Episode 252: You Don't Have To Forgive with Carmen Rita Wong
Kate self-soothes with a nostalgia TV show and Doree takes us back to the beginning of the free mug movement conversation. Then, Carmen Rita Wong comes on the podcast to talk about how setting boundaries resulted in her being labeled difficult, navigating familial trauma as described in her memoir Why Didn’t You Tell Me, and the joy she finds in the ritual of makeup and skincare.
Photo Credit: Sylvie Rosokoff
Mentioned in this Episode
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Transcript
Kate: Hello and welcome to Forever35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I'm Kate Spencer.
Doree: And I am Doree Shafrir.
Kate: And we are not experts.
Doree: No. But we're two friends who like to talk a lot about serums.
Kate: Friendly reminder. You can visit our website Forever35podcast for links to everything we mentioned on the show. Our Instagram is @Forever35podcast. You can find the Forever35 community on Facebook groups where the password is serums. You can also shop our favorite products shopmy.us/Forever35
Doree: And sign up for our newsletter Forever35podcast.com/newsletter. If you want to reach us, we have a voicemail and text number (781) 591-0390, and our email is Forever35podcast@gmail.com. Kate, we're doing a live show
Kate: Forever35 live in celebration of five years together making this podcast.
Doree: It is happening.
Kate: You can come hang with us, experience a version of this podcast in real time with other Forever35 listeners.
Doree: There's going to be games. There's going to be fun.
Kate: There's going to be memories, there's going to be product reviews
Doree: Memories made
Kate: memories made.
Doree: There's going to be merch launches. I mean, it's all happening.
Kate: And most importantly, we're going to be there.
Doree: Yeah. So tickets are $10. They go up to $12.50 Day of show.
Kate: And Doree, we forgot to mention, this is a digital experience.
Doree: Oh, yes. this is a digital experience.
Kate: You can join no matter where you are.
Doree: Anyone can join. You can do it from the comfort of your own home. It will be, you can have a viewing party too, if you want. It's going to be at 5:00 PM Pacific, 8:00 PM Eastern on February 22nd. That's a Wednesday. And yeah, you can get your tickets moment.co, moment.co/Forever35.
Kate: We'll see you there.
Doree: We will see you there.
Kate: In fact, the experience is going to be a more modern version of my current self soothing TV show.
Doree: Go on.
Kate: I have started watching Cheers. The television show Cheers, which ran in the eighties and early nineties. One night was like, you know what sounds so good to me. The thought of watching Cheers felt like it felt the same as taking a hot bath. And I turned on the first ever episode of Cheers, which I've seen before. I've seen a lot of Cheers as a kid. My mom watched it, and I've rewatched a lot of it as an adult, but not in this way. And I turned it on and I can't know what came over me. I don't know why it's this show. Oh, well, I have some ideas as to why, but it has been extremely soothing. And I think part of it is that I don't have to sit and watch it with my full attention. I even kind of just have put it on my phone and then done other things. So I'm almost just kind of hearing it in the background. There are those people who fall asleep to the sound of tv.
Doree: Yes. My husband is one of them.
Kate: He's one. So I'm not, that thought stresses me out, but this is almost as close as I've gotten to understanding it.
Doree: So two things. One is that there was a New Yorker article in the last week about ambient TV watching, and the show they talk about is Emily in Paris as the perfect show to have on in the background. And the other thing is, have you talked to my husband about Cheers?
Kate: No, but I know it's his favorite show. Or is that Frazier?
Doree: Yeah, I would say Cheers and Frazier. And so I totally see it, how it is a comfort TV watch.
Kate: There's also something, I think, and the familiarity it, and I don't know if this resonates with you or anybody else, but I sometimes get a deep longing for when I was a kid, not my childhood, but the feeling of kind of comfort and safety that I had as a child, which I know many people don't experience in their childhood. But I was very fortunate to have that kind of home life. And something about just Cheers on in the background. It reminds me of my mom sitting in bed. It reminds me of a simpler time of my childhood where there are no cell phones. It reminds me of Boston and just that energy and which is where we're from. Just something about it. It's like it's an old sweatshirt that you've had for 30 years, and that is really, for whatever reason, I'm craving that feeling right now. I'm really craving it. I don't know if I'm craving a time pre Covid, pre-internet, I don't know. But where my head is right now is like 1983 Beacon Hill with Sam Malone.
Doree: I'm into that for you
Kate: Also. It's so dated that you have to just watch it and be like, oh, Jesus Christ.
Doree: Yeah. Is there anything that you've seen that you're sort of like, Ooh,
Kate: Oh, every two seconds there's something. So there's that. You know, have to watch it with a scrutinizing eye. Scrutinizing, Nope, not a word. With scrutiny. You watch it, watch it, understanding. But all of taking, and Diane is constantly, Sam kisses her in the fourth episode without any consent. Just it's like, ugh.
Doree: Oh wow.
Kate: Yeah. Yep. Yeah, yeah. But otherwise, aside from those big glaring holes, there's something, it's been cozy for me. Well, that's what I've been up to, Doree. I've just been watching Cheers and taking deep breaths and just trying to take everything day by day. That's my self-care right now.
Doree: I'm into this. I have an update for everyone. I dunno if you remember Kate, actually, this might have actually led to our free mugging discussion because okay, we were talking about the Ember mug, the Yes mug that keeps your coffee at a specific temperature.
Kate: Indeed.
