to do. So I think there is, like you're of, you're allowing people to get to the, to what they want without having to go through this part, which is something that people really don't want.
[00:15:12] Shannon Curran: Like a lot of people don't.
[00:15:13] Suzanne Slaughter: Yeah. It's been, it was crazy in some of the, like, idea validation phase of how strongly that came across. And it makes sense too, because there's a sense of like, " Okay, I have no time. I really wanna hang out with my kids. I have no idea if this is gonna work. Like, this is the last thing I wanna do," type of feeling. And
[00:15:34] Shannon Curran: LLC? What? Like, I don't want to
[00:15:37] Suzanne Slaughter: that's my alternative? Like, no, I'll just f*cking keep working full-time and be miserable." But, like, at least I understand it and it's consistent and dependable and all of these, like, meaningful benefits. I get why historically that's made this option feel untenable to so many people.
[00:15:55] Mallory Lee: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:15:56] Mallory Lee: And just to get nerdy for a minute, I, like business-wise, like I love two-sided marketplaces. I think they're the best. And
[00:16:05] Suzanne Slaughter: Tell me more about that. I think about this all the time. Tell me why you love it. Make me love it.
[00:16:10] Mallory Lee: Okay.
[00:16:10] Shannon Curran: Make me love the thing I built
[00:16:12] Mallory Lee: right, when I was, um, leading RevOps at Nylas, the product is an API platform for like email and calendar APIs. So building a calendar into your product and like getting things connected.
[00:16:28] Mallory Lee: And we did some deeper research on all of our customers, and we realized how many of them were running these two-sided marketplaces, where the value that they need is the discovery of the people and making it easy to get them to connect.
[00:16:47] Mallory Lee: And so it's like you have a group of people who really need something, a group of people who can really satisfy it, and you can bring them together, but it's two different flywheels.
[00:16:59] Mallory Lee: It's the supply flywheel and the demand flywheel. And I think that that's what makes it a really fun business model because you can scale it on both sides, and then you can decide how you want to like increase your supply or increase your demand, whatever, independently. Um, but I've always loved that.
[00:17:17] Mallory Lee: And
[00:17:18] Mallory Lee: I think
[00:17:18] Mallory Lee: the interesting part--
[00:17:20] Suzanne Slaughter: Right
[00:17:20] Mallory Lee: Yeah, yeah. And the part that I like about yours, and I think the way it connects to where you started the conversation is like not everybody wants to go out and publicly say like, "Hey, I want part-time." And if that's the case, if it's something that you're like hesitant to go out and announce, then even better to have someone to help you pair because you're not looking to go out there and like be loud about it.
[00:17:48] Mallory Lee: And so it's almost this element of like, you know, it's, it's on the DL. Like it's on the DL. I'd rather be part-time if I find the right opportunity. And, um, yeah, it, it sounds great. I'm excited to check it out
[00:18:03]
[00:18:03] Shannon Curran: Where are you finding a majority of your candidates in your companies? Like, what is, like, your current marketing strategy?
[00:18:09] Shannon Curran: Everything to date has been still like predominantly word of mouth. 2,700 candidates word of mouth. That is wild. Talk about product market fit, man. Like,
[00:18:24] Shannon Curran: that's wild.
[00:18:26] Suzanne Slaughter: So the candidate piece, so that's kind of what set me on this trajectory more definitively. February of last year, I had this idea, but it was like obviously much less developed. And sort of on a whim, I posted on LinkedIn what I was thinking about, and I, in that post, shared a Google form for could-be candidates to sign up.
[00:18:51] Suzanne Slaughter: And I didn't put that much thought into it because I thought I'd get like six candidates. And so like the form was not that good. Like it was just not... I was just rolling. And within, I think like 48 hours, I had 800 people sign up.
[00:19:10] Suzanne Slaughter: on hour like 35, I was like, "No more signups."
