December 18, 2025 • 43 mins
Which truths shape us, and which ones hold us back? In this episode, Cameron Rogers opens up to Danielle about the unexpected turns, identity shifts, and inner work that shaped the woman she is today. From walking away from a prestigious finance career to navigating anxiety, reinvention, and viral honesty online, she shares the truths she had to confront and the ones she chose to release. In this episode, Cameron shares:
- How her online persona “Freckled Foodie” began as a secret side project while she worked on Wall Street
- The unexpected moment she realized hustle culture was consuming her
- Why leaving her finance job didn’t magically erase her anxiety
- How pregnancy and postpartum cracked open a deeper level of honesty in her life and online
- The evolution from wellness content to vulnerable conversations about mental health
- The boundaries she keeps around what she shares publicly versus what stays private
- How trusting her gut became her most reliable guide in parenting, work, and relationships
- What she learned about partnership, emotional labor, and choosing a true co-parent
- The identity shifts that come with reinvention
- The therapy tools and mindset shifts that changed the way she moves through the world
Follow Cameron on Instagram @CameronRogers
Book recommendation: A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
Check out Cameron’s podcast Conversations with Cam
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
No one has all the answers, but when we ask
the right questions, we get a little closer, closer to truths,
closer to each other, even closer to ourselves. I'm journalist
Danielle Robe and each week, my guests and I come
together to challenge the status quo and our own ways
of thinking by daring to ask what if, why not?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
And who says?
Speaker 1 (00:30):
So? Come curious, dig deep, and join the conversation. It's
time to question everything.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Hello, Hello, my friends.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
I hope you're having a beautiful day and a beautiful week.
I looked at the calendar today and I realized we
artificially two weeks away from twenty twenty six. I don't
know how that happened, because I remember it being January
twenty twenty five. But here we are, and you know
what that means. My annual New Year's episode is going
(01:03):
to air next week. It is the only solo episode
that I do throughout the year usually, and I talk
about kind of a recap.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Of my year, what goals, I hit, what I didn't
personally professionally, it's probably you know.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
I deep dive, I cry, I laugh, and I talk
you through the New year transformation worksheet that I debuted
last year. You guys loved it. I got, you know,
thousands of downloads. This was one of the most popular
episodes last year, so I'm updating it. I updated the
worksheet with some new questions that I thought about and
(01:39):
some new tools that I learned. This year, I started
working with a life coach, like a year and a
half ago, or a career coach really, and some of
the tools I've learned that worked for me. Some I
didn't love and I threw out, but some that worked
for me. I added to this worksheet, so it's all updated.
You're going to be able to download it in like
I'll put the link in the show notes, but just
(02:00):
a heads up that that is coming your way. I'm
really really excited. I'm going to record the episode this
weekend when I'm alone and have time to just like
sit in all my feelings and really do a deep dive,
and then it'll air next week, so you'll have time
to download the worksheet and fill it all all out
(02:21):
before the new year. Okay, let's get into today's episode.
So we spend so much time building versions of ourselves
that work. The version that gets taken seriously the version
that doesn't ask for too much, the version that just
keeps everything moving. And then one day sometimes that version
(02:41):
stops working. It did for me in about twenty eighteen.
And this episode is about what happens when that person
or that persona that you created to help you succeed
starts to cost you your peace, when that ambition turns
into anxiety, and when control turns into exhaustion. Maybe your
(03:03):
life got bigger, marriage, motherhood, responsibility, and you realize you
can't white knuckle your way through it anymore.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Mine was different.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
It actually had to get smaller before it could get bigger.
But our guest today, Cameron Rodgers, knows about that shift.
So intimately, she left a high powered career in finance
to launch The Freckled Foodie back in the day. Her
platform has evolved since then, and she really blew up
(03:33):
during COVID because she was talking about postpartum in a
real way.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Now.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
One of the many, many things that I love about
Cam is she doesn't do polished or like a polished
version of honesty. She does the real version, the kind
that admits I'm anxious, I'm trying, I'm evolving, I don't
have the answer I'm scared.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
I thought I was going to love being pregnant, and
it rocked me, and postpartum rocked me. I struggled with
post pardon anxiety and depression, and that was when I
gained I think another download of my community because I
was so brutally honest about my experience.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
We're going to get into all of that today. We
talk about anxiety. We talk about some of her feelings
with postpartum and why she was so honest. We talk
about motherhood and how it cracked her open in ways
she didn't really consent to, talk about her therapy and
EMDR and the pressure women carry to be everything and
then somehow also be chill. And we get into partnership
(04:31):
and what it really means to have someone who shows up,
and why so many women are doing.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
The work of two adults.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
I really really like hearing Cam talk about partnership. So
the big question that we're circling today is how do
you become more yourself as.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
You grow and your life gets bigger.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Not letting fear, anxiety and other people's expectations run the show.