Doree: And you were talking about how much you like it, and I said, I like it, but I find that having an open mug of coffee around me, I, it's like dangerous. I'm worried I'm going to knock it over. I drink coffee by my computer. It just doesn't seem like a great idea. So I haven't been using it. The PR marketing person for Ember who had initially sent us these mugs immediately reached out and was like, I, I said, I should have gotten the travel mug. And she said, Hey, we started making lids for the regular Ember mug. Would you like me to send you one? And I said, yes, I would, please. So she did send me one, and I have been using it, and I'm happy to say that I, it has made me use the Ember a lot more. I like it. It doesn't stay on quite as well as a Yeti lid, for example. And I don't know if that's because it was kind of retrofitted to it. You know what I mean? The Ember was not intended to have a lid, so it doesn't stick on quite as securely as you might want, but it's secure enough that I have it on my desk. Yeah. So it's been great. So if you are me a rational human who does not like,
Kate: Wow, that was a real dig that you got in there.
Doree: Oh, I really enjoy this.
Kate: I heard it. I heard it. I know you do.
Doree: And you've been hesitating about taking the plunge on an Ember mug. And I know they're expensive, so they're not in everyone's budget, but if it's something that you have been eyeing they now do make a lid. So just wanted to report back. Let everyone know that I've been using it.
Kate: I'm happy for you. I keep mine at my desk, but I don't have that lid on. I live on the edge.
Doree: Oh, I know you don't. Kate Spencer
Kate: Living on the Edge over here.
Doree: Well, Kate, yes. Should we introduce our guest?
Kate: Oh my goodness. Yeah. Our guest today is Carmen Rita Wong. We had so much fun talking to her. Carmen is a writer and a producer and a nonprofit board director. Her beautiful memoir, Why Didn't You Tell Me? Came out last year and she has served on the board of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. And you might also know her as the former co-creator and television host of On the Money on CNBC. And she's just brilliant, hilarious, insightful, and has such an interesting life story.
Doree: She was really, she's a really fascinating person, and I loved her book.
Kate: Do you want to tell us a little, well, what should we let Carmen tell our listeners about it?
Doree: Let's let Carmen tell us about her book.
Kate: Well, first of all, Carmen, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. We're thrilled to have you on to discuss your book and your life experiences but we always get started by asking our guests to share a self-care practice that is a part of their own life. So if you don't mind kicking things off with us, we can take a minute if you need to brainstorm. But what is something that you do for self care?
Carmen: I do a couple things. Well, first of all, just that breath that I just did, I do that? Yeah. I consider that self-care because sometimes I literally almost feel like I'm forgetting to breathe. But what I do every morning, and I've gotten into this practice I have as many of us do, maybe once you get over the age of 25, have some back issues which started for me from waiting tables when I was a teenager.
Kate: Oh, interesting. So standing all the time, or was it the kind of bending and picking up of stuff.
Carmen: I was sometimes I also had to bust my own tables, and I was on my feet 12 hours a day and picking up giant 40 pounds and of dishes and stuff. So I get up in the morning, and I'm not a yoga practitioner, but I do these stretches like cat cow, and I do downward. I do stretches in the morning, and it's like the second the alarm goes off, I don't look at my phone. I get down on the floor, I do my stretches five minutes max, and then I don't look at my phone for until I get my daughter ready for school, and we're all out and da da duh. Because let me tell you, I used to get sucked into that thing. And it's not the best way to start your day. For sure.
Kate: So this is an aspirational practice for me. The idea of I don't touch my phone until all my kids have left the house or something, something like that. Was there a moment where you were just like, I'm had enough, I can feel my pull to this smartphone and I need to curb it. Was there a learning curve in kind of cutting the cord in that way? Or one day? Did you just have enough?
Carmen: I've done it on and off for years but this January, of course, with the new Year, I've definitely started seriously holding back on social media. It's not for the greatest reason. It's because my daughter and I, we had to limit our lives. Our lives used to be full of travel and hosting and events and galas and constantly being around people. She's now on year two of long Covid and she's 16, and I can't do these things. And it's very dangerous if she gets it again. So our lives have become very, very small and limited. So this January I decided looking at social media, I love my friends, I love my people, but also seeing everyone kind of out there in a world that I used to be in was difficult. And so it was self-care to be able to go, okay, it doesn't make me feel good. I'm happy for everybody, but I feel like I'm living in another place and missing so many things. So I'm just going to step back and focus on creating again, creating myself, writing more and creating and those sort of things. But on and off. Cause I'll tell you, when it first started, when I had my daughter, and here she was a toddler, and I'm hosting and producing and writing a daily TV show and news. The news business does not sleep and it doesn't stop. But as someone who doesn't able to have a great relationship with my mother, my parents and such, I wasn't about to have that happen again. So while I had the show, I put down a rule, which for someone as in the business, especially if you're the first time having a show, no one puts down rules. Of course, I got labeled difficult, but I said, I'm not looking at my phone between 6:00 PM and 8:00 PM because that's when I'm going to make her dinner, read her books, give her a bath and put her to bed, and she needs my attention, period. Because she was starting to grab at the phone and be Mama, no. And I was like, this is not, no, this is not good. So that's when I started the practice of being able to say, okay, this good's down the world doesn't end. She has my attention, or I have my own attention. Whatever you need you realize that things don't end, things don't fall apart. If you're off for a couple of hours, they really don't. They'll still be there. Whatever you miss, you can scroll back. And if someone really, really needs me, I always say, if I'm working on writing chapters or outline, I need intenses concentration, I'll put my little OOO on my email and say, if you need to reach me urgently, text me or email my assistant. And it works because can't, it's really hard to create if it's ping, ping, ping, ping, you know, have to be able to focus and it's better for my sanity.
Doree: It's so important to be able to set those boundaries. And I'm so glad you were able to set them, because I feel like some workplaces just respect those boundaries.
