Erin: [00:00:00] Welcome to Hotter Than Ever, where we uncover the unconscious rules we've been following. We break those rules and we find a new path to being freer, happier, sexier, more self aware and more self expressed. I'm your host, Erin Keating.
Today's guest is journalist, author, TV host, former advice columnist, and producer, Carmen Rita Wong. Carmen has lived a lot of lives, and she has uncovered a lot of secrets about her own upbringing and identity in her new memoir, Why Didn't You Tell Me?, which is full of family stories, mother daughter drama, and aha revelations. What I loved about this conversation was learning about Carmen's search to find out [00:01:00] who she really is in Relation to her family, her identity, her upbringing, but also who she really is in her heart I love her willingness to reinvent herself over and over again, both personally and professionally, we talk about everything from career to single parenthood, and we both agree that 50 is a magical age for women when all the unimportant stuff fades away to reveal the essence of what's important to us.
It's a great talk. Take a listen.
Carmen Rita Wong is a writer, producer, and nonprofit board director. She is the former co creator and host of CNBC's On the Money. So you may have seen her on TV. She has been on air and on staff at three TV networks, editor. She's been a magazine editor and advice columnist. How do you get that job? I want to talk about that.
Served on the board of Planned Parenthood, and she now heads up her own production company with a [00:02:00] focus on women led content. I am leaving some credits out here because Carmen has accomplished so much in her life to date. She's written several fiction and advice books, including the wonderful memoir, Why Didn't You Tell Me?,
which we will get into. Welcome, Carmen Rita Wong.
Carmen: Thank you so much for having me.
Erin: I'm so happy to have you here. Your story is a mind blowing story and your career has been Epic. We could fill an entire episode, just talking about each chapter of your professional life. But where I want to start is with the personal, because I think as women, we.
In professional life are encouraged to sort of compartmentalize like who we actually are from the roles that we play and what you've done in your memoir is really just lay bare your personal story. So tell us, tell us what your memoir is about.
Carmen: Yes, it's very personal. Think of it as kind of a conversation with my mother's ghost.
I'm asking her, why didn't you tell [00:03:00] me what she didn't tell me was the big secret of my origin story, who I actually am, who my father actually is. And it's something she took to her grave and I had to discover on my own through detective work and all sorts of things. I worked to answer that question as to why didn't she tell me by delving into my history, but delving into her and our relationship.
So it's definitely a very much a mother daughter story. But as I discover who she is and was. I'm able to discover more about me, about who I am and who I really am. So of course it goes into identity and race and, and, and all sorts of things, but really that whole little existential idea of, you know, who are you, who does the world tell you you are, who your parents tell you are, but who do you know that you are in the end?
Erin: So who did the world tell you you were when you were growing up?
Carmen: Well, it [00:04:00] depended on what world I was in, right? And that's the thing is that for all of us, no matter what your background, it really depends on the world you're born into and brought up in. So initially I was in an uptown Manhattan girl, Dominican family, Chinese father.
So it was between Dominican Morningside Heights, Harlem and Chinatown was my. start of my life. Boy, was it rich, not financially rich, but rich with food and culture and sights and smells and textures and sounds. And just look, not one dull moment. Right. And my mother was the Dominican side. And then Papi Wong was my father.
And that was an arranged marriage for her by her father when she was very young, um, when she was 19 and I have an older brother. And the two of us kind of volleyed between uptown and downtown. And we were just these two little, you know, brown kids just filled with family. And then she divorced Papi and [00:05:00] she remarried, um, Anglo American guy that she had met, who was in graduate school at Columbia university, complete opposite of Papi Wong, suit wearing, briefcase having, guy who brought us to New Hampshire.
Erin: The whitest place on earth.
Carmen: At that time, we're talking like late 70s, we were it. We were literally just the speck in the snow type people, like, that was it. My brother and I were pretty much told as much. We were not welcomed. We did not belong. And we went from being told that we were these, like, treasured, adorable dolls, frankly, in our family in Manhattan, where everyone could have been family or was family, to a place where We were told you were a LES fan.
