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, and more self expressed. I'm your host. Erin Keating.
Speaking of sexy, today's guest is writer Rebecca Woolf. She hasn't stopped writing and publishing personal essays since she was a teenager. Her column, "Sex and the Single Mom", and her memoir, "All of This", are both so up my alley, and I hope they'll be up yours too. I loved our conversation about balancing our personal sexuality with being moms and what it means when someone tells you you're more than just a mom. What do you mean we're all more than just a mom, aren't [00:01:00] we?
What is just a mom anyway? We talked about how we're raising our kids to be open minded and shame free, or at least trying to, and the worries and challenges we have with dating and relationships with men who are not the fathers of our children. It's a fun conversation. And I think you're going to love it.
Here it is.
Rebecca Woolf has worked as a personal essayist since her teens, contributing to countless publications, websites, and anthologies, most notably her own award winning personal blog, "Girls Gone Child." Rebecca, you're really good at titles, which attracted millions of visitors worldwide. Her essays have appeared in places like Entertainment Weekly, Huffington Post.
Parenting. She currently authors the column "Sex and the Single Mom" on Romper. com and the Braid newsletter on Substack. She's the author of "Rockabye, From Wild to Child", and the best selling memoir, which you all need to read, [00:02:00] "All of This", a memoir of death and desire, which is so raw and honest and gorgeous.
Welcome to Hotter Than Ever, Rebecca.
Rebecca: Thank you, Erin. Thank you for having me. It's an honor.
Erin: I am so happy to have you here. I love that you are a mom and you're writing about sex. Um, you have four kids, which is unfathomable to me. I have two. We both have twins. Why does it feel scandalous to be a mom writing about sex in the year 2023? Why are we all still so convinced that those are separate things?
Rebecca: I think there's such a fear of scandalizing our children in any way. I think, I don't think people look at children as people. I think that there's this real sort of need, especially as mothers to protect them from anything that could be potentially dangerous, hazardous, challenging, [00:03:00] grotesque, sexy.
There's just like this, you just don't go there with your kids. Like it's inappropriate to talk about certain things with your kids. And it comes from this very puritanical American way of thinking. I don't think people in France or Europe or like other countries necessarily got the same hangups that we do.
I remember going to a nude beach in France. in my late teens, or maybe it was like early twenties, and everyone is walking around half naked and thinking like, there's not a single kid here who cares. No one is paying attention to this. No one's sexualizing their mothers. They're walking around with their topless moms, and if that happened in America, everyone would be giggling, everyone would be sexualizing each other's moms.
Do you know what I mean? It was like, there's... When you keep kids from... Very natural human things, like bodies, like sexuality, you turn into a taboo subject, which is [00:04:00] why it's a taboo subject. It does not need to be if you normalize the language and normalize bodies and... It's almost like because we over sexualize so much in this country, we hide from sexuality. Because it's, you know, becomes this very taboo thing.
Erin: I agree. For me, I was married for 17 years. In the last 10 years of that marriage, I did not have sex. So sex was like not a part of our family life, our conversation, my mind, like none, none of it. I mean, it was lurking there, but yeah, playing and wait for my divorce.
Um, and now that I'm a mom who dates, who, you know, has an active sex life, I'm different. I show up differently. Part of that is because of sex, because I've reawakened that piece of myself. And then part of that is like, my kids are 12 now. They are now [00:05:00] dealing with their bodies changing, their own sort of burgeoning beginning, attractions and flirtations and all of those things.
I certainly don't verbally share anything, but my son came into the, my room the other day and he flopped down on my bed and I had a vibrator in my bed and he goes, Oh, this is there. And I was like, Oh my God. And then we just, I put it away. And we didn't talk about it, but like, that's my life. I'm also like, okay, so fucking what? So fucking what? That he knows I have a vibrator.
Rebecca: In that situation, cause I've had that happen too, it's happened several times where I've forgotten and I put things like behind pillows or whatever. And then I was like watching as they were being. like, uh, um. And I think in those situations, I'm super honest with my kids about everything.