It's time to question everything with Cameron Rogers. Cam Hi,
I'm so happy to be with you.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
This is the best day.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
It's been a really long time coming. Your aunt has
been a career changing person in my life. And years
ago when you were starting your Instagram social media journey,
she said, you have to check out my niece. And
at the time, you were doing something called Freckled Foodie. Yes, yep,
that was my handle. Why did you name your business
(05:24):
off of that feature?
Speaker 2 (05:26):
And what's your relationship with freckles?
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Like, okay, well, you know, I actually feel I should
change my LLC name because it is Freckled Foodie.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
You can never change it. I don't think I can either.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
But the other day I was doing something with my
insurance and I had to get a COI for something
because I got an office space, and I said Freckled
Foodie and the woman goes, oh, that's so cute. Do
you have a restaurant?
Speaker 2 (05:48):
And I was like, how do I explain this?
Speaker 3 (05:50):
So the origin of the name was because I was
at JP Morgan. I was doing sales and trading, so
I was living a completely different life. And it was
around the birth era of the wellness influencer and food
porn accounts.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
They were both kind of coming up at the same time.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
And I was going through a bunch of digestive health issues,
and I was cooking all this food for myself, and
I was meal prepping like a maniac because I was
working these crazy hours. So I would bring breakfast and
lunch to the office and then I would get home
and I would eat the dinner I prepped, and I
would text my friends photos.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
I don't know why. I don't think they cared. You're
a sharer though, yeah, like you do not want to
be in a group chat with me.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
I guess they did care because they were asking for
the recipe and I said, oh, I just kind of
made it up. And I actually remember the night because
it was my little sister's birthday and I came home.
I think she had a party, and I was drunk
and I.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Was laying in bed. I was like, I'm going to
start a food Instagram. Why not. I have all these pictures,
I'm prepping all these foods. Let's try.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
And I started thinking what would it be? And I'm
covered in freckles. I have been my entire life. I
mean I wasn't born with them. People get very confused,
but like, since I was a very young child, I've
been covered in them, like face cover, everywhere covered, and
it was my identifier and then the food. And my
biggest thing was I didn't want my face or my
name on it. I didn't want anyone to.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Know it was me. But why what was the feeling underneath.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
That embarrassment, judgment and the fact that I had a
really big girl job and I.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Didn't want anyone in that career.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
I was very young, I was youngest on my desk,
and I had this great career path ahead of me,
and at that time had just gotten some really big
clients that were like a pretty big deal, and I
think people were very questioning of me having them, and
I didn't want them to be.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Like this girl's on Instagram posting, what is she taking
me seriously? Because I don't take her seriously. I felt
I had to prove myself.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
So I think maybe I put one photo of myself,
but you didn't know that it was me, And I
think it was three months went by were the only
people I told were my little sister and my husband,
then boyfriend, and then I remember we were sitting at
the beach and I had all these people over and
my friend turns to me and goes are you this
freckled foody girl on Instagram, and I.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Was like, Dianna, how did you find that she's like?
Speaker 3 (08:09):
It came up as a suggestion because I think maybe
it was when Instagram added the whole like phone number
contact thing and she's like. Then I started to realize
I recognized the background of the pictures and whatever. So
then I started telling people, and then it kind of
flipped where I told everyone I made these stickers. I
was posting them all over like mirrors and bars at
(08:29):
the shore or around New York City or in bathroom stalls,
like vandalizing, and I loved it. Again, though it wasn't
my face. It was all food focused because I was
still at JP. Everything has very much shifted now eight
years later, but that was the origin of freckled fooding,
and I do love that identity as a version of me.
(08:51):
It's kind of like this alter ego, not that she's
a different person, but I did and I still do love.