We were told we didn't belong, we shouldn't have been there, and we weren't going to get anywhere in life because we weren't white people. So it was a very difficult transition [00:06:00] for a child, for sure. How old were you? I was four, five?
Erin: In New Hampshire, moving to New Hampshire?
Carmen: And you think, we were so young, how do you remember? Oh, God. You know, psychologists say the most formative years of your life. are by the age of four or five. That's it. That's when most of you is formed. And what kept my soul in New York was my mother was homesick. So we drove back often. So I never left New York in my mind. And I always say to people, it's like, you lived in New Hampshire for, you know, 12 years or whatever.
Don't you consider that where you grew up and that your home, home is not a place that doesn't want you. That's not home to me. We couldn't speak our language. We couldn't eat our food. We couldn't listen to our music. It was like going to Mars.
Erin: Why did your mom make that choice? What was she looking for?
Carmen: The American dream, man. [00:07:00] The American dream, Erin! The white knight had come! Built her a house! You know, white picket fence, the whole nine yards, she bought into it. Lock, stock, and barrel. And also to understand she came from a culture so heavily, I would say even brutally, patriarchal that the idea that she could have a life on her own without the support of Um, of a man is, was kind of anathema.
I mean, her education stopped at 15. And, and the wild thing is, is I found out, especially when I discovered all her papers after she had passed, how incredibly smart my mother. I always knew she was a smart person, but she was really smart. It's just her education stopped and she didn't know that she had, that that was an option.
So it's not that I don't think she didn't love my stepfather. I just think that she very much saw it as. It's an opportunity for her to have a very American [00:08:00] life and then give that to her kids.
Erin: Did that work for her? Was she happy?
Carmen: No, Erin. No, she wasn't. No, because. I mean. No. I mean, she left everybody. She was ostracized by a lot of the family for her choices.
She did choose to raise me as her firstborn daughter. Not my older brother, love you Alex, but he was like little emperor, so he was a little prince. But she raised me wildly feminist, even though her own actions weren't like that, but she... Really just put all of her hopes and dreams into me and kept having children.
She had my four younger sisters, but domestic life was not for her. It really wasn't.
Erin: Except that was her life.
Carmen: Yeah. And you can imagine what that does to a human being. That doesn't, isn't meant for that square peg round hole, right? The rest of us get banged about, [00:09:00] so she suffered from a lot of depression and she could be quite abusive. Yeah.
Erin: Yeah. Right. So how do you unwind that, all of that, that big story, the impact of your mother's choices, the lies you were told. So you thought Papi Wong was your dad and you found out. He was not. Who was your dad?
Carmen: Well, you gotta read the book to find out.
Erin: Yes, you do have to read the book.
Carmen: You do, because when I was 31, she was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and given a very short time to live.
And she, by that time, had divorced my stepfather. And he came to me. To tell me that Papi Wong was not my father, even though, by the way, Papo Wong, even though we moved from New York was still in our lives. Cause again, we saw him several times a year when we would visit. And he said he was my father. You know, the world came [00:10:00] crashing down in my mind because the realization that you're living in and being raised by and growing up with two people, your parents are the first people you should be able to trust.
They're the first people who teach you how to trust. That they have been lying to you, your face, every single day, was brutal. And then I confronted my mother about it, and she told me another story about my stepfather being my father, and it was just, in the end, another story. Because after she had passed, ten years go by, things still didn't sit well with me, by the way, and I never stopped being Papi Wong's daughter, because how do you erase?
It's 31 years of your, you just don't, that's just who you are. And things still didn't sit right. And then I took a DNA test. And for that, you'll need to read the book because I'm holding onto that one. But let's just say my mother was full of [00:11:00] stories and stories that she felt the need to do two things.
One, protect her reputation because Guadalupe. Love to have a good reputation and to, to kind of protect the idea that she had operated correctly within this patriarchal system that she married first and she divorced, then she married again, that she had these, you know, she did everything by the book. She did everything by the book.