But there are some times where, like, you can tell this is uncomfortable for them. And you read the [00:06:00] room, and you don't acknowledge it. And it's not that you're hiding it from them, or you feel shame about it. It's that you are respecting the fact that this was an accidental discovery. Yes. And we don't need to talk about it because there's nothing to talk about.
You saw it. I saw that you saw it. Okay. This happened, but we don't have to like make a thing about it. I definitely think there's a line between being really honest and open and sex positive with your kids and making them feel uncomfortable. And that's something that like you absolutely have to read the room about.
Erin: I let them lead. On those conversations, too. I let them lead. Like they now know I'm dating someone. They've seen pictures of him. My daughter's waved at him when he picked me up one time, but I'm not volunteering a huge amount of information about that relationship because if they want to know, they're going to ask, right?
And if they ask, I'm going to tell them the truth. I'm not going to tell them the adult parts of the relationship. That's none of their business. That's inappropriate. When we initially talked, you talked about the difference between [00:07:00] privacy and secrecy. And I'd love to dig into that a little bit.
Rebecca: Yeah. So it's so interesting because as you were talking about this, I started thinking about how my kids are going to reflect on their childhood and what they're going to think. I keep it very on the periphery. I have a lot of sex. Whether I'm in a relationship or not. Yeah. It's just a part of my weekly--
Erin: You take your medicine. You take your medicine.
Rebecca: Yeah. Yeah. Yes.
Erin: I hear you.
Rebecca: But it's really important for me to come home before bedtime. So I will come home. Just with like makeup all over my face, hair all disheveled, and be like, Hey guys!
And I know they know. All of them know. Cause, and I've been doing this for years, right? Like, it's not like I'm sleeping over at anyone's house and then waking up and coming over like normal looking mom. Like, I'm coming home completely fucked up. Like, askew, like clothes are missing, I'm wearing something that I didn't even leave in.
It's like the equivalent of a walk of shame, which [00:08:00] obviously like a walk of pride. But it's the single mom version coming home to her kids who are all just like sitting around watching TV in the living room being like, what's up guys? And. They don't say anything about it. Like they kind of give me this, like, did you have fun, mom?
I'm like, yeah, you know, and then they don't talk about it, but they're going to be like, oh, mom. She was just always like coming home with her bra on her head, her mascara at her ankles, and just totally like, who's ready for bed. Did you guys brush your teeth? Yeah. But I kind of love that. I kind of loved I'm me, but I'm also leaving and, you know, changing my look.
Erin: Yeah. And also you're being a responsible parent.
Rebecca: Totally.
Erin: Your last Substack post on The Braid, which everyone should subscribe to, you talk about someone giving you the compliment that you're more than just a mom and you felt compelled to write about that. And [00:09:00] I'd love to talk about that too, because what is fucking just a mom? What is--no one is just in anything.
Rebecca: Yeah, so that was what sort of triggered the post with someone like, I'm subscribing to your sub stack because you're more than just a mom, which is something I've gotten my entire career writing about being a mom, which I've been doing for almost 20 years. So someone had said that, and I know they said it as a compliment, and it's something that I've heard before, but I was like, why does anyone think or feel that anyone is like, we're all just, we're all more than just moms.
Where does this come from where it feels anomalous for someone who has had children or is raising children for that to overcome their identity completely, a hundred percent. There's no Venn diagram. It's just a circle. And I just wanted to push into that and challenge that idea and recognize that none of, like, that this actually hurts us because if we can't come at the world, [00:10:00] reveal who we are as multi faceted people, flawed, fucked up, we have heartbreak and anger and we're horny and slutty and funny and mean and fucked up and like all the different things that men are allowed to be regardless of whether they have children Women are not once you have children.
You're a mom. You have to be a good mom You have to be nice and kind you have to cook. You have to look a certain way You have to act a certain way. You can't talk about sex. You can't come home with your fucking Shit askew in front of your children. You need to hide your humanness from the world and only show or project this sort of Like, wifely, motherly, chipper, everything's okay, everything's gonna be okay, false sense of everything.
