In this episode of the Where Parents Talk podcast, host Lianne Castelino sits down with entrepreneur, business coach, and mom of four, Alana Kayfetz, to explore why so many mothers put themselves last—and how to change that.

From mom burnout and self-neglect to self-prioritization and identity shifts in motherhood, this conversation dives into the real challenges modern moms face. Learn how to balance parenting, career, and personal well-being without guilt, and why self-care is essential—not optional—for raising healthy families.

Whether you're a working mom, stay-at-home parent, or mom entrepreneur, this episode offers practical strategies to reclaim your time, set boundaries, and redefine what “having it all” truly means.

Topics include:

• Why mothers are hardwired to put themselves last
• The difference between healthy sacrifice and self-erasure
• Self-prioritization as a parenting tool — not a selfish act
• What children learn when moms model self-care
• Practical tips for reclaiming your time without guilt
• The mindset shift that changes everything for mom entrepreneurs

This podcast is for parents, guardians, teachers and caregivers to learn proven strategies and trusted tips on raising kids, teens and young adults based on science, evidenced and lived experience.

You’ll learn the latest on topics like managing bullying, consent, fostering healthy relationships, and the interconnectedness of mental, emotional and physical health.

Links referenced in this episode:

• whereparentstalk.com
• alanakayfetz.com
• momhalo.com

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Mom Halo
• Kayfetz Method

Welcome to the Where Parents Talk podcast. We help grow better parents through science, evidence and the lived experience of other parents.

Learn how to better navigate the mental and physical health of your tween teen or young adult through proven expert advice. Here's your host, Lianne Castelino.

Welcome to Where Parents Talk. My name is Lianne Castelino. Our guest today is an entrepreneur and a business coach.

Alana Kayfitz is the founder of the Mom Halo and the Kayfetz Method. She's also a podcaster.

Her mission is focused on enriching women's lives through exceptional experiences that prioritize well being and personal growth. Alana is also a mother of four. She joins us today from Toronto.

Thank you so much for taking the time out of what I made sure is an always busy schedule.

Thank you for the opportunity, Leanne. I'm excited to be here with you today. Hello, listeners.

Yeah, and you know, I guess to set the table for our conversation, what made you realize in the first place, Alana, that so many moms were putting themselves last?

I mean, it's, it's a great question and I think what made me realize it was going through motherhood myself. I am a 4, as you said, 4 time, 10 year mom with babies aging 1 to almost 9, 10.

And my joke is I have one child in orthodontics while I'm still breastfeeding. So it's this, I'm spanning the whole gamut of the motherhood experience.

But it was those early days, Leanne, when I first became a mom, I felt like I was hit by this Mack truck, that I was not prepared for what the reality of motherhood was going to be. And this is a narrative now. I've heard, you know, thousands of times as people have sort of taken the fight song of motherhood as their own.

And it's a flag I sort of have been standing under for some time because it was this major identity shift where it sort of, you need to turn the volume up on certain elements of your life and turn the volume down on others. And that's a hard moment for a young woman when they're entering motherhood.

So that's why I realized that there was this need, this desire that I had burning inside to help other women understand that priority, prior, priority setting is for us to make. We get to set the agenda. But it took me some time to get there. But that's how I understood it because I went through it myself.

Yeah. And you know, lived experience tells us so much. Right. And it puts such perspective on so Many different things when you think about it.

We've never had more ways to communicate. We've never had knowledge more easily available. Available to us.

So what is it about motherhood today specifically that leads women to put themselves last? Have you been able to pinpoint why that happens?

Yeah, I think we're hardwired, right? We're hardwired a bit to. To try to do both. We want to internalize messages of sort of being a good mom or being a good person.

And therefore we need to accommodate everybody else endlessly. And society rewards that. Right. This selflessness, this is what a good girl is supposed to be. This is what a mom is supposed to be.

And what I have loved about leaning into my community and some of the other organizations and people in which I collaborate is that we're really looking at moving the conversation to explore self prioritization as cornerstone to woman identity and motherhood. And to me, that's where this is sort of taking shape.