When I meet my community members, many people will reference
me as freckled foody, and I enjoy that.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
I don't know if you feel this way.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
It's very hard for me to comprehend that people would
want to approach me, or tell me that people exist
in consuming my content or listen to my show, because
my mind, we're all just friends. And having that kind
of alter ego was a nice barrier. Especially in the beginning.
They would say, oh my god, like freckled foodie and
(09:23):
I'm like, yeah, cool, isn't she awesome?
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Not thinking it was me. Does that make sense? Yeah,
it makes a lot of sense because I think at
the time it sounds like it really was an alter ego.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
It was, and I was living the same life, but
it wasn't my face, and it wasn't talking about anything
specifically personal.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
It was food.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
And at the time, when you started gaining some traction,
did you have a vision or a dream for what
you wanted it to be.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
In the beginning, the dream was to get free meals
at restaurants. I was like, do you think I can
go to Lartoozy and they'll like give me a free
meal if I post that was the dream.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
That's amazing.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Then when I actually started to really think about certain
things and lean in and try different things, I felt
like every time I opened a door, there were ten
doors behind it, and I did not have the time
to open them, and I desperately wanted to, but I
was being pulled so insanely thin, and I felt when
I eventually went to leave my job, I did sit
(10:21):
down and have this whole quote unquote business plan.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Was it at all what I'm doing today? None of it?
Speaker 3 (10:26):
But I was online in school for health coaching. I
was meal prepping for people all weekend long. I was
doing these like grocery store run throughs with them or
kitchen audits. It was way more health focused and my
business plan at the time.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
I would actually love to find it.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
I think it was, or I know it was way
more coaching and cooking and maybe one sponsored post a month.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
But I had maybe three thousand.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Followers, and we didn't know the creator industry in twenty
eighteen like we do now. We didn't know the alex
Earls of the world and how they made money or
that they could make money, So that just wasn't It.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Was more gate kept.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Yeah, and it also didn't really exist in twenty eighteen.
There were like five wellness influencers that I can think of,
and that was kind of it, and there weren't even
many podcasts. I don't think in twenty eighteen there wasn't
like it is today, so I didn't know that was
even an option.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
I didn't know you as freckled foodie. And I want
to ask sort of like a tough question, which is
it sounds like you were not speaking of wellness in
terms of consumerism the way that a lot of wellness
influencers were. You weren't saying, like, buy this three hundred
dollars serum of unicorn tears and it'll make things better.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
I don't think wellness was as insane as it is
now in twenty eighteen, but I was struggling with my
own orthorexic thoughts around food and exercise, and if I
were to look back at some of the content, I'm
sure I would be like, you need to get your
butt in therapy because you do not have a healthy
relationship with quote unquote wellness.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
It did begin to consume.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Me, and I think I had spent so much of
my life focused on me. One of the greatest gifts
becoming a mom has given me is focusing on someone
other than myself.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
It's actually why we got a dog.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
I remember being so anxious and depressed and obsessed with
my own thoughts and feelings and life and every morsel
of food that went in my body, and how long
I worked out, and I knew I always wanted a dog,
as did my husband. And I remember being like, I
need someone else to focus on. I am so consumed
with myself. I need someone else to focus on. Did
it help, Yes, not at all in the way that
(12:46):
children do, but it did help. I had someone else
to think of. And so I say all that because
I think the wellness world can become so obsessive. And
it did an aversion for me, but not to the
extreme that we sometimes see on the internet.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Now, your content now is largely about motherhood and mental health.
What was the transition? Were you craving deeper conversation or
what was it?
Speaker 3 (13:08):
I was sharing a lot about my mental health once
I quit my job because I was very anxious. I've
always been an anxious person. I didn't necessarily have the
language or the wherewithal to understand that it was anxiety.
And then at my job, it was kind of as
if they turned the dial up on all of my
not so great tendencies fast paced, competitive, move it or
(13:31):
lose at my way the highway. Everything has to get
done this second. If you're slow, what the hell are
you doing? And it allowed me to thrive on a
trading floor, because that's the person that does thrive, and
it really hurt me in my personal life, and I
was really anxious and lonely, even though I had this
(13:52):
life that I had always thought I wanted, and on
paper it looked amazing and I had incredible people, but
I felt so isolated. And so when I quit my job,
I kind of thought it was going to be this
magic wand of my anxiety is going to be gone
because now I'm not on a trading floor anymore.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
And that was not the case.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
And I vividly remember I had gotten in a car
accident and had a back concussion that led to disability
while I was at GP that eventually led to me
leaving and making this leap of faith. And I remember
meeting with my neurologist about my postconcussion symptoms and my
mom wanting to come with me because she was very
concerned about my health at the time and she just
(14:30):
wanted to be an advocate in extra years. And I
remember sitting there and my neurologists asking me.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Are you anxious? And I said, well, I'm no more anxious.