Carmen: Yeah. Oh, it was a battle,
Doree: especially in the media,
Carmen: Doree, it was a battle as you know, because you both had been in media. It was a battle. I did pay a price, they were not happy. And it led to changes in what I chose to do for work, for example, when that contract ended and I got an offer from another network, I ended up having to turn it down and building my own business instead because they wanted to be able to ship me to whatever country. I mean, I'm a homegrown American, and they were like, Carmen Wong, we're going to send you to China. I'm like, excuse me. Yo hablo espanol. It was very, and they refused to budge on the contract, and I lost out on a long term on air TV career pretty much. I opted out, because I was going through divorce. I became a single parent and I was like, no, she needs me. And I don't get an extra turn. I don't get another chance to do this. So I need to be my own boss. And frankly, as you may have read in the book, I did more than twice is better. I did so much better on my own then I did as an employee. So.
Kate: Well, you raise an interesting point too, which is this idea of setting a boundary gets you labeled as difficult. Oh, yeah. Especially I think if you are a woman, person of color, basically anyone who's not a white man essentially. And that is so interesting to me because we have no cultural boundaries set up. We have no parental leave, we have, there's not a lot of ways in which the systems are set up to create boundaries for us. And when we do it on our own there's so much pushback. And it requires, I mean, it's courageous to do that because there is often you are often penalized, as you mentioned.
Carmen: Yeah. Well, thank you. But I'd say also terrifying.
Kate: Yeah.
Carmen: I have lived a lot of my life in a lot of fear in different ways because I haven't had a safety net ever. And so you may think, oh, that would make me more inclined towards something that's super safe and low key and chill. But no, it actually made me the opposite because I definitely had full faith that every win that I had since I was a kid, I just kept stacking 'em up and standing on him every win, whether it was an A, Or this nun, thought I would get pregnant by 18, and no, I didn't graduated and then went to college, blah, blah. And I just keep stacking them up and just being and standing on them and making that my foundation of understanding that if I live my life with my main number one value is fear, it's will completely stagnate me and rot. Right? Yeah. It'll make me make the wrong choices. So I decided I wasn't going to let fear run my show. I saw it happen to my mother. I learned from the people around me in their lives, and it was terrifying. Trust me. I was terrified. There's different than, there's a difference between leading with fear and being terrified. Yeah. I was leading with the value of what is important to me, period. And I was not willing to compromise in a lot of those values. It did not make me an easy, put that in quotes, employee for some white males, mostly especially in finance, because they looked at me and expected to be able to push me around and to keep me quiet, and then I would be a smiley puppet and that sort of thing. Because everyone thinks, well, she's not going to walk away. She's not going to step up. And that's what they think of us. We're not going to actually step up and say something. And so that when you challenge their power, of course they're going to say, you're difficult. I, I can't tell you how many shows I lost because of that label. That unfortunately stuck with me because I refused to be pliable in the terms of I am a very fair, obviously, I mean, you can ask any of my former colleagues, especially at places like Planned Parenthood where I'm dealing with politics and all kinds of people, man, I can really get people to work together and manage people really real well. But if you tell me to compromise my values and say, no, we have to be able to reach you 24 7 no matter what, pick up your phone and answer within five minutes. And I'm try. I'm trying to raise a child. No. So I'm difficult.
Kate: Okay. Well, let's take a quick break and we'll be right back.
All right, we are back.
Doree: You brought up your mother and your family, and I thought that would be a good kind of segue into talking about your wonderful memoir. Thank you. Which I think Kate and I both really loved. For the benefit of our listeners, could you just briefly tell us about your book and then also just what it was writing this very personal and emotionally wrenching memoir.
Carmen: I'm like, let me give you a moment with that. Yeah, it's been a lot, but it's been enormous in so many ways. More good ways than bad, but just enormous. And I think I wish this for everyone to create or achieve or do something that you want to do so badly that when you do it, it's just the enormity of it. There's a level of just peace and satisfaction and also, holy, can I swear? Holy shit.
Doree: Oh yeah, yeah. Let it all out.
Carmen: Ok, good, good. Cause yeah, I'm a trucker, holy shit. Like, what the fuck did I do? And I'll tell you, it's very hard because all my life I've been told that my story was too complicated. And why can't it just be Latina? Or why can't it just be this or that? Or just about your career. My life started in Harlem in New Hampshire. My mother was a Dominican immigrant teenager, and she was married off to my Chinese father to Papi Wong for the family's paperwork, the Dominican family's side of the family's paperwork. And Papi Wong was in his thirties and he was a gangster. So I, my name and where I come from, and my origin story is basically on the let's say the black market on the different side of the law. But she divorced him. And I have an older brother who, my dear, dear brother and remarried, an Anglo-American man who she met through my godmother who was taking classes at Columbia University. We lived around there and he moved us to New Hampshire because the neighborhood uptown was pretty rough in the seventies in eighties. So my mother wanted the American dream. My mother became intoxicated by the idea of the American dream because in the end I found out that my mother, this Afro-Latina immigrant from whose education stopped at 15 was actually incredibly intelligent, creative, ambitious human being who was not allowed to be any of those things. But this American dream idea took hold of her. So she married a white man and moved us to New Hampshire and then had my four sisters. And I can tell you that the big shocks of my life were that, kind of being raised first in a space that was black brown in Chinatown, as I say, black brown in Chinatown, to a white space back in those days, which didn't know what the hell to make of us at all. And to see my mother as a human being, getting eaten away by being a woman and being a black Latino woman in that space and in her marriage where we weren't allowed anymore to speak Spanish, eat Latin food, she wasn't allowed to cook Latin food, watching anything Latin, the music, everything was just gone. And that was difficult and difficult to watch her and then their marriage dissolve and then watch her try to come back to her Latin-ness and it didn't succeed. And in the end though, when I'm asking her, and what this book is really about is I'm talking to her ghost, right? I'm asking her, why didn't you tell me? She hid who my real father was. I was raised Chinese, Dominican, I was 31 years old when I was 31 years old. She's dying of cancer. I find out from my stepfather that Poppy Wong's actually not my father, he's my brother's father, my older brother's father, but not mine. And then she told another story to him, to my stepfather, to Poppy, who still thinks he's my father to me, to everyone. And she dies with that story. And then I take 23 and me, and it's a whole nother story altogether. And then I had to spend 10 years trying to find out who this person was, and who she was to make these decisions. Women we have to make decisions and lead our lives in such a way of the confines of what kind of society we're in all these things. Who was she to make all these decisions and create this life for me, which was very difficult. That's what I wanted to answer. And in answering that, it wasn't just about finding out who my real father is, it's really discovering who I am and who we were as women.