So self prioritization, great term. Sounds important. What does it actually look like? And how intentional does a mother need to be in order to succeed with prioritizing herself first?

Yeah, it's extremely intentional. It's extremely intentional. It could be as intentional when you look at your calendar. Doesn't matter if you use a digital product or a pen and paper.

Scheduling in time for yourself and making sure that we try to remove the guilt from that experience. Right? Because what we've been conditioned to believe is this idea of self sacrifice, this idea of putting ourselves last as a.

As sort of getting recognition for how much we can sacrifice. I call it like the poor Orphan Annie syndrome. Right?

Like we really need to put ourselves through the school of hard knocks in order for us to feel like we deserve something.

And what I've loved to be able to do through my platforms and through events, collaborations, and media outlets that we have access to is try to flip the switch a bit and flip the narrative that we can prioritize for ourselves by really simple acts. But it does require somebody who sometimes setting the discourse, a conversation, thought leadership, to say, hey, we can do this.

This is.

Okay, here's. Here's the permission slip. I always talk about a pink slip.

And for us, it's this totally arbitrary concept that you're allowed to pick yourself and to not feel guilt around that. And it can be as simple as scheduling time just for you.

So take us through healthy sacrifice. You've talked about that. When does healthy sacrifice become self erasure? If we can call it that.

Yeah, I saw that word.

Self Erasure, I had to look it up because I think there's a line that we as cross when a woman can no longer identify her own needs or her own ambitions, she can't set boundaries or she really has no sense of self outside of caring for others. So for me, you know, I mean, I'm involved with this beautiful event coming up in a couple of weeks on June 17th here in Toronto.

And the whole concept sort of really talks about this and I love this question and I'm underscoring and highlighting it because this event that I'm involved with called if not you, then who?

Really, we're talking about how women begin and often shrink themselves, shrink their voices, shrink their confidence and their presence, even their joy, and become almost invisible.

And what we're trying to do is really switch the narrative about how to celebrate womanhood in this way in which we the self erasure is not even a, a reality, right?

What we're talking about is really putting ourselves at the center of the conversation and ensuring that we are making time, space and quality exposures for our own well being. Because we're human beings, right?

And we deserve those things and trying to define ourselves differently from our identity of relational to somebody else, but in ourselves, our own being human beings on planet Earth, being worthy of love and worthy of these experiences for no other reason except for that we live and breathe here today, right? So. So to me, that's what it's about.

So one of the ways that maybe this message could get through to people who haven't experienced it yet, let's say, is, you know, painting a picture of what doing it all actually cost a mother. You know, doing it all, being a mom, trying to do everything for everybody, and in many cases also being an entrepreneur.

So what is the hidden cost of all of that?

Yeah, there is a cost, right? And I think I've toyed with this question a lot, like can we have it all?

And it's a conversation that I've been having on podcasts that I've been reading about, that I've heard other really smart women talk about. And I think where I have sort of settled at this juncture of my life is you can have it all. You can.

Maybe not right now, maybe not at this exact juncture. I'm managing a lot of little kids. I have a kid with special needs. I have a kid, a baby that still doesn't sleep through the night.

I have a tenacious seven year old, I have a nine year old having big feelings, going through pre teen stuff. So Maybe I can have it all, but maybe it's just not right this minute. And I think for me, that to me is the reality of, of this experience.

Being a mom entrepreneur amplifies that.

I had to make sacrifices, to me at the time, felt like sacrifices, but now I realize are wins, where I have been able to put my lifestyle and my family at the centerpiece of how I run my business. And for, to me, that is kind of the secret of doing it all. Maybe it's not all right now.

I can't have everything right now, but I can toggle on and toggle off things that I value and that are important to me because I have the creative liberty and the freedom to do so because of my entrepreneurship, which is a lovely self actualization, really. I carved this out. I created myself and I, I made it happen.

And that comes honestly from a lot of lived experiences that I'm sure a lot of mothers go through. And that's why entrepreneurship is up 60% in this country, because people are looking for opportunities to pick themselves every single day.

It's so interesting, Alana, hearing you talk about, you know, having it all. I guess it's a couple of decades ago now, but I heard a great line on that, which is women can have it all, just not all at the same time.