Than I ever was.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
I left my job, so no, I'm not anxious now.
And my mom when we left was like, girl, you
are a lot more anxious now. You might have thought
that leaving that job was going to ridge you of
all of your anxiety, but now you're riddled with ten
thousand other things. And especially at this time, I was
trying to build this business and having no idea what
(15:02):
I was doing. And that was then when I started medication,
which kind of really sparked a lot of my discussion
around my anxiety on my platform. So once I left
my corporate job, I felt more comfortable sharing myself and
my experience. And when I did that, I noticed how
many people in my community were going through something similar.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Was it healing to hear them or was it difficult
and triggering.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Part of it was self serving in the sense that
I realized I wasn't alone, and then it was this
realization of oh, we all feel long And I've always
been a sharer. I've always felt very comfortable laying my
cards out and if you like it, great, if you don't,
that's also fine. And so when I was noticing how
isolated other people felt, I realized, oh, if I share,
maybe they'll feel less alone. And then I started to
(15:46):
build this incredible community. And then the largest turning point
was pregnancy for me. I had a surprise pregnancy. I
thought I was going to love being pregnant, and it
rocked me, and postpartum rocked me. I struggled with the
postpartum anxiety and depression and that was when I gained
I think another like download of my community because I
was so brutally honest about my experience.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
You really say the thing like I know people online.
There is a theme that people feel connected to you
if you are sharing your truth or sharing vulnerably. But
I sometimes have to be honest. I'm shocked at how
much you share and now knowing that's who you are.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
There has never been a moment in my life where
I felt forced to share something. There are things I
don't share, of course. There are many things that I
don't share. There are many aspects of my life that
I keep very close to my chest because it's a
no one's business.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Do you think there's such thing as TMI. No, not
at all.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Like if you know me in my life, you will
know every detail of everything I do. You will see
me naked within ten seconds. Like that's just how who
I've always been. But I mean in the sense of
I keep my family very close to my chest, my
personal family, my extended family, my in laws, Like there
are so much that happens.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
In my life that I don't need to share because
it's not my story, right, So you share what's yours.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
I share what's mine, but I never feel forced to share.
I think there's a huge difference of force vulnerability and
just oh, and.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
This is what happened.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
And so I felt like I was connecting with more
and more women, And honestly, food became less and less
interesting to me the more I let go of those
orthorexic thoughts, and motherhood became the most interesting thing to me,
and the way that we navigate motherhood and the way
that we speak about motherhood and the way that we're
impacted by motherhood alongside mental health. And so that's when
my content really shifted. And then I changed my name
(17:36):
to my actual name, Cameron Ooks Rogers, and then I
changed my podcast name. So it's been this kind of
like evolution of me as a being alongside my business.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
I've heard you say that your relationship with therapy ebbs
and flows.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Where are you with it now? We just moved to
every other week.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
I had been consistently in therapy every single week for
seven years and I love that I've been with the
same therapist because she knows all the players in my life.
I don't have to be like and this person, let
me explain who they are. She's like, yeah, I got you,
which is so amazing. But I also felt like, because
I do a lot of self work, and kind of
(18:27):
part of our job, I will say is a little
insular self work.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Oh, if you're not excavating, you have nothing to share.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
I felt this kind of plateau, and I said to her,
I'm almost dreating therapy because I'm having to really.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Think about what i want to talk about.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
There's nothing that feels needs fixing necessarily, there are certain
things that I wanted to figure out, and I felt
talk therapy necessarily wasn't getting to the root of it.
So we are in once a week and we'll go
I think to more maintenance. But I am doing AMDR therapy,
which has been extremely fascinating. But talking about boundaries, that's
(19:09):
something that I've said I'm doing and I'm not getting
into the details of it. Well, I'm happy to talk
with you about like the process and stuff, but I'm
not sharing like this is what the trauma is that
I'm working through because I just don't feel that's necessary
to share.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Right, And I like that it seems like you have
this like very strict constitution with yourself, like you don't
have to navigate the sharing. It sounds like it's a
quick yes or no for you.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
I'm very gut forward, Like even with parenting, I don't
read parenting really no, I'm what is my gut telling me?