She wasn't instead this young, gorgeous lady who liked to party. She worked hard, but she liked to have fun, and that was not something she could have out there.
Erin: She could not come out about that.
Carmen: She could not come out about that.
Erin: No. Yeah. Yeah. So how does all of this intersectional identity play a role in your life today?
Carmen: I'm smiling because I'm just like, I have to say the book is a lot of pain about all of that stuff, but I gotta tell you, [00:12:00] man, I wouldn't trade it for the world in the sense that I just, it is the coolest thing to have lived my crazy life. It is wild, which is part of the reason why I always wanted to do the book and it took me years to get the book done because I kept hearing from publishers, and we all know how publishing has been traditionally, this very much, well, if you were just Latin or if you were just Chinese.
Erin: Oh, wow. This is so So they, they were like, you need like a clear demographic target.
Carmen: If you were just a woman, like it's so complicated. You know, this sort of thing.
Erin: No one's just a fucking anything. Sorry.
Carmen: Erin, you gotta understand. I'm like, I operate in worlds that a lot of these people did not operate, and I was like, do you know how many, like, millions of people have the same story?
Because in the end, this is just a typical American story. It's a typical immigrant American story. I have heard from so many people about how, whether [00:13:00] it's finding out who your real father is, Or the culture clashes of assimilation, or culture clashes within a marriage, between races, between cultures, like all these things.
It is quite a broad story. And yeah, I mean, it's pretty cool. It's who I am. So what am I, what am I going to do, what am I going to do? But I'm still a Wong. People ask me that question often, which is kind of weird. Sometimes people say, well, why are you still a Wong? Because I am a Wong. Like, I'm Papi Wong's kid.
Guess what? He's the one who wanted me. He's the one who never stopped calling even though he was... By the way, not a very nice man. He was a gangster. Okay. He was a Chinese gangsta be clear.
Erin: Why was he the love match then according to your grandfather?
Carmen: Oh because my mother and my sister needed to be married for their Immigration papers.
Erin: And your grandfather knew Papi Wong and he was like, this [00:14:00] guy's going to be a fit?
Carmen: He paid to gangstas to marry his daughters and they had no choice and they were just teenagers and they were very young. Um. And it was unfortunate, but oddly, my mother tried to make it work. And Papi passed away last summer, last spring. And let me tell you, he was a very difficult man. I felt so much like what a legacy he has left.
And how much we are his legacy. So, do I say I'm biologically Chinese? No. Do I say I am ethnically? Oh, and a Wong? Yes, absolutely.
Erin: I mean, you've been a public figure and a media personality and a journalist for a lot of years. I'm sure you've encountered people who were like, Oh, you're so beautiful. What [00:15:00] are you?
Ugh, what? I mean, Right? Yeah. Talk to me a little bit about how you have been received. I mean, you worked at CNBC, bastion of business and finance reporting.
Carmen: Oh, the white male world. Yes. Of money.
Erin: Yes. So. I mean, how much of a fish out of water were you in that environment? What fights were you fighting?
Carmen: Oh God.
Erin: Every fight?
Carmen: Erin, every freaking day. Let me tell you, I am so tired. I am one tired lady. Um.
Erin: Well, you've been busy too. You are wildly productive.
Carmen: Thankfully, not so much anymore and it feels good. Good. Let's just say it's a lot more balanced now because I would like to live a little longer. That's why. I'll tell you this.
That comment of like, what are you about my looks, right? You look like this, like, what are you? The reason why that comment, they would say, Oh, but I'm complimenting you. Listen, if you tie my biology or my genetics to what you're seeing, [00:16:00] it's way too objectified. It's way too much objectification. And it's very much this kind of exoticizing animal type thing.
Cause would you say the same thing to the white person sitting next to you? Do you say to the white person sitting next to you, you're so beautiful, where does this come from? What are you? What are you? If you don't, if you wouldn't say it, to that, to the white woman sitting next to me, don't say it to me.