Makes me feel really defensive, not only of myself, but of all women and mothers. Yeah. Because our humanity is, we contain multitudes, right? And by every [00:11:00] time we hide those parts of ourselves, we're basically telling the people that tell us that we're not allowed to talk about sex or et cetera. We're telling them, yeah, you're right. Um, so I think it's revolutionary to push against that and to be really outspoken in your humanness. Especially when you're a mom.
Erin: I have always sort of chafed against the mommy culture because I was a career person. I was a professional person and I worked so hard to get to these positions of authority and, and creative decision making and all this stuff in the media business.
Like I was a comedy person. I was a TV person. That was my thing. And then I wanted to have kids. And especially having twins, which is so fucking overwhelming. Reconciling being all these different people at the same time was so challenging for me because I felt really out of step with what my, my friends and my community was doing [00:12:00] around motherhood.
I was still showing up as a mom. I was still being a mom. I'm still the most hands on parent. I have my kids. five percent of the time. It's all me. Fuck. Yeah. However. I think I let myself shut down a big chunk of myself in order to both mom and have a professional life. What I didn't have was a personal life. And so now I'm having a personal life with a vengeance and it's fucking awesome. But I walk a line with my kids because I have to get babysitters all the time and they know. Like, it's a non negotiable. I am not home on Wednesday nights. That's just how it goes. I'm probably not home on Saturday nights. And when they're with their dad, they don't ask what I'm doing. And I'm not offering.
Rebecca: Yeah, there's, there's definitely, like, not, uh, a method to my madness. But there was a period when I was only home with them. Like, I wasn't going out. I wasn't dating. I was, like, taking a... [00:13:00] massive break from it. What's the word?
Like when you're like, don't have sex. What is it? Cellibacy.
Erin: You're like, I don't know what that word is.
Rebecca: I had like six months of celibacy where I was like, nope. And then I started going out again and they were like, wait, what? They started freaking out to the point where I would literally leave the house and they would start FaceTiming me one at a time.
And then I would come home and they'd be like waiting up for me. They got so used to me being with them all the time that they were just fucking with me at one point where I'd leave and like two hours later they would start calling and I was like, You people know exactly what's going on right now and you're just like fucking with me like they're all fucking but I had to really say to them, you guys, I am your only parent.
I am in the car for you guys, sometimes six hours a day. commute to her school is two hours every single day, just one school alone. So just one direction. I am so with them. And I was [00:14:00] like, if I don't have an escape pod, if I don't have a place to go, I will lose my shit. You guys, they had to have like a real conversation to your point that it's really important for me to have time away from you and not just away from you working, which is what happens, right? When they're at school, this is work time. But like my own time.
Erin: Yeah. I think that's what women give up though when they have kids. And it's almost like an unspoken contract where it's like, Hey, anytime that you had to do the youth stuff, like you can shove that in the cracks and corners of your life, but no, you're, you really are.
for these children until they're fucking 18 years old. And I can't do that. And I didn't have a mom who did that either. But my mom had every weekend to herself because I was at my dad's. So, you know, I mean, it was definitely a sign that I needed to get divorced when I was jealous of all my girlfriends who were divorced who had free time.
Because I was like, [00:15:00] what is that? Because especially when they're really little. I mean, I think until they were 10, I could hardly see the forest for the trees. Right. And you have four and you are a widow.
Rebecca: Yeah. So I don't have free weekends. I've never had free weekends. In fact, it's like the opposite of having free weekends because you recognize that you're their only parent.
So you have to be twice the parent that you were. So not only is it just you, it's you and like, you have to sort of clone yourself because you think you're so outnumbered. And to make sure that you're prioritizing them all equally, which is impossible. So you're always losing that battle, but trying to, trying to make sure they all feel seen and validated in completely different ways at all times.