And I've never forgotten, and I think I heard it on Oprah, actually, who doesn't have children? But I never let go of that thought because I thought it was quite profound then. And it reminded me as you were speaking just now.

So when we talk about the extra level of entrepreneurship that you, of course, are, you know, are part of yourself, you know, what are kids learning when moms consistently put themselves last? And moms who are entrepreneurs are probably higher up on that list because of all the additional, you know, role that's involved there.

Yeah, I think, you know, it's a relearning and an unlearning about what our dynamic is with our children and what does steering and parenting look like.

I don't see it as much as I once did.

And I think because the discourse has changed and the discourse is that at this cornerstone of so much social media and storytelling and Narrative telling in mainstream media, but also in the coffee shops. Moms are being honest, right? There's, there's an honesty that's coming through and a vulnerability that's coming through. What I call hot mess.

Motherhood is coming through, which is where parents for the first time are not. Maybe to some degree it is still a bit in social media, sort of a more curated space. But Instagram was built on the backs of curation.

That's what it was, it was aesthetic. Instagram feed. But what we're seeing more and more of are people really leaning into creating spaces and, and times to be like, I, I am not okay.

Right. And you can also not be okay. So I think what's happening is, is actually, I'll switch the question around a bit.

I think what we're seeing is that motherhood right now is women actually questioning identity, questioning their value, questioning self worth and who they are as human beings. Who am I and what do I want? I think it's a very healthy thing for a child to see. Right. My parents aren't perfect. Right.

My parents know how to apologize. My parents make mistakes. Right. And that's okay.

And for parents to have the language to be able to say their kiddo, you know what, I'm really sorry that I took my phone call and looked at social media right now during dinner time. I really should be giving you my attention because this is family time.

So I do think that we're all learning together because it is a dawn of a new day to be a parent and entrepreneur at this juncture.

On that note, paint a picture of, if you could, Alana, of what process you went through. You talk about entrepreneurs, you know, it's really a gift of self actualization.

What did that look like for you when you decided as a mom to become an entrepreneur and take on all of the tasks associated with that?

Yeah, I think there was a dogma, right? We were very dogmatic young women, especially in my millennial sisterhood or, you know, anyone who was a hardworking, high achieving woman.

You did really well in university, straight A's. You worked for a company, May, you worked your way up to the top. And when you got to that company, you worked every.

Everyone shut off their lights and left their desk at 5 o'.

Clock.

You stayed till 6 or 7, you got an 8 in the morning, you were a across the board. And then boom, you hit motherhood and all of a sudden you can't ace this test. You cannot study. Right.

A well tempered, well mannered child, or a child with A good temperament, born that way, who's an easy baby, are few and far between. It's a steep learning curve. And all of a sudden you can't get an A plus. You cannot study for this test of motherhood.

So to me, the self actualization came when I allowed myself to fail, when I allowed myself for it to be hard and for me to be. And it was really in those early days, haze, I call it where. And I said, you know what? This lifestyle is not working for me anymore.

Beyonce Knowles, the queen bee. Sasha Fierce, my favorite of all time. She says very early on, after she became a mother, she said, I met myself for the first time in motherhood.

And I love that saying because to me that's exactly what this is. The tenacity of women, of womanhood. And a motherhood is like a reshift in the identity that maybe you don't need to be that A plus student anymore.

So to me, the self actualization was allowing myself to fail, allowing myself to learn. And therefore the self actualization was picking a lifestyle that fit for.

For me and a business strategy and a business path forward that worked for me instead of against me. I don't like hustle culture. I don't want to be burning the midnight oil. I don't want to be chasing clients. I want to be chasing my kids. Right.

I want to be hanging out with my family. And in order to do both, it is a balancing act that does take some time and frankly, expertise and lived experience to get there.

So on that note, then, was there anything that could have helped you prepare or be better prepared or maybe you felt you were really well prepared?

I don't know.

Before you went down this road of adding being an entrepreneur to your role as a mother.

Yeah, I think I had some really good mentors in my life. I had some good professional coaches.

