The Topline: The Mom At Law On Work, Family and Expectations

The Topline: Marti Bledsoe Post and Candace Alnaji

What’s it like to run two successful businesses and parent three kids under the age of six during a global pandemic when your husband is an ICU doc? It’s a lot, according to Mom at Law Candace Alnaji, but if you adjust your expectations, it’s possible.

This week on The Topline, we talked about pressure, family juggling and how to handle your own feelings of ambition and motherhood.

Tell us about your family and work scenarios.

Candace: I am known mostly as The Mom at Law, my platform that supports women lawyers and working parents. I am also founder of Alnaji Career and Workplace Strategies. I help high achieving professionals navigate career transitions in their job search, with the personal branding, in negotiations at work. Basically, all career and workplace strategy issues, as well as for their employers. So with outplacement coaching, for people who are leaving, for inclusive workplace strategies, for employee engagement, working parent support, I try to bundle it all together within my company so that I'm offering support from all types of angles.

I have three kids. I have a five-and-a-half-year-old son, and I have two-and-a half-year-old boy/girl twins. And so it's a very busy and it is... Something's always happening in our lives. Our son is in school. Our oldest started kindergarten this year and he's actually been able to start in-person. That's been nice, but also scary.

We live in Buffalo, NY, where he goes to a small private school, and so that kind of enables them to limit class sizes and space things out on their campus. I know we're really fortunate to have that during this time and it feels strange to share when so many families continue to struggle. And of course we could struggle at any minute too, if school had to shut down again or should things in our area get worse.

We really trust our school. If I didn't have such faith in our school, I think I would have felt very differently and probably would have made some different choices, but I do feel comfortable with what we're doing right now.

I have been doing the work from home with kids thing for a few years, since before the pandemic. So I totally understand the juggle and the challenge and how hard it is. And so, the twins, we hope to send to school, the school where our oldest goes, starting next year and we hope to keep that as our plan. Who knows what next year will look like, but that is the current plan for us.

The twins are still home with me. My husband, when he's home, he has a variable schedule as a position where he's on call certain times of the month and then home certain times of the month. And then, we have help from my mom who comes. She wasn't coming for a while early in the pandemic, and so that was hard, but like a lot of people, we've had to adjust and readjust and open our bubble a little bit to make it sustainable. So, the twins are home and we're just chugging along.

Is there a tip that you would give parents who are trying to work from home with kids?

Candace: I would say just change your expectations, which I think a lot of people have already. I think people caught onto that pretty quickly that they can't expect to work as they always have. And I know that some workplaces, like when you're working for an employer, as opposed to working for yourself or when you're performing a certain type of work where you have to keep going, you don't really have the option to maybe break up your day or to work before the sun comes up, and then at night, which is how I've been able to get by, because I have had that type of flexibility.

There's probably still some flexibility that you can negotiate or still some flexibility that you can find even within yourself, because sometimes the pressure we feel is very much internal and it's based on how we've been trained to work, how we are accustomed to working, how we like to work.

It's definitely hard to break those patterns and practices, but that was one thing I learned very early on when I was even working full-time for my law firm and working from home. I just had to realize that the work would get done, but it didn't always happen in the way that I wanted it to happen, but as long as it was still happening and I was managing it internally, it was still getting done. I was still being a good employee and a good mom, so I think just adjusting our internal expectations and also asking for the support from our employers and from those in our personal lives I think is really important. 

How are you really doing in the midst of all this?

Candace: There are still days when it feels like everything's going off the rails, and if I don't have someone like my mom coming to help, or if my... My husband's been working a lot more during the pandemic as a physician who works in an ICU. So, there's certainly been days where I have less help and it is challenging, but that was just what I built my early work-life on was being very scrappy and learning alternative ways to work. That was different from my very rigid perfectionistic type A, get it all done, hammer it out. So I really had to work on that internally.

What's something you've just let go of caring about since the pandemic started?

Candace: I guess how much we interact with the outside world. As a young mom, I was very much of the type to always need to be out doing outside activities, these enrichment things, and always making sure that we didn't spend too much time in the house. And then I had my twins and that kind of changed. That shook things up and I couldn't care as much about that or about these super rigid routines I had. And then during the pandemic, everything shut down and I couldn't feel bad about being stuck at home. And we were home a lot already, honestly, just having been still early into our years with our twins, but I really had to just lean deeper letting go of the expectation that outside was where enrichment was to be found, that we could still benefit at home and just deal with that cabin fever-ish type of thing.