It is... Incredibly rude and also very just like, uh, satisfy my curiosity thing, you know, I'm not in a zoo. So it just, what happened at the networks and being on TV for a good 12 years solid was a lot of what happened when I was a little girl and brought to New Hampshire. It was a lot of that focus on my appearance, focus on my name, disbelief that I was Latina because I was I want to say smart, let's just say typical [00:17:00] intelligence measures like grades, performing on television, knowing about finance, being smart about certain things that I'm not supposed to be smart about because I'm brown.
Things like that. So it was a lot of the same thing. A lot of very bad dating experiences. Oh no. A couple bad marriages, but that's another story. But it is a lot of that kind of, um, the world telling me still, you don't belong here. Yeah. Why are you here? How is this possible? And sometimes brain's breaking because it was that crazy.
Some of these men next to me on TV after I do a segment, even when I look at them now, I'm like, Whoa, that girl was, she knew stuff. I have none of that in my brain anymore, by the way. But they would be like, Oh my God, are you really Hispanic?
Erin: Like you can't be smart and be Hispanic.
Carmen: I would be like, yeah, what the hell kinda question is that? Ridiculous. And so my thing is, [00:18:00] Now I realize everything is a projection, right? All these people. I'm not responsible for what all that baggage that you're throwing on me. I'm not responsible for your low expectations of me because I'm a brown woman. I'm not responsible for your exoticization, whatever. All of these things that you're throwing at me, this is you. And it's on you. And it says more about you than it does about me.
Erin: Right, you're just living your life.
Carmen: I'm just me. And this is what I say to my daughter too. I go, when people say crap about you, because my girl came out completely blanquita, blonde, blue eyed, just, I call her my little porcelain princess.
Oh my god. I think she's little, but she like towers over me. And she's just a gift to me. And, and, and she just, Also has trouble because she's being raised in a Dominican, Guyanese, Chinese family, and she's the oddball. And people make comments about the pictures she posts on social media with her family.
Erin: They're like, that's not your family? [00:19:00] Yeah. How could that be your family?
Carmen: Or like, you look like you got adopted by a black family. Why do you look like you're adopted and I say girl remember this is their stuff. Yeah, not yours It doesn't belong to you. So don't pick up their bags, please.
Erin: It's so hard as a kid though to not pick that up, right? Yeah, whatever the judgment is, whatever the people telling are telling you you are what your problems are. What's wrong with you? Especially my kids are 12. I have twins they're at this age where You know what their friends think when their peers think they're still being formed in their own identity and their own, like, where do I fit in and, and who will like me for me.
I don't envy that, that part of growing up because you have to summon that strength somehow. And as moms, we want to tell them, God, it's all about the assholes and what they think of themselves. Hurt people, hurt people. You tell them all the things, but they can't. Live [00:20:00] from that at that young age. They I think they eventually hopefully will learn to have their own steel Inside and their own like strong sense of self so they don't need so much external approval. But gosh...
Carmen: We're still working on it. Right Erin? This is like a lifelong thing I do have to say though for younger women boy after you cross the five o things get so good mentally in the sense of knowing so much more about who you are and And how much you give a shit about what people think, like, it's wild.
Erin: It is wild. It literally happened like, like Cinderella with the clock, like, taking 12 into my 50th year.
Carmen: Bibbidi bobbidi boo, bitches!
Erin: That is exactly right! I just was like, And now I blow everything up. Yes. I stop, I stop lying and I stopped assembling [00:21:00] and I stop trying to get approval and do what I need to do. And all of that insecurity and all of that, what will they think of me and all of that. God, just keeping up with the Joneses and trying to fit in and trying to prove yourself that you're really somebody in the world.
Like, I'm fucking somebody in the world because I'm somebody in the world. I'm a person in the fucking world. Yes. Like we all are. Like they say in 12 Steps, I'm another bozo on the bus. Is that Oh yeah. Yeah. I love being another bozo on the bus. It's having humility and then with that humility comes audacity if you want it.
Yep. Because fuck it. Fuck it. Yeah. Because you're fucking 50 years old, you're supposed to not exist as a woman. Yeah. So if I'm, if I don't exist and I'm invisible, then I'm gonna do whatever the fuck I want.