I had some women who I met along the way who helped, who I saw, took the plunge, and I was inspired by their business. Ackerman. And that's what I would say to you if you're thinking about it and something isn't working right.

And it often comes from, I call this like maternity leave in, in Canada is very generous. So when you're in at home for 12 months, right, or maybe now even 18 months, you're thinking, I don't want to go back to work. I can't.

I don't want this to be my lifestyle. I want to be readily available for my kiddos. So I would say, you know, find somebody who you like.

How they Operate even on the face of it, and emulate them, follow them, ask for a coffee date. How are you doing this? Right? And to me, that's how it became crystal clear.

I remember very early on in my motherhood journey, entrepreneurship was always calling me. And it's when I took the plunge. I'll never forget when I resigned from my day job, I was, I was beyond myself. I was like, I have to take this bet.

I have to believe in myself. And when I took that leap, it was the most freeing experience of my life. I was scared, I was, it was hard.

But this country, entrepreneurship, you know, wealth, the private sector is built on people who take risks, who are bold, who don't stop.

And if you are an entrepreneur and you have those qualities, then you yourself will have no choice but to show up for yourself in these moments of the intersectionality of motherhood and entrepreneurship.

So then coming back to prioritizing yourself, do you believe that prioritizing oneself makes them a better, a better parent?

And I remember thinking to myself at those times, and maybe Leanne, you've had this experience too where people were talking about journaling and meditation. And to me it was so woo woo and out of this world. I didn't understand the concepts. And now they're mainstream, right? So that's what I mean.

Like the discourse and culture leans into things when they see that they're powerful, breath work, right? People understanding they have ADHD and executive functioning as adulthood is becoming rampant, right?

People are giving themselves space, position, having language, access information, AI, right? You can have a conversation with the chat bot now through Claude that ask them anything to be like, how do I solve this problem?

So to me, that's all self care, right? That's all under the. Did you get to bed earlier? Do we know about sleep hygiene?

Did you know about sleep hygiene when you were in high school and university? I had no idea about what a good night's sleep looked like or it slept, slept. So all of these little things, it's such an amazing information era.

We have access to such rapid, high quality knowledge. And what's amazing about is you can try it, right? You can try going to bed earlier, you can try going for a walk, you can try breathwork.

And guess what? It all works. Journaling, it works.

So to me, I feel like we're just at this weird precipice where like motherhood is changing in the best way possible and womanhood has never been more exciting for us to step into this new phase of who our identity is.

And that's why I love some of some of the collaborations and events and moments where I get to speak or be part of amazing experiences is because that's what this is about, right? Is continually wanting to live a better life and then always striving for more and having the faculty to do so.

So let's unpack what that looks like a little bit. If we could. What are some simple ways tips that you can maybe share of how moms can go about reclaiming their time without guilt?

Yeah, look, I mean, I think if you are in a. I'm speaking from my lived experience. If you're in like a heteronormative in two parent partnered relationship with a dual income, it's.

It's really setting the foundation for what your household looks like. Right. And, and le into what do I really care about? What matters to me?

And you know, often as a business owner, a CEO, we look at our business plan and say, as the CEO of this company, these are my strategic priorities. These are my goals for the next, you know, 36 months, depends what you're looking at. Do you do that with your family? Right.

Are you sitting with your partner and your spouse and saying, you know what, I really need your help here and making decisions. And I rely heavily on my partner, who's an incredible father, also an entrepreneur. So we both live similar lifestyles.

We both are deeply in love with our businesses and to together.

I think that has been extremely helpful that I do have a partner, which I know is not everybody's reality, who helps me make these lived experiences actualized.

So if you're in a partnership, I think it's having really honest conversations with your spouse and have a meeting, open your books together, maybe by bi weekly. Some people do weekly or monthly and plan. You know, I need a night out with my girlfriends. I mean, it's my birthday in a couple of weeks and I.

My husband knows that I'm going to a cottage with 12 of my girlfriends for 24 hours and he's gonna have to do all four kids. He knows that. So I think for us, that's about the conversation. I went out to three, four different events in the last 48 hours.

That's why I'm not wearing so much makeup right now. I'm just saying I want to have less makeup on today because I'm the eyeliner out. But you know, My husband allowed for those opportunities. Right.