[00:19:12] Suzanne Slaughter: Like, I, I don't have a plan. Like, what are we gonna, what am I
[00:19:16] Shannon Curran: This was before Claude Code. Like, you didn't even, you couldn't even put like, put this into co-work and tell it to tell you what was going on. Like, there was...
[00:19:23] Suzanne Slaughter: Yeah. I was like, "What have I done?" Um,
[00:19:25] Suzanne Slaughter: but no, it, it w- it was clear to your point of product market fit. It was like, whoa, there is something here. Because some of the questions at that point that I was also getting were, well, like solutions like this exist, like The Mom Project, Second Shift. Like this is not a novel idea, so like I don't think you need to do it.
[00:19:44] Suzanne Slaughter: And This sort of became, I guess, my answer to that of like, well, it seems like there's still this like meaningfully unsatisfied need from at least this cohort of people that I like first, second, third, fourth degree connection, whoever they are. before we publicly launched, we had 1,500 candidates, and then since launch it's grown.
[00:20:05] Suzanne Slaughter: And I think to your question of how has it grown, we send a weekly email that has the jobs we're working on, as well as we've built a scraper and it features other jobs we think are interesting that we're not necessarily working on, but sends people directly to th- those websites. And I think where the new candidates come from is people forward that newsletter and say like, maybe Mallory is a subscriber and sends it to Shannon and be like, "This role is perfect for you."
[00:20:31] Suzanne Slaughter: cause we see this steady uptick every Monday basically.
[00:20:35] Suzanne Slaughter: and then on the employer side, it has been completely word of mouth. a good amount of repeat employers, which is great. But then, like best case is an employer tells their, or a founder tells their founder friend.
[00:20:48] Shannon Curran: We're success-based, so we make money if you hire someone, if a company hires someone that we've introduced them to. We take a percent of what they pay that candidate
[00:20:59] Mallory Lee: I think the lesson here is that if we have listeners who work a lot, maybe slightly wanna work a tiny bit less, uh, go check out Groundwork.
[00:21:10] Suzanne Slaughter: Exactly. I think that's the right framing. Or at least work, want to work differently for a season
[00:21:16] Shannon Curran: Yeah,
[00:21:17] Shannon Curran: your career has seasons, right? And I think all of us have had, I don't know, Suzanne, if this resonates with you, your pre-children season was really
[00:21:27] Shannon Curran: You grinded, right? Like you were in it, you were like, you know, first one in, last one out like doing the thing. And now it's like the season is just different. It doesn't mean you're less wonderful at your job. Might mean you're actually better. but it just means potentially your, your day and the, your diversification of your time is just slightly different, right? And so I think it's a really, really cool opportunity to think about your, your career in multiple phases, right? And this is just the phase for right now. And I know that there's a lot of fear about getting out of the workforce and how hard it is to get back in.
[00:21:58] Shannon Curran: Mallory, I think you talked about this like when you were consulting. You were like, "I wanted to keep my foot in
[00:22:01] Shannon Curran: because I was too afraid to jump all the way out," you know?
[00:22:05] Mallory Lee: Yeah. And I had such a strong network that I knew I could, like, never let go of.
[00:22:09] Suzanne Slaughter: One of the reasons I think it's so important to keep a foot in the door is because of how quickly technology is changing and this sense from employers of like, oh, I mean, I'm being honest, like, oh no, she-- It looks like she took a career break.
[00:22:24] Suzanne Slaughter: Like, I doubt she knows the latest and greatest. that feels like it's gone like 20X in the last 18 months because of AI and like this crazy sort of like spectrum that's developing of like how savvy are you at functionally relevant AI tools as well as just like building agents, building project, like building stuff quickly to get more efficient, which I think is a key unlock for part-time work in general.
[00:22:53] Suzanne Slaughter: But I'm curious how both of you think about that piece of it in your own positioning, and sort of like where, how this is impacting fractional work more broadly.
[00:23:04] Mallory Lee: I joined my company, Zipline, back in January. And it was like early February, mid-February where CoWork came out, Opus 4.8 model came out for Claude, and it just felt like everything changed on a dime.