Carmen: Yeah. Why not? Why not? Ain't nobody looking, right? Like. Yeah.
Erin: But the fact is we're all looking at each other and we're all going, Oh my God, isn't this good? [00:22:00] Like, or I see some women doing it and feeling good, how do I get what she has? That's what this podcast is all about. You know, that's this conversation I want to have with all of us to say, okay, you've did it. You did it all the way. You're thought you're supposed to do it. Now. What do you really want to do? Who do you really want to be?
I love, I love that. I love how many lives you've had, how many selves, how many identities. I love that one of your primary things that you identify yourself as is a non profit board director. I love that giving back to the things you care about, Planned Parenthood, The Moth, which is an amazing storytelling organization that you're a part of.
Carmen: Yes. I just I just got elected to the board of the Lower East Side Girls Club.
Erin: Oh, wonderful. Congratulations.
Carmen: Which is a wonderful organization too. And you know what? I was a little girl. I would have loved to have this club. Supporting girls and women is my absolute heart and soul because I know that had my mother had that help, had I had that help, you can [00:23:00] prevent. So much pain and you can open the world, the world to young people.
Erin: And they need that because they're not, it's going to take them 20 years to stumble on it if they do. Yeah. Like why not help give them a head start and exposure to incredible things and resources and people and opportunities.
And your wisdom. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. I want to go back to being an advice columnist. Oh, yeah. Because how, okay, so how does someone get the job of advice columnist? Did you just like start giving advice?
Carmen: Well, there needs to be columns. And today, you know, there did used to be, so, so kids, there used to be this thing called advice columns and all the print, uh,
Erin: Wait, there used to be a thing called a magazine.
Carmen: Yes, that used to pay six figures to almost everybody. No joke. I was an editor at money magazine and I had been at [00:24:00] money and fortune and I wrote my first book while I was at money and a bunch of us got laid off. So let's just say that. Let's start with that. Magazines contracted and disappeared and it was a kind of a brutal time.
I didn't have my daughter yet, but I. I had just gotten a mortgage with my then fiance, so it was a brutal, brutal time, but I had a book coming out and I knew that at the time, if anyone can believe this, cause now there's just a plethora of money advice people all over social media. Yes. Imagine this. There's like two and the women's magazines did not have financial or money advice or coverage or business or necessarily career. And I was the only person of color doing it at the time who had the cachet of having been money magazine and that sort of thing. So I basically capitalized on that.
Capitalized on the book. I spent two years at each magazine, Latina. I did features for Essence, [00:25:00] Men's Health, Good Housekeeping, Glamour, and I kind of bopped around on those. And that was kind of enjoyable because these magazines were what I grew up with. We didn't have social media. So, you know, especially I'm out in New Hampshire.
I know there's a big wide world out there because I know New York City. And I just couldn't wait to get back. And the only way I could go back and go back knowledgeable and competitive in the workspace were these magazines. So it was kind of a thrill to be in the women's magazines and be like, you need this information.
I thought it was a very feminist thing. I mean, I was like, you need this. Why aren't women learning this stuff? This is ridiculous.
Erin: Yeah. We're used to things evolving so fast now because of technology, but there was a lot of intractable sort of the way things are done. The kinds of stories that get told, what is for women and what is not for women.
I feel like if we, I sometimes wonder how much progress have we actually made? And [00:26:00] sometimes when you look at things like that and you look at things like until 1968 women could not have checking accounts. I think that was it. I think. And then 1970 they could have their own credit cards. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, women weren't allowed to get PhDs until the 70s or sometime in the 60s. It's much more recent. Then I think this next generation of women...
Carmen: Well, the fact that if you're 50, which I don't think is old, I'm 52. So if you're 50 and we have kids in our teens, it was like saying to my daughters, you could not have a credit card to own a home. You'd have to have a male relative co sign.
This is ridiculous. They really can't understand it. No. And I'm glad you're talking about it because I feel like. When we come to telling our stories, we really have to remember the, the time, the zeitgeist, the, uh, whether it's gender or equal [00:27:00] rights or civil rights or whatever it is, we are all come through a slice of time.