Kate: It raises such interesting questions about identity and your life story and who controls it and how you take ownership, how one can take ownership of it over what they're taught. And they're told. I mean, it's so many interesting layers that that go into these discoveries that you made about both your family and your mother and yourself. And I guess I'm curious, how or when did it finally feel like your own? When did you f And maybe was there a moment where it almost felt like you had control of the narrative or took control of the narrative, or were almost in charge of writing your own identity and story, if that makes any sense?
Carmen: Yeah. Well, you said took control of the narrative. When I got this hardcover book in my hand when I wrote the book, I feel like,
Kate: You literally. Yeah.
Carmen: I literally wrote the book. I think that it took years after that initial surprise, many years for me to understand where I myself stood. And I have to say that many, many years of therapy, by the way, I mean weekly there many years of therapy.
Kate: Truely. Yeah.
Carmen: Oh yes. Many, many years. And self-questioning, right? Because therapy only works if you actually do the work. So I did the work, I kept asking myself those questions and the world changed around me. So all of a sudden, I have a seven year old girl who's very comfortable with telling me that she wants to be demi lovato's girlfriend. And I'm like, oh shoot, I can't lie to you too. I better the hell come out of the closet because I can't be walking around pretending I'm straight anymore. I'm queer, by the way, which is a pan thing. But anyway, my point is I have been unraveling also to this book coming out has even helped even more because the support I've gotten from the Asian community, from the Chinese community has been fantastic. Because one of the biggest, most painful things was my ties to Asian culture, as well. Because here I have these two parents with, of course my mother was my biggest influence. Of course, I'm very much a Latina through and through and Afro-Latina, proud. But Poppy has always been in my life, always been in my life. That Chinatown history we have, I live downtown now, and I walk through Chinatown and I go to China and I have so many memories. It was so incredibly important into who I, turning me into who I am. And I am still Chinese. Am I biologically Chinese? No, but was I raised, yes. So many in the Asian community are you were raised Chinese, you're Chinese. It's like if you're adopted from China and you come to the United States, you're an American, you're American. People look at you and say, oh, you're Chinese. And you're like, I'm American Chinese. There are all sorts of these ways to identify, but no one can erase me. That part of me in particular. And when Poppy passed away this past summer, it was made even more clear to me. Look, he wasn't a good man. He was a bad man, but he did love me as a father. He did always want a relationship with me. That's not something I got out of everybody in my family. And in the end, because my brother also had passed away, it was up on me to take care of him. And when I had him cremated and had the ceremony, I had a Buddhist monk do the ceremony. I realized, wow, he was my father. He was my father. Now, my stepfather Marty, was very important. Obviously I wouldn't have had a television show about finance if it wasn't for him. And our little economic talks at the dinner table, but who shows up is who your family is. And the world can look at you and decide who you are. And that is truth. You can't just show up one day and say I'm Russian. You can't do that. However, there is, you can say, this is how I was raised, this is my family. And that's really important, especially culturally as we have these conversations about identity.
Doree: So yeah, I mean, I feel like you've talked about this and other people have talked about this, the ways that people are discovering the things that they thought about their families are not what they thought and having to reevaluate their own identities and what they thought and who they thought their families were, et cetera. Do you have advice for people who are learning these new things about themselves?
Carmen: Yeah I've actually talked to a few groups of people there. There's a phrase in community for people who have discovered their parents later in life through DNA testing, for example. No matter how you find out, the best thing in terms of understanding myself was being able to, I couldn't see clearly until I dealt with my feelings towards the people who are supposed to tell you the truth from the time you were born, the first people you're supposed to trust, the time you were born, you have to be able to trust in order to grow up well, right? Is that, and that's what love is, right? So I didn't get that. So how did I deal with that first? And one of the things is I say to anybody, cause of course you're going to have so much heartbreak and so much anger and so much disappointment and pain. They're just people. And what I mean by that is you don't go and get a graduate degree in parenting. We're just a bunch of animals. Who reproduce. People are messed up. People do crazy things. There's generational trauma. There's what you've learned, what's been passed down to you, your parents once, kids who were also had bad things done to them probably. So if you see them as that, and that was the biggest thing that I was able to do in doing this book and looking at my mother and seeing why did she do the things she did, is to just to look at her as a person. And that it doesn't necessarily bring forgiveness. You don't have to forgive. Forgiveness is, you know, got to have an apology and a change of behavior and all that stuff. So I never got that. But it brought me peace. It brings you a lot of peace to not, what it does is you're not taking it personally because I think it's not about you actually. Right? People said to me I was interviewed, and they said, well, don't you think that maybe your mother did this for you or to protect you? And I was like, no, you could read the book again. But what I'll say is no, she did it to protect herself. And in so many of these stories, what I'm hearing from people, and let me tell you, it's amazing, these wonderful emails through my website or DMs that I'm getting from people that are just full of pain from all kinds of life. By the way, we're talking white men. We're talking like every color and shade of person is saying, I am a secret. I was a secret. I just discovered. And it's so painful. But just, I would say, just keep in mind at the end, if you see them as people, you realize that it's not about you, which is both incredibly sad because it should have been about you, but it gives you so much clarity and so much peace, because then you realize it's, it's not your fault. It's not your burden. It's just part of who you are. And I'm trying to move forward with some discovery and just kind of love towards this new family that I have found so late in life, which is weird. But just moving forward with that.