Is there a tradition that you've started with your family that you want to continue or that you think is pretty cool?

Candace: We've started has been going to Sonic drive through in the car with the kids. With a lot of places being closed, we have made it a little tradition of driving around, looking at fun architecture and things and driving to get ice cream at the Sonic or wherever. My kids love Blippi, so we put Blippi songs on. So just finding that... Having fun like a kid, I guess, because the kids don't mind. They love going for ice cream and looking at fun things or going for a drive in the country and checking out cows and listening to their Blippi songs over and over and over again.

That's a good tip actually. I think you're right, the kids' expectations are low. We're the ones thinking it's got to be a full day outing with cultural significance.

Candace: Right, right. Like the museum or the art gallery or all these fun nature trails, which we still do, but sometimes we will go to one and it's packed and it's like, "Well, that's not what we'll do today." But yeah, so just letting the kids take the lead, I guess, in terms of how we have fun that day within our current boundaries.

What do you do to let go of stress?

Candace: I like to exercise. I have a Peloton and I do some other workouts that I enjoy. That's always been my thing ever since I was young, just working and then college and law school and as a new attorney and as a new mom. And then of course every year is like a new responsibility was added to my life. More kids, more work, more responsibilities, but that's always been a way that I return to myself, even if it's just for 30 minutes. It's a good stress reliever, I'd say.

Do you have a guilty pleasure for stress relief that you watch or read or eat? I mean, I want to change that phrase because I don’t think we should feel guilty, except everybody knows what I mean.

Candace: I like Parks and Recreation on Netflix, the show. Yeah, so I definitely have a few shows. I like The Goldbergs. We have Hulu, so I don't know what channel they're on, but we watch them on Hulu. I like Oreos. Since my twins, I've always needed to have Oreos in the house. It's just, yeah, a guilty pleasure.

Is there something you would put on a t-shirt right now that working parents could wear proudly around? What would it say?

Candace: The Mom at Law, I have a shop that I sell t-shirts and so I have one that says lawyer, mom, beast, and lawyer moms really love that one. I totally understand why, and so I think for our working parents in general, it would be something with beast.

Whatever you are, working parent beast or beast mode on, because I feel like when you are a working parent, you are in beast mode all the time. You're getting things done, you know how to get things done, you're on fire, checking things off your list, you're efficient. So I think that really sums up the experience of being a working parent and always just being ready to go, in charge and taking care of business. 

What have you done just for yourself lately, something that was just for you?

Candace: I have been working on the website for my new business. That's, I guess, just for me, but to help other people, but I'm not designing it. I have a really great designer, but having input into the design has been really nice and I have been helping create some of the content. And so that's given me time to reflect about what I do and what I enjoy and who I enjoy helping. It’s really fulfilling.

I find work really fulfilling. So, working from home, just having the opportunity to devote that time to thinking about what I like to do and strategizing, and just invest in my career and that professional self. I found a great deal of fulfillment in doing a certain type of work and finding new opportunities and creating new things, and I just really loved it. I find that really fulfilling and I enjoy that. So, I'd say that's something I've been just doing just for me lately.

Candace: Even as my family grew and life just continued to evolve, I struggled a little bit with, "Okay, well I'm supposed to be taking a little step back. Why can't I do that? What's wrong with me?" But I've gotten to a point where I realized, "This is just what I like and I really enjoy it." And I think that's okay. And I think we should not feel guilty about the fact that we... Especially us working moms or mothers with careers, mothers who are in the labor force, yeah. I think that guilt comes from not ourselves really. It's maybe more of a learned thing. And of course, our feelings come from within, but I do think it's something we're trained to feel. And so getting past that and realizing that you can work for yourself and not just to pay the mortgage or tuition or whatever it is, that's something you really enjoy. I think that's important.

 What is something I didn't ask you that I should ask my next guest?

Candace: Oh wow. I'm always interested in knowing what people's future plans are. So if they see themselves where they are now in five years or how they think they would like to grow or what they'd like to do differently or if they would just continue on as they are now.