And we set up some childcare opportunities for us. We could afford those luxuries. I know I'm coming from a place of privilege, but I'm being very clear. We also are very creative with our childcare.

I employ a lot of teenagers. I have a lot of young kids in out of this house. I have a lot of mother, mother's helpers just around.

I have a 12 year old who comes every Saturday at 10 bucks an hour to help me with my, my baby so I can get housework done.

So it's about being creative and creating the village if you don't have it and really setting a path for yourself of success by being honest about what really matters to you. And filling my cup deeply for me matters a lot.

And that's why I can carve out times for things like coffee dates, nights out, dinners out, weekends away, and then also be home for bedtimes, tuck ins, you know, those sorts of things. So it' being able to, for you to figure out what is your priority, write them down and say it out loud.

Absolutely. And that priority list can fluctuate depending on what day of the week it is.

But the standard pieces on that list, if you have a family, tend to remain the same if you've got it sort of all ironed out in the first place. Alana, you know, why do so many women, do you believe, feel a gap between the life that they have and how it feels.

Feels?

It's a, it's a, it's probably a psychological question, but I think it's an important one because a lot of women who are moms tend to see, tend to have that gap in their life and they're not sure how to close it.

Yeah.

And I think what's amazing about what's happening now in, in so many platforms, so many authorships being published on these topics are these conversations are being given the podium right. People are returning to the summit of asking these hard questions.

And I think often because women have spent years meeting expectations without stopping to ask themselves what do they truly want? And this is where I keep going back to. Right.

And this question really is at the heart of this event that I'm doing in a couple weeks, which is why this is so beautiful, because it's tangentially very much sort of my. On my heart and in my head right now at this event. If not you, then when not you, then who? We ask and ask ourselves, like, what would we stop?

What would life look like if we stopped and gave ourselves Permission to fully exist within it, Right? What do you truly want? Unapologetically.

And I think that really is the way that we can build the gap between the life that we feel like we have and maybe the one we want to build. And for a lot of people, you know, I'm a business coach and I sit with a lot of people and I say, what do you want to earn this year?

And it's amazing. Some women will come in and say, $60,000, what I want to take home. And some people come in and they say, I want to earn 3 million this year. Right?

So everybody's vision of what they want and what their success is is so different. But the question is, like, do you want to have a vacation? Does that matter to you? Right?

Do you want to be available for bedtime every single night and doing the tuck? And maybe your freedom is that you don't do the tuck in every single night, right?

So there's all these things that you have to ask yourself, and they're all up for debate. It doesn't have to be the way it's been, just because that's how it's been.

So I, I, I, I challenge you, I invite you, I give you permission to think about these things and to say some. If something feels broken, there's an opportunity probably to fix it. Especially if you're an entrepreneur and you've built your own business.

Any of those entrepreneur moms out there, you built this business. You can unbuild it or change it any way you see fit.

Because if it's not working for you anymore, even though it once did, now is an opportunity to make those changes. And that applies to life and in business.

Alana, is there something that you believe that women get wrong about wanting more?

That it's bad, that they're not allowed, that they had to play small and to me, and that they had to apologize, and I think that's a slipper. It is a slippery slope. That's a hard one.

Even the most tenacious, dedicated women who are really, I want to say, warriors of this conversation, right? People who are activists on this conversation still apologize, right? Still say, oh, I'm so sorry, I just had to pick up my kid from school.

Oh, my kid's home with a belly ache. I'm sorry, I can't, I can't be fully attention on this zoom call. So we do those things, right?

But I do think it's, it's a recognition and catching yourself in the moment saying, why am I explaining myself? Because frankly, if I was a man, I'd be giving no explanation.

Yeah, that's true. We've heard that for many other examples as well when it concerns moms and, and certainly men.

So building on that point then, what would you suggest is a first mindset shift that a mom can make to get out of the cycle of self neglect?

Yeah, I think it is a bit of a learning curve and I do think that it is a lifelong journey of exploration and being an educating, an educated individual. And I don't mean that you have a higher education, that you have a master's degree, that you have a PhD. I'm saying educate yourself, right?