Doree: So we're just going to take a short break and we will be right back. Okay. We're back.
Kate: We talk about self-care. And I'm wondering if there were things that you did to help. There's a lot of either letting go of trauma or moving through trauma through all these discoveries, were there things that, practices that you had that, or kind of breaks that you took, or anything that you did to care for yourself as you were really in the thick of it? Because so much of this, it's a real process going through.
Carmen: Oh Yeah.
Kate: Not just the discoveries about others and unearthing the truth behind secrets, but how that impacts the way you care for yourself and reflect on yourself.
Carmen: Therapy. I'm just going to keep saying that. No
Kate: Sing it from the rooftops.
Carmen: Therapy and I was not raised in a family that believed in therapy. The cultures I was raised in consider me weak. That's something weak. That's something for white people. That's something. We don't do that. But I'm not a religious person, so I needed to find a lot of answers and a lot of discovery about myself. What I did during all of this, honestly, was just take the time and carve out that world that's kind of always pulling at you. You know, should be here. You should be doing this, you should be. And really focusing on the people who continue to show up for me and my daughter, I consider them family, by the way, blood or no blood, their family. And I'm very close with my sister-in-law Brother's widow. I've known her since I was 16 years old. And we lost him together. But we were to, she was always able to make me feel that I would be okay. And I think taking the time to be vulnerable with somebody is such a gift. Being feeling safe enough to be vulnerable with somebody is such a gift. And also too, escaping to the beach. Now, I'm not talking fancy beach because we're land bound now. My daughter and I, we can't get on planes. So driving out to the Jersey Shore, an Asbury Park is a fave. I've always been taking her. And just even when it's cold, bundling up and going and plopping myself down on an empty beach has call it my church.
Doree: Oh, I'm on the record as saying I love a cold beach. So I'm right there with you
Carmen: I do too! I had no idea. I had no idea until the past two years. I never went to the beach in the cold ever. I was like, you people are crazy. Walking on the beach, posted pictures of the beaches, freezing. I love it.
Doree: Yeah, it's great.
Carmen: I love it. What peace.
Doree: I mean, I would even argue that a hot beach is not that fun.
Carmen: Do you know now. I have stopped going as much the second, it's hot. Now I'm like all about it being cold.
Doree: The sun is brutle.
Carmen: And now I'm all about just make it sunny and I'll just take a walk along and it's empty and I love it. And the sun is pretty rough. So No, I'm with you. Yeah. Doree, I share that
Doree: Thank you, Carmen.
Carmen: Yes
Doree: Thank you.
Carmen: Absolutely.
Doree: I wanted to also ask you about fashion and beauty rituals. Cause you wrote really beautifully, you wote an essay, and you talked a little bit about the fashion and beauty rituals that you had had with your grandmother, and then also some that you now have with your daughter.
Carmen: Yes.
Doree: And I was hoping you could talk a little bit about those rituals and just, I know the rituals you have with your daughter are different than the ones you had with your grandmother. But how the ones you had with your grandmother have influenced you and influenced these rituals you now have with your daughter.
Carmen: First of all, can I tell you how excited I am to be able to come on, talk to you about this?
Doree: Yay
Carmen: I'm just in all of this, these interviews talking about all this deep stuff, and you're like, let's talk about, I'm like, yes, please.
Doree: I mean, when I read that, I was like, Ugh. Well, I definitely have to ask her about that.
Carmen: Yes, well, because I love it. And I feel like there's an element of, it's not just the self-care. There's art, there's beauty. And I'm not talking about beauty models. I'm talking about just freaking beauty, like a flower, butterfly
Doree: Self expression. Yes.
Carmen: So I'm a weirdo in that. I just look at everything with an art eye. I could see the beauty in almost anything unless it's ugly and mean. But you know what I mean? I can, I love nothing more than if I have a beautiful door handle. Sometimes you go to a place and this door and you're, I'm like, oh, that's me. Yeah. So give me a nice tube of lipstick, and I am done. My abuela took me. She was very into beauty. And now, listen, we're Latin families. I was raised on those awful things called beauty pageants. And my mother used to put me in them. But for me, it wasn't so much the vanity, which it's a little bit of a curse, but it's about pride. And not a destructive pride. A pride in presenting yourself as best as you can. And the funny thing is, is that the stress of being on television while my marriage was falling apart while I had a baby at home, do you know what really enabled me to do that? Was showing up in the makeup room and those ladies smacking on what I called my armor. I said, and they would say, how much armor you need today? I'd say, mock three, let's go. Yeah. Or some days I would be like, no, I'm okay. Let's do this, whatever. But it is like, what is the face I present to the world? That is one role that it's really an important role. It's played in my life. But two, it's really that element that I see my daughter having, which I just love, of just caring for the body you're in. Which is kind of weird because we are a family. Yes. The two of us are family that live in our heads a lot. We're in our heads a lot. So we tend to neglect the body part. And it just kind of centers yourself back into your body reminding you that you're in it, that you're in a body, and the wrinkles come and Yes, yes. Just like abuela I color on my hair. I don't let the grays show too much. That sort of thing. But that's my choice. But you got to just love that and elevate that and celebrate it. And you guys got me on one of my favorite topics. I find the ritualistic ness of it or the ritual of it really special. Super, super special. Take care of your skin, ladies.
Kate: Well, I mean, do you want to tell us what you use for skincare products? Because we do talk about that a lot on this show.