And also my kids haven't had a dad for five years. I've been their dad, like all the things that I think typically dads do, like teach their sons to shave or to parallel park or to change a tire, like how to fix a broken toilet, all this stuff. I [00:16:00] taught them. I sort of took on and started to feel really protective of my home in the way that I was able to like tap into my own masculinity in this way.
It was like as soon as he died, I would take the dog for the walk at one in the morning. And the things that used to scare me or make me feel like I shouldn't do this, the man should do this. I became really like, Oh no, I'm the fucking man now, bitches. Like started to see myself, not just as a mom, but as I dad too.
And what does a father represent? What is he supposed to bring to the table? How do, how do you know when people say they have daddy issues, what does that look like? What does that mean? What does it mean to have healthy men in your life? How can I emulate that with my own body, is it possible? So I'm mom and I'm also dad, you know, trying to be, and it's also, you know, it's, it's really hard to date.
Erin: Well, that's what I'm wondering as you're talking, Rebecca, like you can't ever spend the night somewhere else. You're [00:17:00] trying to be mom and dad. You have four kids who you have to be the chauffeur chef, all the things for.
Rebecca: You have to be the fun parent and the strict parent, right? You're not bouncing ideas. I mean, for better and for worse, like, I don't have to call up another co parent be like, What do you think about this? I get to make all right myself, which is I love that, actually. But to your point, it's also like, I can't It's a lot.
Erin: It's a lot. And so I get that you're running out, trying to fuck in the middle of the day.
Rebecca: I'm literally, I'm like, okay, we have an hour, let's go.
Erin: I get it from a sex perspective and maybe we're similar in that, like I have been able since my marriage to have sexual relationships that are not about being boyfriend girlfriend, just about being sex partners. I'm now in a boyfriend girlfriend thing and I'm liking that too, but that doesn't seem to be.
Is that on the [00:18:00] table for you? What's on the table for you in your own mind, in your own definition of how your life's supposed to go, or what's possible for you at this moment?
Rebecca: So this is like really complicated and there's therapy for this. For me, like casual sex is really easy and I don't, I've never connected sex and love before, which is for better and for worse, which comes from trauma and comes from feeling very, like there's a lot going on there.
In my head, I've sort of in the same way. Before Hal got sick, when our marriage was really bad, in my head I was like, well, when my kids move out, I'll leave you. I've had sort of a similar thought about dating. Like, when my kids move out, I can be in a serious relationship again. I don't know if I have it in me emotionally, time wise, to do that before they all move out.
But a lot of it comes from my fear of bringing men into my home, because I had a very tumultuous marriage [00:19:00] with a man who was very difficult to live with, with a terrible temper. And I get so triggered by like the smallest fight in a relationship that I freak out. So for example, I've been basically dating somebody on and on for two years. Like we've, we've broken up, bought back together--
Erin: You said, just Freudian, Freudian wise, you said on and on, not on and off.
Rebecca: I did. That's really funny. It's the same thing. Cause even though it's over, it's clearly not over. And that's sort of been our thing. And he came over, he had dinner at my house. He met my kids once we had been seriously dating after casually dating and breaking up for six, seven months, maybe eight months.
Finally, I was like, okay, you can meet my kids. And it's serious. Like we've traveled together. Like we love each other. He comes over, we have this great dinner. I freak the fuck out. And we basically broke up the next day. And a lot of that had to do with me. A lot of it had to do with him. It was like, we both lost it, but I definitely [00:20:00] contributed to that.
It was very Uncomfortable for me, clearly, and I wasn't ready to do that, and I freaked out. So, I think for me, the idea of being in a relationship with somebody is, is one thing. I'm really open to like, being in a relationship, a monogamous relationship even, like we were monogamous. I've had non monogamous relationships.
I've had all kinds of, um, but I don't know if I'm ready to bring somebody into my home still. It's been five years and I'm still raw as fuck. I'm not traumatized by house death so much as I'm traumatized by The years I spent with him.