Read a book. There's so much free content out there. You can go in the city of Toronto, the library, right.

Toronto has a Libby app, which is totally free, where you can download audiobooks, Right. Give yourself the freedom and space to listen to that audiobook. Right? Maybe it is. Well, I do this a lot while I'm multitasking.

I might be cleaning the kitchen or taking my baby for a walk, but I'm listening to something, right? So to me, I encourage you to be a lifelong learner, right? Seek education, seek knowledge, because knowledge is power.

And I think, to me, listen to this podcast, right? Read the article. Right. Follow some people who were following on social media.

Let's that the people that you see on a daily basis and the content that you're absorbing be inspirational to you. Aspirational. It shouldn't be stressful, it shouldn't be joy stealing.

It should be something in which you feel is helping you reevaluate the things that matter to you, but even more so allowing you to have the, to meet your greatest wishes and desires.

Is there anything that you're seeing in your business coaching work or in your network that illustrates that younger moms may be looking at this question of self prioritization differently?

Yeah, I would say for sure. I orbit a very interesting ecosystem where in some worlds I am the oldest mom of the very young mom community.

And I, and I have to say I, I don't necessarily think that is so. I think a lot of young moms are still trying. Motherhood is just that Mack truck that hits you.

So even if you're somebody who came into motherhood with amazing self care practices, even despite your ability to want to keep those up, some women do have to still shift and prioritize the things that matter to them.

If you had a very, you know, dedicated yoga practice and you're going to hot yoga studio five days a week, likely that's something that's going to have to change a bit. Right. But is could it be a swap? Right. Could instead be doing hot yoga in a studio. Right. For 90 minutes that took you two hours to commute to.

You just have to your time becomes more valuable.

So I do think that some of like the younger moms that I see coming in right now, they have a better handle on self care as a concept because it's something that probably was part of their lifestyle from the jump from when they're 18 years old. They were journaling and doing breath work. Right. They had language differently than we had about explaining how they feel.

So they came into motherhood a bit differently. But what I am seeing is that it doesn't matter who you are. It is about reprioritization and being strategic about how you spend your time and energy.

What does if not you, then who mean to you specifically on the hardest of hard days that you come across?

Yeah, I love that question. Thank you so much.

So this event that we're working on in a couple weeks on June 17, with an incredible lineup in which I have the honor to host an emcee, what it really means to me is an opportunity to have a very, very public conversation about giving her, you, me, she, the opportunity to stop viewing ourselves as last on the list of priorities and that my needs are not less important and simply that I can care and love for others, but I have to deeply care for me.

And the question behind the event, really, if not you, then who is asking women to consider why they are often the only person in their lives expected to continually come last?

So I'm really excited for this event because we're going to ponder all these questions and also have a very dynamic speaker lineup of women who are going to be engaging with these sorts of questions from a variety of generations, ages of stages, different industry and is going to be really, really beautiful. So thank you for asking that. I really appreciate it.

Yeah. And it sounds like a terrific event with a lot of thought provoking ideas that will be shared.

With respect to our discussion today, what would you like parents, moms and dads who listen to or watch this podcast? What do you want them to take away from it?

Yeah, man. I mean I had a podcast guest that something to me recently on my show, the Mom Halo show that really impacted me which is I'm so sorry that went off.

We have freedom, right? We have freedom.

And because we have the freedom to have this discourse, because we have a freedom to live in this country, because I freedom to show bear my shoulders in the summer. We have choices, right? And I encourage you to explore choices. If something is not working for you, you have the power to change it.

And don't be scared. Be bold. Be bold. That's what this country was built on.

A wonderful optimistic note to end on. Alana K. Fitz business coach, entrepreneur mama4 thank you so much for your time and your insight today.

Thank you so much for having me listeners. It was my absolute pleasure and please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions at all. IBM Open Book I'm very reachable.

I have an Instagram account om halo and my website is alana kvitz.com thank you so much Leanne for this incredible conversation and amazing opportunity.

Thank you Alana. Appreciate it.

To learn more about today's podcast, guest and topic as well as other parenting themes, visit whereparentstalk. Com.