Doree: Yes. Also, makeup. I should know that Carmen's makeup looks beautiful today.
Carmen: I know it is.
Doree: I know you call can't see it. But
Carmen: Cat eyes since 16,
Kate: it's so good.
Carmen: Always had the cat eye.
Kate: Do you use a liquid liner or a pencil?
Carmen: No, I use a pencil. Actually, Kat Von D has a liner called Tattoo Ink. And I've used the Stila one as well. But let me tell you, from the time I was 16 years old, I used to take, you remember eyeliner first came out, I used to melt the tip on my light bulb.
Kate: Oh, smart. Oh,
Doree: I used to, we used to do it on matches.
Kate: We used to melt crayons on our light bulbs
Carmen: Yes. It's the same thing. Exactly. No, but I will tell you, my wonderful friend has her skincare line blew up. And I'm just so, so happy. She's one of the few black dermatologists who's pretty well known, Rose Ingleton. So Rose who, who's a friend. But look, if I had gotten sample and I'd been like, I would be like, eh, because I'm really fussy about what I put on my face. But when I tell you she has this moisturizer that I put on my, I'm addicted, and I put this stuff in my face, and it's like I'm in the freaking spa. I love her signature moisturizer is to die. And then for some reason, how can I be this old and still get zits? Right?
Kate: Hormones. Right, hormones.
Carmen: So she has this zit cream that I put on and, gone. Incredible stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I do love makeup. And in terms of speaking of Chinese, Florasis is a Chinese brand. I have not done my due diligence. So please don't hate on me if we find out they have bad practices. But I have looked a bit into them. And they're packaging. They actually have, I don't know if you guys are familiar with the Chinese snuff boxes? That would be in this red lacquer and they'd be carved, the lipstick is carved
Kate: Wow.
Carmen: Like a snuff, a Chinese snuff box. Thats it, I'm done. I was like, there goes my money. Take my money.
Kate: Well, I like that you mentioned that too, because with the ritual element, there's something about, okay, I've been obsessed with Brad Pitt's skin. Caroline and Doree has heard this.
Carmen: Wait, what? Is it really good?
Kate: No, no, I is, haven't tried it. it's very expensive. The packaging is too beautiful.
Doree: Its insanly expensive.
Kate: It's so expensive. But the packaging
Carmen: It's one of those really? How much are we talking?
Kate: Oh, like hundreds. Hundreds.
Carmen: What?
Kate: It's like 250-300 for an oil or something. Oh
Carmen: Oh no, sorry.
Kate: No,
Carmen: I got my limits. No, not happening.
Kate: But if you saw the bottle, you would want the, and you're describing there's something just all your senses get used, I think. And when it becomes, when it's able to be a ritual that doesn't feel performative, or it's participating in any of these kind of negative side sides of beauty culture of which there are many.
Carmen: Yeah. Oh Yeah.
Kate: It can be really powerful and really soothing. I like how you describe that because something about that kind of the seeing it and holding it and just the twisting of a cap, it's really, it's just very, a nice practice in that way.
Carmen: But you bring up a really good point, because look, makeup and stuff like that has not always been, and my love of makeup and hair and all that stuff has not been accepted in fashion. Because I think I wrote about this in the book when I was trying to succeed in the magazine business in writing. I was on the finance side, right? Money and fortune. They actually wouldn't, you don't look like a writer. Now, I would say, oh, because of this, I'd be like my skin color because of this. And yes, I got some that were saying, yes. Oh, you cannot be objective because you're not white. But I also got, you wear too much makeup. You dress, you wear heels. Writers don't wear heels. Oh, this writer does. Okay. And she does her hair. And it was used against me. Can you imagine? We were, we'll allow women, as long as you're completely schlubby, and I did all this stuff for myself, I would show up with a different hairstyle. Cause my hair was really long and sometimes I'd curly, sometimes not, but blah. And I get snide remarks every day. How dare I give a crap? It was part of my culture. It was how I was raised. And I also enjoyed myself. And I wasn't doing it to parade around and make anybody feel bad. It's that whole kind of women with the whole peacocking thing. If you're too much, you're too much. I listen, take it as far as you want it to go. As far as you want it to go or not. Yeah.
Kate: Well, it's interesting too, this idea of wielding, I don't know if femininity is the right word, but kind of
Carmen: Yes.
Kate: Using it, wielding it as a power over either this is how you fit in, or you participate and you fit in, or you don't participate and you fit in. But either way, it's being used as a means of control. Patriarchal control. And that is
Carmen: Yes, exactly. Exactly. L listen, you better believe Cleopatra wore makeup. She was a queen. Okay. She could rule just fine. And tattoos. I wasn't able to get mine until I was out of that business in doing my own business. And while actually no, I lie. I just wasn't, I had them. I just didn't have them in places you could see them.
Kate: And now you do.
Carmen: And now I do. Cause I can. But those ideas of how we present ourselves, meaning that you can't be smart, you can't be successful, you can't be serious. You can't be, like you said, control all about that. And that's only for one part of being a woman or one side of being a woman, meaning it's only tied to your sexuality. And say absolutely not. Go tell that to the peacock.
Kate: Tell it to the peacock.
Doree: Yes.
Carmen: I don't even know if that made sense, but it sounded good.
Kate: I know. It seems cool. It's a great mantra. You know what? I'm going to use it. 2023, tell it to the peacock.
Carmen: I mean, come on. It's just, it's fun. And I love that. I love that you ladies talk about it and just I just think it's, it's so important. And I've seen it used against us so much, that idea that we can't care.
Kate: Yeah.