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Have you always been that way? I have?
Speaker 1 (19:42):
I've always really trusted my gut. I've had to do
so much work to trust mine. That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Well, I always hear it.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
Whether I trust it is actually another conversation because there's
something I did with my career a few years ago,
and I remember my gut being like, this isn't right.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
But I wanted the shiny object. And you think about
it to this day.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Yeah, and it wasn't right, but I really thought that
it was the thing I wanted.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
I think everyone does that. That's part of no.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
I think that we're all going to have those Yeah,
But I do think with parenting especially, that's where I
feel the most connected to my gut, and I just
lead with that.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
One of the things that I hear people talking about
most often now is that the world feels hard and heavy,
and I do not want to ignore the real stuff
that is hard and heavy. I've always just kind of
been an eternal optimist, and when I talk to older women,
they feel like this is just the ebbs and flows
(20:39):
of culture and life, although they do say that it
feels worse than usual.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
You're such a sensitive person.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
I'm wondering how you're navigating being optimistic and also like
facing the realities of what's hard.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
I'm having a very hard time, like very hard, and
I talk about that a lot in therapy because I
can get really wrapped up in it, and I think
it's twofold one. I've chosen with my content to share
my stances and my beliefs in politics and be outspoken
(21:12):
on them and not shy away from it. So then
I think the more I talk about it, the more
I'm in conversation about it, the more I'm consuming it,
the more it feels all consuming. So I'm trying to
figure out what is this fine line between consuming the
news and not letting the news consume me. And I
serve on an impact board of an organization that's working
to end mass shootings, and so we do a lot
(21:34):
of work, whether it be the days that we're actually
lobbying in Congress. I never heard a million years said
I would say these words, But I'm on zooms with
like legislative teams of senators and meeting with families who
have lost children in school shootings, and like, it is
heavy work. And I love it because I think it's
wildly important.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
I don't love it.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
I think it's important and I feel very called to
do it, but it has a very last impact on
me that I don't think I fully acknowledge. But having
children and doing that work feels very intense, and so
I'm trying to navigate. Like, for instance, i can't go
on threads. I don't have Twitter, but I go on Threads,
and like I can't do it at night because I'll
(22:16):
be like walking into the bedroom. We don't do phones
in our bed, but when I walk from downstairs upstairs,
I'm on my phone and I'll just be enraged, yelling
about things that a certain someone is doing that day, and.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
My husband's like, why are you doing this right now?
It's ten o'clock. We're about to get in bed, Like
why are you screaming at me about him? So he
doesn't share your sort of outrage.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
He shares the outrage, but not at ten o'clock at night.
You just feel things really deep I feel things really deeply.
And he's not on social media, so he doesn't get
sucked into the same holes that I do, where like
I consume, consume, consume, and then I spiral and then
I'm outraged since ten o'clock and like he's trying to
wind down, and I'm supposed to be winding down, and
now I'm just angry and so trying to I have
(23:02):
a question about your relationship because I was actually just
talking with a friend who fell in love with her
husband at a point in time where she was super
career focused and she was doing one thing at a
very high level, and then a few years after they
got married, she was like, I'm burnt out. I'm kind
of done with this, and took a full step back
(23:25):
a pause, and she says, I think that I'm not
the girl that my husband fell in love with anymore.
And I'm still me but I think he fell in
love with some of that fire that I don't have anymore,
and you are plenty fiery.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
I'm not saying that.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
But the girl that your husband fell in love with
was in finance. No, the girl that he fell in
love with was sixteen. We've been together since we were sixteen,
so he's seen all the iterations.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
We have seen so many iterations of each other. That's cool.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
So many iterations of each other, which has been the
greatest gift in the world, truly, the greatest.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Gift in the world. Has there always been space for
all the iterations?
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Where is there ever? Friction?