[00:23:20] Mallory Lee: And I've met people who want to embrace, you know, like the innovation with AI and their companies are not supportive. And I've met people who are consulting who are pretty far behind where I personally am because they didn't happen to be working with a client that was like receptive and wanting to do that.
[00:23:46] Mallory Lee: And so I think where you work at this exact moment in time is so tricky and so vital to your ability to just ramp up and do things. And it is hard because, you know, it's like, it's very learnable. And the thing that I would always lean into is like, no, I haven't built a bunch of agents before, but I know I can do it in like five days.
[00:24:11] Mallory Lee: You know? Like do it in your free time, try to figure out what you can learn, and then go in with that confidence when you're talking to people. but it, it's a real thing. Like the place you work right now has such an impact on how quickly you're able to learn and accelerate and grow in this AI era
[00:24:31] Mallory Lee: Yeah, I think there's two things here, pros and cons, right? Which is that this, this technology is so accessible, right? And I tell this to people all the time, that if they want to go out on their own or whatever, a lot of people come to me being like, "I want to hear more about this life you've built."
[00:24:48] Shannon Curran: four emails today. I don't know
[00:24:49] Mallory Lee: I used to get that so much. It's normal. I used to get
[00:24:53] Shannon Curran: I know. And, uh, I'm like, "Sure, um, in seven weeks when I have an availability." I'm like, yeah, um, so sorry. Um, no, no. I do say
[00:25:02] Mallory Lee: Here's the link to my webinar where you can hear my opinions on this
[00:25:04] Shannon Curran: I know. No, here's the
[00:25:06] Shannon Curran: link to ... Well, this is, yeah, this is another thing I have actually, um, to say. But I think because it's so accessible, there is an opportunity to learn these things on your own.
[00:25:15] Shannon Curran: Cool.
[00:25:16] Mallory Lee: Well, we have a segment that we like to do at the end, Suzanne, where we talk about our save of the week.
[00:25:21] Mallory Lee: And so this is either a person or a place or a thing or, like, a process, that just made your life better as a working parent this week. And so if you have anything in mind, we would love to hear it, and maybe it will help another mom, you know, make her week better too.
[00:25:40] Mallory Lee: I think this is a save. I think it's going to be a save, but it's, like, an idea and a process that, um, that we've sort of begun to implement. And I stole this from Sydney Mulligan, who, um, has been on the podcast before. She does a summer bucket list with her kids, and they just write down all the things they wanna do in the summer, and they super intentionally check it off as they go.
[00:26:07] Mallory Lee: And we did that this year with the boys. We let them each make their own little bucket list of things they wanna do this summer, and they each have three things. And so they're very excited about, you know, like, "Can we do something from the list?" And, and it's been a fun experience to get their buy-in on, like, what will make it a great summer.
[00:26:29] Mallory Lee: and it's kinda like you said earlier, Suzanne, like, I just have this feeling that, like, this summer needs to be, like, the best summer of our lives. And I just know that, like, there's never gonna be another summer that's exactly like this one, and it makes me want to just do all the things and stay up late every night and, like, swim every day, and it's crazy.
[00:26:51] Mallory Lee: But I'm hoping that it'll become super fulfilling for all of us with their bucket list.
[00:26:57] Shannon Curran: My save of the week, I was saying this to Mallory earlier, is a product.
[00:27:02] Shannon Curran: I don't know how, if people are about the dry shampoo life, but I was for a long time. I feel like my sc- actually, my scalp got really sensitive. This actually is motherhood related, really sensitive when I had kids. So like any, like I couldn't use the same dry shampoos I used to use. And of course, I'm still ma- like dealing with some like postpartum hair loss, like all this stuff, so I'm careful about the things that I put on my scalp.
[00:27:24] Shannon Curran: I've recently discovered K18 has a wet dry shampoo. It's called Air Wash. It's outrageously expensive. Buy the little bottle first.