Carmen: I know beauty culture is toxic. I know that. And I flat out will say, my daughter will be like, mom, don't stop talking about this or don't talk that way about that. I'm like, girl, I am vain. I said that. I'm just flat out say that to her. I said, I'm so glad you are the way you are. But girl, I am vain and I will continue to these creams. Mom, you don't need so many creams you don't need. So girl, I am vain, but not to A, you got to know when it's starting to not be good for your mental health or for your life. I try to have fun with it. Well,
Doree: Well, and I also love that you're framing it as like, I am vain. These are my choices. Yes. They don't have to be your choices.
Carmen: Yes. Well, cause I wanted her to understand, because she really legitimately felt that I was making myself miserable. You know what I mean? And the message, she's 16, and I don't want her to get the message. I don't want her to get that message. And so she does almost the same thing I do. Some days she'll show up, she doesn't do her makeup. Of course, she'll brush her teeth and brush her hair and all that stuff, but she won't do makeup. And then one day she'll just say, oh, I just felt like it. And she'll do the whole thing. It's all about what vibe she's feeling that day. And yeah, that's cool. And that's what I want her to feel like not, it's not an obligation. It's an expression.
Doree: I love that distinction.
Kate: I sound like a great mom Car. I just, you know what?
Carmen: Oh my God,
Kate: You're doing great.
Carmen: I'm trying so hard.
Kate: Teens are teens sound tough. Mine are close to teen, but not teen yet. And that sounds it's hard. Hard. But your description of your relationship with your daughter is so beautiful.
Carmen: Thank you. I try hard. The first thing that brought me actually into therapy, even before I had her, was I just refused to parent the way my mother parented. Yeah. It was my own pain. I was just like, I can't be like this. I can't get into a relationship. I can't have a child this the way I was mentally. I just can't. I've got to figure out my own stuff, and I still am. And I still am. She could even tell you that she was here, what I was like seven, eight years ago as opposed to now. And I see it as a constant, especially because she has challenges, right. It's a constant thing. And I think it benefits everybody. When you work on yourself, it benefits everybody when you have boundaries. And self awarness, and I say that to her too sometimes. I'm like, good mommy, good home me have, so this is what I'll do, because I'm a solo parent. One weekend a month, I try to go away, put that in quotes, meaning drive an hour and either go to Asbury, go to the beach, or go upstate or something for one night for myself. And we have wonderful family member slash cousin from her father's side who comes and has been staying with her since she was a baby. Oh, she's great. She's young. They're fun. They've known each other forever. So she's like an auntie. And I'll be like, oh, hey, can you come this night? She comes and stays with her, and I go, because I have to keep my sanity and she gets it. But I had to really talk to her about it so she didn't feel rejected
Kate: Setting that boundary.
Doree: Yep.
Carmen: Yeah. I got to.
Kate: You got to,
Carmen: Got to.
Kate: Well, Carmen, it's been so great to have you on the show. Where can our listeners find you and your work?
Carmen: Ah, it's easy. It's just my name, CarmenRitaWong.com. And you can send me a note through there or Instagram, @CarmenRitaWong and DM me. I love to hear from people who read the book. I really do.
Kate: Yes. And you can get, Why Didn't You Tell Me? anywhere you get books. And it's wonderful.
Carmen: Yes, absolutely. Anywhere. And I did the audiobook as well.
Doree: Oh I love that.
Kate: Love that.
Carmen: Yes. So I will brag. It's fantastic. I'm just, yeah. So I love doing it. And I do the voices in my family, so you'll get an additional hoot out of that one.
Doree: Oh, that's so fun. Well, thanks again, Carmen. This was really great.
Carmen: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me, Kate and Doree, this has been great. Thank you.
Kate: Another must read to add to your list, everybody.
Doree: Yes.
Kate: Why didn't you tell me?
Doree: Why didn't you tell me it? Ooh, I love that it's a memoir, but there's also kind of a mystery element to it.
Kate: You know what? That scratches a real Doree Shafrir itch.
Doree: It really does. It really does. A lot of twists and turns
Kate: And just such an interesting examination into identity and who we think we are and who we know we are, and the people who make us who we are. I mean, well, Doree, how has it been going over there for you? Continuing organizing.
Doree: Haven't done a ton this week.
Kate: That's okay.
Doree: To be perfectly transparent but I have been doing my three month plan. I did fill it out.
Kate: Tell us about this.
Doree: So I did fill it out. I filled out the whole template. And I also have been doing a habit tracker, which I've always been a little bit skeptical of, but. There's a couple things on there that I actually do need to remember to do every day. And it's been helpful. Give the dog his pills. And I sometimes can't remember if I've done it. And so this has actually been helpful for me to be like, oh yeah, I did. And weirdly, keeping track of how much water I drink, which I know is a thing that you are, you've been really into for a long time.
Kate: Well, I just know I drink a ton of water. I don't track it. I drink. I just am constantly drinking water all day long.
Doree: Yeah. So I actually think that I have not been drinking as much water as I thought in my head. I was like, oh, I'm someone who drinks a lot of water.
Kate: Oh, fascinating.
Doree: But I don't think, I don't think I do. I think I drink an average amount of water and I could probably drink a little bit more water. So that's been an interesting sort of takeaway, if you will. There's that. And then just kind of setting, because it has, you set out three goals for the quarter, three big goals for the quarter, and then it has, you break down the goals and how you're going to do them. And that was also just an interesting exercise.
Kate: I like this for you. It gives you a little bit of framework it sounds like.
Doree: Yes. It gives me a framework, and especially since I think I've been talking about feeling kind of a little bit at sea, I do think this is helping me feel a little bit more anchored and just have a sense of what I want to do. Setting goals. I feel like I have always had trouble setting goals, but whenever I do, I always feel good about it. You know what I mean?
Kate: Its like, yeah, it's taking, eating a carrot or drinking your water or going to bed on time.