Erin: Yes, and that's what your memoir is about. Um, for, for listeners. That's what all of this is about. It's about being in a relationship with your children's dad and wanting to get out of that relationship knowing that you wanted to divorce him and then he got sick and died. [00:21:00]
Rebecca: Yeah, so I think for me, and I think this is an issue, I talk to widows constantly about this. There's a lot of not wanting to introduce your kids to a new partner because you don't want them to have to lose them too, which I also totally understand.
I don't have that worry as much. My kids are older. It's taken me years to undo a lot of the trauma that our home held, like a lot of from the marriage. Conflict. Yeah, like my kids walked on eggshells in the same way as I did. Nobody walks on eggshells here anymore. I live in a house now. My son moved out.
He's in college. It's just girls. We're all literally on our periods at the same time, walking around naked. It is like the most estrogen filled, just tampons and pads. As far as I can see, I don't know if you watch Better Things, but that's literally my house. It's like just wall to wall vagina, right? And so I feel like super protective of [00:22:00] my team, and I feel super protective as their mom, but also as their dad, like I feel like this really masculine sort of man of the house protection, and when men come into my house, I feel the same way probably men feel, I feel like threatened, like this is my fucking house, I'm the fucking man here, I fix the toilets, I change the light bulbs, I tell my son to shave, don't even come into my house and look at my kids like you could be anywhere near a father figure for that. You know what I mean? Like there's a response that I'm having that I think is like really specific to my own experience. And so I'm trying to like explore that and understand it because I want people to come in. I want my kids to have men in their lives. I want them to see their mom in a healthy relationship because they've never seen it.
I want them to see that. My son just left the house and he was never modeled that. And that's. scares me. Like, you know, he's such a kind, sweet, good man. And I believe that he will find someone that appreciates that. But I feel like I failed in this way by not modeling a [00:23:00] healthy domestic relationship to him before he left. So now I'm like, Oh my God, my girls are going to leave soon.
Erin: I got to model this. I got to model this quickly. I got to get my shit together so that I can help them. Yeah. Yeah. But we can't fucking force the timeline on anything and we can't evolve faster than we evolve and we can't get over things until we're over things.
Of course we're all going to be in therapy and of course we're all going to do the work, you know, if we're inclined in that way. You also kind of have to just accept that there's certain realities for your kids that come from being your child and come from having lost their dad young. And do you live in the same house that you lived in with your husband?
Rebecca: Yes, we moved here about a year before he died. So we've been here for seven years now. And I would ideally like to leave but we have a great house and I have a very good Yeah. For where we [00:24:00] live and what we have, and I haven't been able to find anything comparable, which is why I have to drive so far to my kid's school and I'd be living in a really great neighborhood. But yeah, I still get his mail.
Erin: Don't they know by now?
Rebecca: His stuff's still here. I never got rid of it. In fact, I got a letter in the mail or like a, there was a, I think it was like a money market account. I didn't even know he opened literally like last week. I was like, Yeah. Okay. I don't even know about this account.
There's like shit that still comes up five years later that I'm like, huh? Like you what? You did what? It's really interesting. It's like never ending. I still live in the same, I still live in the same house. I still sleep in the same bed, which I guess is probably weird to people, but I don't. I feel like it's weird for me.
Erin: You said something in your, in your Substack, you said you've come to believe that every single woman leads a secret life. And I want to hear more about that because I definitely am living a secret life where I have a relationship and we do fun [00:25:00] things and we have sex and I don't have kids. Because he doesn't see them or I talk about them constantly because that's my life, but he doesn't know them yet is yet.
Right. I don't know. I don't know anything. I'm just trying to do this thing where I'm getting love and affection and being emotionally vulnerable in a relationship that's completely outside of my home life with my kids. So I feel like I am living a secret life, even though now my kids are aware that there is someone in my life.
Yeah. And I feel a bunch of ways about it. I feel like, yay for me, you know, and I feel extremely happy. And then I also feel like, is it my destiny to be just infinitely compartmentalized? Like, is that just how life goes for me? Or will everything integrate and knit together somehow? Or maybe I don't want that. I just don't have the answers to anything.