Speaker 3 (24:03):
He allows me a lot more space. It's something I'm
working on with him, well with myself, actually, And I
find that has been such a gift in the sense
that we knew from a very early age and even
in college when we were together and we spent some
time apart, but it was this concept of we want
to grow individually, but on parallel tracks. So we always
(24:27):
had the freedom to have our own experiences and we
live individual, correlated lives. I have so many nights where
I'm at with my girlfriends. He has so many nights
where he's with his guy friends or weekend trips or whatever,
and then so many times there we're all together, and
then so many times we're individually together. I never wanted
a relationship where I felt someone had to be with
me twenty four to seven. We're both very independent people,
(24:49):
but we are each other's person like he is my
absolute fucking rock, and I.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Would not be able to do anything. I posted it
today this morning.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
I was like, if you are single or dating and
you want to have kids in the future, the number
one thing you should be thinking about is how they
are going to show up as a parent and a
partner in the household. Because I watch so many women
in my dms, especially parent they're partners, and it blows
my mind, absolutely blows my mind. They are married, single parents,
(25:22):
and I don't think we talk about that enough, because
that is the greatest onlock, in my opinion, to enjoying
your experience and fulfilling yourself as an individual, as a
mother and in your career after having children, is how
your partner shows up.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
I had a girlfriend of mine say that she feels
like most of her friend's husbands are great dads and
bad husbands, and I see what she's talking about. But
it's hard for me to be willing to accept one
of those things.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
No, you shouldn't. Yeah, I'll be single.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
So it's better to be single and have children on
your own than to be a single married parent.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
It seems like such a lonely experience.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
I can't even like the messages I'll get if I'm away.
It's like, who's with your kids? I'm like my husband
their father, and they're like, oh my gosh, do you
leave him? Like all this su I'm like what, No,
I walk out the door. They are his children, he
lives in this house. Like, I refuse to agree with
this narrative that we need to be babying our partners
(26:25):
and take care of them.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
They are grown ass adults. Start treating them like them.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Eve Rodsky wrote an entired book about it, with fair Play.
She changed my life because I actually had a limiting
belief around that as well, which was like I saw
my mom do so much and my dad is a
fully functioning partner, but she really did more, and I
still think he doesn't give her enough credit.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Nope, but that's that generation. I asked my mom all
the time, how in God's name did you raise three
of us while dad was never home. What does she say?
Speaker 3 (26:56):
She like, doesn't remember anything. She's like, it just was.
I don't no, But I also think they just didn't
expect differently. My mom and I talk about this a lot,
where we spend a ton of time with my parents,
and so they are observing myself and my husband as
parents all the time. And my mom is always commenting
Joe is my mom's favorite child's because she's also known
him for eighteen years now, like that's an ongoing joke.
(27:18):
He is her favorite child, and she's always saying, like,
how incredible. Oh, it's so amazing too, and I'm like, yeah,
it is, and he is an amazing parent, and also
he's a parent. You guys just saw and expected such
different things back in the day.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
But how did you expect something different if that wasn't modeled.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
I feel like it wasn't modeled in my household, but
it's been modeled in some media.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
So Eve is the perfect example. I love Eve. I
was just with her yesterday. She is the absolute best
and she's truly one of the best human beings I've
ever met. Love her.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
We bought her card deck before we had children because
I noticed in our apartment the toothpaste was running low,
and I was like, I wonder if Joe would buy
a new toothpaste. So I hit a toothpaste tube and
I used a fold toothpaste tube to see how long
it would take for him to buy a new toothpaste.
Because we had just fallen into this rhythm, because I
(28:15):
was technically in the apartment that he moved into, we'd
fallen into this rhythm of like I was ordering the
toilet paper, I was getting the tooth you know, all.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Shampoo, the little things you don't think about that are
there are a lot of times.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
And I remember when we got our dog.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
That was the first time we really sat down and
we were like, Okay, who's going to walk him?
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Like, let's structure this out. All do mornings, you do nights.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
You can feed him, then I'll feed him then and
we got fair play, and I remember having a conversation
around it. Then we had a kid, and he had
two weeks in paternity leave, so a lot fell on
me when he went back to work, and then we
sat down and did fair play again. And one of
the greatest things about Joe is that if I give
(28:55):
him feedback, he changes, and I wish I said the
same thing about myself.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
And he took the feedback and changed. And I don't know.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
I think it was I had dreams and desires of
things I wanted to do, and I couldn't make it
possible if I was carrying everything, and I didn't want
to be as mom like I just I don't know.