Doree: Yes. I don't like to assign good or bad to food, but
Kate: That's right. Take out the carrot. Take out the carrot. But carrots are delicious. And they're Very good for your eyesight.
Doree: And I love carrot cake. So yeah, so that's just kind of what I've doing. And then I, I've decided that I've been, I've waiting to get some feedback on some stuff for a few weeks, and I've been feeling like certain things have been sort of on hold because of that. And I've decided at the end of this week, no matter whether or not I've heard back, I need to plot a way forward.
Kate: Yes.
Doree: Because I don't like this feeling of being in limbo. It's not a great feeling.
Kate: I love it.
Doree: So I'm going to kind of rest the power back, if you will. So that's my goal for the week. Resting.
Kate: Great goal.
Doree: Get back.
Kate: Rest it back, baby.
Doree: Yeah.
Kate: Well, last week I had rambled on about how I watched a TikTok, about 20 year olds who are into positive thinking and how it felt rooted in white privilege. But I was going to cause me to think about how I talk to myself. I've decided more that I've remembered actually how much I hate the whole bullshit positive thinking movement. Remember The Secret?
Doree: Yes.
Kate: Remember when that was huge?
Doree: Yes. Yes, I do.
Kate: All of it is gross to me for various reasons that other people have more eloquently addressed. But just watching this video, and I was like, this is off. But it caused me to think about other things in my life, but I just did want to note that I reflected a bit more and I was like, oh, right. This stuff is gross. That being said, I have been thinking a lot about how I speak about myself, and I talked about it in therapy, and that feels positive. And as anyone knows who maybe has gone through this, I have a lot of shame about the ways I've been in my life because, and a lot of it I now can understand, or because, I'm neuro-divergent, which I've never really understood. And so there's a lot of having to go back and forgive myself and learn to love myself again. Wow. This is really deep. So that is more what has been happening for me now. If we do want to talk about fun, kind of new agey stuff, I am taking a vision boarding class this week, and I'm very excited about it.
Doree: Oh, okay.
Kate: I love a vision board. I love vision boards. I actually genuinely do love making vision boards, and I have found them to be really just powerful tools. Oh, I can't believe I just said that, but it's true. And then this year, so this already exists and I just need to find it. And actually a listener just I think emailed with a suggestion of somebody who does this. I want to find some sort of home cleaning schedule. They recommended an organizer. I haven't looked at this, so I'm just saying what a listener sent to us called Go Simplified, that provides a free calendar with weekly tasks. I think having some sort of weekly cleaning schedule for my home would help me from feeling overwhelmed about everything being a mess. Because what I tend to do is I look around and I'm like, I should clean that part and that and that and that and that and that. Then I just get, I turn to stone and I don't do any of it. If someone has a kind of weekly cleaning schedule that helps you tackle all the weird corners of your house or some sort of, I know there are a lot of people who do this stuff online so I'm going to do my own research here, but that's what investing, I'm investigating this week, some sort of thing to not only help us organize, but not for me not to feel nauseated by the clutter. Because clutter really makes me feel sick, but I don't know how to not create it.
Doree: I feel the same way. And we actually got an email from someone who said they had listened to a podcast where someone, a guest came on named Dana K White, who has their own podcast called A Slob Comes Clean. And this listener wrote that Dana's method is to focus on the decluttering process and also to understand it is a constant process. You are never done. And that's the secret to people's homes that are so neat and tidy. They're always decluttering. And when I read this, I was like,
Kate: Ugh.
Doree: Oh, It's so obvious. You know what I mean? Of course. But I think it's actually a really important mindset shift because in my brain it's like, oh, I get an organizer to come in, or I reorganize and then I'm done. It's like before and after picks, you know what I mean? But no one ever talks about the after.
Kate: Oh fuck.
Doree: And I was like, oh, right. Of course. That's why good organizers are always talking about systems. You got to have a system.
Kate: That's what, those are for! A system.
Doree: Mail comes and you open it right away, and you know what I mean? Everything has to have a system. And I don't have any systems. I have no systems
Kate: I don't either. I've got zero systems. My systems are panic, and stress.
Doree: My systems are yielding. I've yielded to the clutter.
Kate: Oh, you've just accepted it and given into it, you feel?
Doree: It's just like I've given up. I feel like I've given up. I've given in and I've just been like, okay, this is the way, this is the, my life is, the clutter has one, and I just have to, I have to navigate. I just have to live with it. I have to figure out how I can accommodate the clutter because it, I just don't even know where to start, but I hate it
Kate: Now. Is that what you is that want it to be like, do you want,
Doree: No, I just said I hate it.
Kate: Okay. You hate it. You hate it. So you don't I hate it.
Doree: I don't want it to be this way.
Kate: Okay, okay.
Doree: No, I hate it. I like, I'm looking at my desk right now. I'm like this fucking mess of a desk. Ugh. But the thought of even just starting is like, Oh god. So that's where I'm at.
Kate: Yeah.
Doree: Anyway,
Kate: I feel you, deeply like, yeah, very, very deeply. There's an article in the New York Times that I read today called Depression Rooms and Doom Piles, Why Clearing the Clutter Can Feel Impossible. Maybe that's why this is on my brain a little bit. I'll send you the link. It's kind of helpful, but also I read it and I was like, this hasn't solved my problems. Thanks for nothing New York Times. Wow.
Doree: Well,
Kate: Ending on a dark note
Doree: That got kind of deep.
Kate: It did, it did. You know we're works in progress. Well, listen, hey, if you feel the same way, let us know because we appreciate Misery Loves Company, but also Clutter loves Company. Well look, Forever35 is hosted and produced by Doree Shafrir and Kate Spencer. It's produced and edited by Sam Junio. Sami Reed is our project manager, and our network partner is Acast. Thank you all so much for listening.
Doree: Bye.