Rebecca: Yeah, but I don't think you're supposed to or have to and I think there's this, it's [00:26:00] really interesting because you know, I write this, this dating column, sex and dating columns specifically for single moms. And the question that I get the most is the thing that like is always so surprising to me is why people are in such a hurry to blend their family.
It's like, first of all, to me, that's a nightmare. Like my worst nightmare is a blended family. My worst nightmare, and maybe that's because I have so many kids and I also know that I would just take on the responsibility of more kids if I was blended family with a man. Sorry, no offense men, but it's fucking true.
Yeah, that's how it generally goes. And I'm like, I'm gonna be driving two more kids around? Like, what? I have to get an even bigger car than this giant fucking car that I already have? What? The idea of it to me is, in a million years, I wouldn't want to do that. Like, I mainly date men who are way older than I am whose kids have already left their homes.
I like them old. Or like a lot older than I am and with kids who are out, I've never dated anyone seriously with small children. They've always been older with older children. And so even the [00:27:00] idea of having that blended family, but so many people want that or think that that's what they need to do. So many of the questions are about how do you introduce your kids to a partner or how do you blend your families or relationships that are really tricky with stepchildren or front or like all of the dynamic between all of those things. I so can't relate to wanting that or seeking that out. And to your point about compartmentalizing, I feel like People in the last five years have like felt sorry for me. Like, Oh, she's really closed herself off to love. She's really closed herself off to like having a family with someone else or starting over with someone else and never this like, yeah, fuck. Yeah. There's a sort of societal expectation. to like start again--
Erin: And do it in exactly the same way you did it the first time. That's so interesting. There's like four versions of how you do it and you have to pick one and [00:28:00] that's actually not true.
And that's part of the like 2023 thing I've ever made. It's like, have we not? evolved to a place where we can make our own choices. We can do things our own way. We can be in our own integrity and our own like ethics around our relationships with our children and the way that we handle parenting and still be women and still be sexual.
I think one thing that I lost being in a conventional relationship and doing this, keeping up with the Jones's life was fucking fun. And this sense that like, I was a punk rock teenager. Like I miss that girl. I want that back in my life. That sense of like, fuck it, we can do anything. Break the rules. I don't care. I need that. That turns out to be super important to me in my fifties. I skipped it for 20 years. I'm back to that.
Rebecca: I love that. And like, you're creating a new paradigm and modeling that for your children, too, that they don't just need to fall into the old shit. That like, once you get [00:29:00] out of a relationship, you don't just get back into a new one.
Once you lose a spouse, you don't just replace one with a new one, right? Like, you get to live your life however you want to live it. You get to date, you get to not date, you get to have sex, you get to not have sex, you get to have sex slash not date. You can do it however you want to. And also that it's so fluid, right?
Like, right now, this is what I need. I recognize how fast my kids are going to grow up, especially now that my son's in college. I'm like, oh my God, my girls are going to leave too super soon. So for me, it's like, I can say this is not what I want right now, but not close myself off.
Erin: Well, because you've seen so much change in your life and you know that change is life.
You cannot write this. You cannot plan this. We act like we can plan everything. We act like there's some sort of Foregone conclusion about how we're supposed to live or going to live or what's going to happen to us. But [00:30:00] your story really such a great example of like, yeah, you don't know. You really don't know.
So you better try to be authentic in the moment as much as you can. I love that you say there's no pearl clutching allowed in your house. What does that mean?
Rebecca: Oh my God, yeah. My biggest fucking beat is shame. I think that shame is the root of all evil. Shame is the root of all. Everything that's wrong with the world with everything.
And I think that so many people, their shame keeps them from living authentic lives, right? If you're able to get to a point where you don't feel shame about your body, about the people that you love, about the way you present yourself to the world. If you live a shame free existence, you're free.
So for me anytime anyone does anything wrong or has a regret or is mad at somebody If you come at that with shame or judgment or anything that's patronizing or condescending I'm, like that's [00:31:00] my thing. It's like you can say the f word everyone in this house just We all cursed at each other all day long. Totally fine with me.