And that's what forms and shapes us. And it's really important to go back and understand what the previous generation went through and what the next and help helps us understand what the younger generation is going through because what they're going through. I don't know if I envy them even though it was tough for us. This is rough. This is rough.
Erin: Yeah. So talk to me about your relationship with your mother and then your relationship with your daughter. How do those relationships contrast? What are you trying to do differently or the same? Who are you trying to be for her?
Carmen: Girl, it's like night and day. It's like night and day. I learned by being my mother's daughter. I learned everything. I didn't want to be as a mother. But I won't completely Dismiss her because my mother again Really digging [00:28:00] in in writing this book and learning about understanding her I get it I don't forgive her, because that takes an apology and a change of behavior, and she never did that, so I don't forgive her, but I get it.
Erin: Oh, is that how forgiveness works? Wait, say that again.
Carmen: It is. It is. It takes an apology and a change in behavior. Because, get, the word forgiveness literally has the word give in it. Why are you giving somebody who's hurt you something else? They already have your pain. Let them heal that before you give them something.
They have to earn it. Right? I am fine with that. I understand her. In some ways, I feel like that is... More important, because forgiveness, you think you forgave somebody, it's very superficial, but in order to really crucially understand why someone would hurt you so badly, who's a parent to you, requires work [00:29:00] on your part.
But it also brings about, to me, much more peace than just forgiveness. Because I've done the, done the digging. She was brought through such horrifying... abuse and trauma that she did what she thought she could do. Was she personality disordered? Probably. But did she also really work to raise me to stand completely on my two feet?
That was painful. I'm not gonna lie, I, I don't think that we have to go through trauma in order to be successful. Mm-Hmm. , I don't like the story of resilience being like, touted as the, the way to have success is to be resilient and pull yourself up and blah bss We're not all built for that. And I wish my life had been easier , and I would wish I, I, I would've had less, but at least I would've had less of problems.
Maybe I'd have a, I don't know, happier family at the moment, but I think what I learned was I did not get. [00:30:00] The love. I didn't get love. Not really. I was an extension of my mother. I was property. I was hopes and dreams of hers. She told me she didn't like me. Oh yeah.
Erin: She told you she didn't like you.
Carmen: I love you, but I don't like you, you know, that sort of thing.
Erin: What are you supposed to do with that? What are you supposed to do with that?
Carmen: Girl, I don't know. You just go. You go out and you move on, it's just you, you internalize, I internalized a lot, but I, what I learned was, is that I didn't want my child, especially my daughter, to feel like I didn't see her as a person, as an individual, I needed that so bad, no one gave that to me, except my brother, I have to say, if I didn't have my older brother who loved me no matter [00:31:00] what, And supporting me no matter what.
So with my daughter, she is 16 and I have been in therapy for 15 years every week.
Erin: I hear that.
Carmen: Cause I was like, I'm just going to do the best I can and boy, do I need some help.
Erin: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And are you close?
Carmen: Oh my God, very sadly, we're extra close because she got COVID early on and was completely disabled by it and long COVID and spent a year bed bound almost two years with barely able to walk a couple blocks and many emergencies and near didn't know she was going to make it.
And she even said to me, even though she did not have a teenage life, which a lot of actually teens during this. Right. Have not. And she still wears a mask to this day. She and I mask outside. She masks [00:32:00] in school because she's immunocompromised now, but she's doing so much better. And she says to me, you know, it was awful mom, but yeah, there's the silver lining.
I'll admit it. And I was like, I was like, what? You know, and I was hoping she'd say it and she was like, well, like us. And I say, yeah, I think it's pretty awesome because she could have gone a different way with everything that was going on. A lot of teens really went in a completely different direction and she was dealing with a lot and she and I are very close, but I give her as much space as I can.
To be her own person, to not be overly protective, to let her experience the world, basically, my priorities are very different than my mother's priorities for me, which were either you can't sit down, you can't lay down, you can't get sad, you can't get tired, straight A's keep going, make more money, drive, drive, drive, drive, and with her, [00:33:00] thankfully I'm able, we're not financially precarious, but I think I'm also able to.