[00:27:32] Shannon Curran: It makes your hair look completely clean. My hair is not clean. I will tell you right now. Shout out to everybody on the podcast, my hair is really not clean right now. And it is... I, I couldn't believe it. I was like, "This thing is a miracle." Like after a run, like spray it in, your hair looks completely fresh.
[00:27:50] Shannon Curran: It's crazy. It's crazy.
[00:27:52] Shannon Curran: And so I
[00:27:53] Shannon Curran: I influenced others.
[00:27:56] Mallory Lee: an affiliate
[00:27:56] Suzanne Slaughter: Absolutely. I'm excited by that rec
[00:27:59] Shannon Curran: You gotta. You gotta. I, I will say it comes in two sizes. The big one is, uh, stupid expensive, so I... The little one I've had for months, though. Like, I only use it, you'll only need to use it like once a week. You should wash your hair. But like you should probably... Uh, guys, I'm tired, okay? Talk about summertime, also when your kids fall asleep like in the car on the way home or like you guys are doing...
[00:28:21] Shannon Curran: Like, like it's just like crazy time right now, so the likelihood of my hair getting washed is pretty low. But K18 Air Wash is, oh my God, like one of the best products I've used in a very long time. So that's my save this week
[00:28:33] Shannon Curran: '
[00:28:33] Suzanne Slaughter: this is something that has brought me joy that is a new model I hadn't done before. But we're going... Both my husband and I are from the Northeast, and we're going back there next week, which means my son won't be in daycare. And my husband's parents are out there, so they help with him during the day as we work, but it's always kind of like frenetic.
[00:28:55] Suzanne Slaughter: we've done this now for two summers, And so what I did this week was I found a babysitting agency, and I just booked babysitters proactively. So instead of like waiting for other people to tell me when they could help or like, I just ha- I set the anchor of when we have paid help and then I don't feel guilty and like it just is giving me some peace of mind.
[00:29:18] Suzanne Slaughter: And so who knows if those babysitters will be good or not, but doesn't matter. They'll be fine. And that has been a good organizational move.
[00:29:27] Mallory Lee: Well, good luck. I hope it's amazing, and I hope that you just love the sitters that you found. And it's another two-sided marketplace, which I love
[00:29:39] Suzanne Slaughter: Great callback
[00:29:42] Shannon Curran: Ready to invest. Tell her the name. I know.
[00:29:44] Mallory Lee: I know, right? Um, no, that's amazing.
[00:29:54] Mallory Lee: Well, thank you so much for giving us some insight into the way that you're building this. loved talking about work with you and all the things. And I think your model is so helpful to working moms that might wanna change, but they don't know how to even start the process of change.
[00:30:08] Mallory Lee: So that is, uh, something we can all learn from. So it's been amazing
[00:30:15] Suzanne Slaughter: Thank you for saying that. Thank you both so much. This was so much fun
[00:30:18] Mallory Lee: Yeah. Okay, well we'll talk soon.
[00:30:21] Suzanne Slaughter: Okay,
[00:30:21] Shannon Curran: Talk soon.
[00:30:22] Suzanne Slaughter: Bye.
[00:30:22] Shannon Curran: Bye
[00:30:23] Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to Full Stack Moms,
[00:30:25] 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.
[00:30:35] Shannon Curran: Slaughter is your last name?
[00:30:37] Suzanne Slaughter: Yeah.
[00:30:38] Mallory Lee: Okay,
[00:30:39] Suzanne Slaughter: My dentist once said to me, "Does anyone call you Slaughter?" And I was like, "No."
[00:30:45] Mallory Lee: Oh, because of like laughter. Oh, tricky
[00:30:51] Shannon Curran: is like a word. It's not like a word no one's
[00:30:52] Shannon Curran: heard.
[00:30:54] Suzanne Slaughter: That's kind of what I wanted to say to him too, but I didn't. I thought it was so endearing.