Let's all, whatever. We drop all the f bombs all day. But as soon as someone starts shaming somebody or calling saying someone can't wear a certain thing, you can wear whatever the fuck you want. If you want to walk out of here naked, like, right on. There's no, you have too much makeup on, or your boobs are showing.
We're so like, You do you, you do you. That's the rule. That's our household rule, is you do you, and you support your sisters and me, and I support you. We all support each other for doing you, because that's something that I have no tolerance for. I've surrounded myself with the most amazing group of friends who I've never felt judged by, who I would never judge back, who could literally tell me, you That they're having an affair with every single person on their street.
And I would be like, I love you. And how can I support you feel really strongly that like, that's my job. That's what [00:32:00] I want to leave the world with. And my children with, and my friends with, and my community with is I want to create spaces. In my physical life, an online space where people feel like they can talk and be honest and true to their feelings and express themselves and not feel anything but supported for it.
It's super important to me.
Erin: I love it. I love it. Um, so Rebecca, I've asked everyone who's come on the podcast one question, which is, are there deal terms? In any area of your life agreements that you've made, somehow, literally, metaphorically, logistically, that you are ready to renegotiate.
Rebecca: I know this is like probably a cheap way of answering this question, but I actually don't feel like I operate that way.
I feel very connected to the part of me that is sort of lawless, not only with [00:33:00] other people, but myself for better or for worse, I think that probably my biggest criticism as a parent is that I am so lawless. And maybe as a person, and maybe as someone in a relationship too. I'm really sort of open and like down to clown with whatever all the time.
If I do have a role, it's very easy for you to talk me out of it. Like, I'm the biggest sucker ever. Like, you should come home at this time. Well, this is why I shouldn't. Oh, all right. That's, that's fair. Yeah. Okay, cool. Come home at two in the morning. I don't believe in rules, honestly. I believe that we should have our own set of them.
But I believe that so much of our... What is right and wrong comes from what we've been told and taught societally. And I'm very into challenging that at all times. And also when my kids to challenge authority, the same way I do, even if I'm the authority figure, I think it depends on the children you have.
I think that I, I know how to parent my kids. And I think that I do a really good job. And I do think that they have [00:34:00] very strong boundaries. I want to just make sure that clear that my way of parenting my kids is so specific to who I am and who they are, which is why I think that parenting books and any sort of parenting, anything telling people how to parent is such a bullshit because we're all so different. There is not one way.
Erin: Yeah. You know your kids and yourself better than anyone.
Rebecca: Yeah. Totally.
Erin: I love this conversation. I want to hang out and be lawless with you.
Rebecca: Let's do it. We both live in the same town. We can totally do it. Let's do it. We'll do the next one. We'll do this next podcast. Doing something, something like...
Erin: Casually illegal?
Rebecca: Not like super illegal. Only like sort of illegal. Like... Oh no. Jay, walking
Erin: We, we'll figure out something lawless to do. Rebecca Woolf, thank you so much for coming on Hotter Than Ever. Everybody subscribe to the Braid and stay in touch with Rebecca and her thoughts online.
Rebecca: Thank you. That was great.
Erin: Thank you for [00:35:00] listening to Hotter Than Ever. If you enjoyed this honest, direct and hilarious conversation, I would so appreciate it if you would drop us a little bit of feedback, either in the form of a DM on Instagram or in a more public facing way as a review on Apple Podcasts.
I live for reading your feedback about the show and hearing from people about how the things we talk about here are resonating with you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being part of this growing community.
Hotter Than Ever is produced by Erica Gerard and PodKit Productions. Our official Associate Producer is Melody Carey. Music is by Chris Keating with vocals by Issa Fernandez.
Come back next week and listen to the amazing conversation I had with, uh, I'm not going to tell you. You're going to have to come back and find out. Come on, hottie. You can be patient. Or maybe if you can't, go back and listen to some back episodes. That'll tide you over. Have [00:36:00] an awesome week.