Um, really understand that what's really important now that I've, um, encountered the stark and terrifying abyss that is your child possibly not, uh, making it, um, you realize what's really important.
Erin: Yeah. Yeah. My daughter said a similar thing to me about COVID, which was that she felt like she knew that I loved her before COVID, but she didn't see me that much.
Cause I was hiding at work, I was hiding from my marriage and hiding from feeling overwhelmed and trying to be all things to all people and make a stable foundation for us when that really wasn't something that even though my ex could, could get amazing jobs, he was a little all over the place. And so I felt like I had to be.
the strength and the foundation. And I also was miserable in my personal life. And so during COVID, I was just [00:34:00] a fucking around, you know, I was working in my bedroom from 8am to 7pm, but I was around and I was more available and I was more present and I do feel so much closer to my kids. Yeah. And now as a single mom, because I'm recently divorced, I feel much, much closer to them because I'm in for them.
Like their dad is in their life. They're working all that stuff out, but yeah, I'm the, you know, the stability, the whatever. And now that we all get to work from home, those of us who figured out how to pull that off, it's really changed, um, my family's life and, and made me less divided as a person.
Carmen: Yes. Yes. And I've been a solo parent since she was four. And it's definitely was terrifying at times, especially in the beginning. And her father's not in her life much anymore. So it's enabled us to be closer. And I love hearing that your kids [00:35:00] appreciate that because it's tough living here. It's tough being on your own.
It's tough when marriages break apart. And even if they need to, it's not easy. But if, let me tell you, if they know that you love them, and I'm not even being like pithy about it, like literally, I can't tell you how important that is. And you may feel them pulling away from you, especially when they're teenagers, and being angry at you because they know it's safe to be angry at you.
That's right. Because you still love them. Just love them, man. Like. They feel that, that's it. And, and I can tell you that, you know, she's going to go to college. Oh my God. She's going to go to college and she's managed to keep up. I'm very proud of her, but it's going to be hard, but I just need her to know that I, that mama loves her. That's it. That's it. We got her back.
Erin: Yeah. I'm so happy that that happened. I'm so happy she's okay. So scary.
Carmen, I've asked [00:36:00] everyone who's come on this podcast one question, which is, are there any deal terms in your life that you're ready to renegotiate? Even in like the way you handle your time or a certain relationship with someone or how you're handling your love life.
Carmen: That's nonexistent. Yeah, no, which is fine. Which is fine. I think one of the big things that I have come to realize because my life has not allowed me the space. It's the mental emotional space, um, for it is that it's fine. What a realization for me.
Erin: Yeah, especially in a culture that prizes coupledom over almost anything.
Carmen: I mean, look, I'm about to be an empty nester. Do I look forward with some hope? But unlike when I was [00:37:00] younger, it's not a need. It's not a, like a yearning burning. There is that when you're young, it's like, I got to do this by this date and this, but I'm going to be married by this time. I've like, you know, my relationships were, a lot of them were just fueled by this clock, right?
Or my first marriage was like, Oh my God, Latino power couple, you guys need to get married. Oh my God. There was a lot of that. And then it was like, Oh, my biological clock is ticking and I better have a child. Oh, look, there's the guy. I relate to that one. Husband. There you go. You know, and I'm like, what are you doing?
All of that stuff. It's really gone away. And I have, that's like one of those things that I had had in my head for decades. And now such peace and realizing that I have hope, like I live in that space of hope, which makes me happy that it may happen, but that I'm good. Also, by the way, I came out as queer.
So I've been, I've loved any gender. I don't care what gender you are. And I've been that way my whole life. And I was never [00:38:00] able to come out because, I mean, look, I already was a brown woman. I wasn't going to add something else. I wouldn't have had a career back then. So. Right. It took to my 40s for me to, after my second marriage, to really just be like, no, like, this is who I am.
But now I look forward to whoever, but I very much, this is going to sound so corny. I was about to say something so corny.
Erin: Say something corny.
Carmen: Guys, kind of love yourself though. Like that, no, Siri, I like, I'm so serious, like, I'm kind of like liking myself now. Such an epiphany that I hope everybody gets to when you're older.
Like you're kind of cool. Like, yeah, you know? And to the point of your podcast, my daughter says, well, I like got dressed up again one day. Cause it's been years. I haven't really done very much. And she's, this is like, [00:39:00] mom, horrible body. Hot it. I don't like. Girl, but it's like, yeah, it's a very different feeling and I hope everybody gets to feel that way.
Erin: Oh my god, I love that. Yeah, my daughter has a lot of commentary about me and my outfits and my, my, my stuff.
Carmen: Oh god, it gets worse.
Erin: I know, I'm sure, Jesus Christ. Um, a lot of, a lot of points of view in my house. I just want to do the voice you just did because it sounds so fun. I'll give you an example for me right now.
What is up? It's time. I am having a fucked up relationship with time. My time management is stressing me out all the time. I feel like I have too much. I don't have enough help and I'm not great at delegating this current work life that I've invented for myself and I need help. And I had a friend say to me, what do you charge hourly when you do consulting work?
Yeah. And I told her and she's like, well, that's what you're paying your assistant. And I'm like, Oh, [00:40:00] fuck, because I'm my assistant.
Carmen: Exactly. That's a thing. I'm going to scold you because that's where the money is. Okay. I know you charge. Cause if you knew how much these men made, Oh my God, I very much was like that person was like, I'd rather not do a job.
I think in terms of renegotiating, I have done so much renegotiating in my life that I have to say that what my life is like and how I am not who I am, but how I am in the past three years. is wildly different. If you knew me before, let's say 2012, I may know you, but you don't know me anymore. Know me, know me.
And that is very much a product of all the tragedies and knowledge. I found out who my real father was. I wrote this book. I lost my brother, my beloved brother, in the beginning of the pandemic. My daughter, all the things that have happened to me, lost my father. Erin, girl, I [00:41:00] am, I am not your happy go lucky guest.
I am, transformed. I'm transformed.
Erin: It's life, Carmen.
Carmen: Yeah, but let me assure people that all the tragedies that I've been through, um, just make it through. And, You'll be okay, but you'll be different. And that's not a bad thing.
Erin: It's okay to change. It's okay to change. It's okay to evolve. It's okay to be impacted by the things that happen to you.
Carmen: No, you have to be. My relationships with people have changed. My relationships with my family, obviously. I wrote a memoir. Um, but my relationships even with friends, who showed up for us when we needed it. Um, who showed up, um, or who continues to show up when. There's a surge and I can't do indoor dining.
Like who's willing to meet with me outside? I have redefined. And renegotiates so many relationships and ideas and definitions of what family is. [00:42:00] And it's not as populated a place, but it is a deep, loving place, for sure.
Erin: I love that. I love that. Thanks for taking the time to have this conversation today.
I have really enjoyed getting to know you in this, in this dialogue. And, um, I wish you all the best.
Carmen: Thank you so much, Erin. Thank you for having me.
Erin: Thanks for listening to Hotter Than Ever. I am loving reading your five star reviews on Apple podcasts. Thank you. Thank you. Please keep them coming. If you haven't left one yet, go on Apple podcasts and tell everyone what you think of the show.That would be a great help to me and to the new listeners like you who are looking to feel Hotter Than Ever.
Hotter Than Ever is produced by Erica Gerard and PodKit Productions. Our associate producer is Melody Carey. Music is by Chris Keating with vocals by Issa Fernandez.
I do not know about you hotties, but this fall has been really intense for me. I just want to cozy up in my [00:43:00] PJs and stay inside and stay warm. Stay warm and watch a movie or go to Mexico and swim in the clear blue ocean. I'm full of escape fantasies this time of year when everyone is pushing so, so hard to get it all done. I'm with your hot self as we push through to the holidays.
So come back next week for another inspiring conversation.