I don't know because I didn't see it modeled necessarily
my households, So I'm not sure where it came from.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Eve. I guess literally.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
When I had her on the podcast, she called herself
the ghost of Christmas Past because she was like, I
want to come back and help everybody, so you don't
get into this situation. People play fair play or read
the book like once they're in the situation. But reading
the book before marriage was life changing. Yes, do it before. Yeah,
there's so few people who shift culture like I'm just
(29:42):
she shifted culture.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
Has literally begun a movement, Yes, and I love it.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
It's amazing. You said that motherhood gave you an identity crisis.
What would you do differently to prepare for the shift?
Speaker 3 (29:56):
Okay, I have a hot take on this. I don't
think you can prepare Okay, I think you can. No,
I mean I think you can have the conversations with people.
If you have people in your life who had children,
what do you wish you knew beforehand? Or what's some advice?
I will say. The only preparation I think you can
tangibly do is have a therapist, a prescriber, and a
(30:18):
lactation consultant that you have a relationship with and are
a client of before you give birth, because you may
need those. You may not amazing, but you may need them.
To find a new doctor, to get off their wait lists,
to find one that's in network, to find one.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
That you like. You're in crisis.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
It's not good in crisis ten times harder, and all
of those things you could potentially need and feel in crisis,
lactation consultant especially, So that is my one tip. Otherwise,
I don't think you can ever comprehend, and I don't
mean this in a dismissive way. You will never understand
what that postpartum experience is like until you're in it.
You can read every book until you're blue in the face,
(30:58):
and you can think you are so prepared and you
can never prepare for it.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Is there anything that you wish you would have done
before having kids.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
I think about this kind of often, where I will
watch people who are really far in their careers, who
I really deeply admire, who don't have children yet, and
I have a pang of jealousy. And maybe that's because
I'm obsessed with my career, but like, I wonder what
I could have done more of before I had kids
if I had waited. I've never actually admitted that, but
(31:30):
then I also remember my children wouldn't be the exact
child they are because it's that exact egg, so that
kind of cuts.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
It right off. But I do feel not that I
had kids young.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
I was thirty, so it's odd, but in today's world
it kind of feels young in New York, like I
feel like a teen mom. Sometimes I'm trying to think
there's anything I would have tangibly done. I mean everyone
will say like travel more. I think I would have
just fucking laid down more. Honestly, I would have wrought it.
I would have rotted on a couch. I never roted.
I acted like I was the most important person in
the world and that I always had to be doing something,
(32:03):
and I would have rotted what do you mean like
you would do hobbies like.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Lay on a couch and do nothing read or what
did you do? What did I do with? Were you
busy doing? I mean you worked a lot.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
I don't know what the hell I was thinking. But
when I was working at chip Morgan, I would wake
up at four thirty in the morning to work on
Freckle Foody, to get to the gym at five thirty,
to get to my desk at six forty five, to
work until five thirty, to come home and then work
on Freckle Foody until nine o'clock at night. And then
on the weekends I would have a full menu and
(32:33):
grocery list, and I would spend all Saturday grocery shopping
at different stores, lugging it back to my apartment, cooking
all Saturday and all Sunday, and then delivering it to
people's homes on Sunday.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
How long did you do this for a year? That
is completely unsustainable?
Speaker 3 (32:48):
And then at the beach, I would wake up and
make breakfasts and like get these like plastic cups and
banners and whatever and hand them out to people just
so that they like knew about Freckle Foody.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
I don't know what you were really you were willing
to like do the hard thing. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
And when I sat down with Joe, because we were
engaged at the time, so we were like merging our
finances and this became a joint decision, and I said,
I think I want to quit my job and like,
see if I can do this. I remember him vividly saying,
if you were someone who sat on the couch all
day and I had to force to do things, I don't.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Think being your own boss would be a good idea.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
But I've watched you for many years in life, and
especially the past year grind and grind, and I believe
you and.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
You'll figure it out. And so I just feel like
I wish I would have relaxed more. Does it feel
gratifying knowing that you figured it out? Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
I love my work ethics in a sick, twisted way.
I love it, and I think that stems from feeling
like I have to prove something.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
The more I talk to people, the more I feel
like highly driven people have this like mix of trauma
and love in their childhood.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
You feel hundred percent, Yeah, it's there. They're behind every
successful woman. Yeah, is in needle well, you've got to
be running from something or running towards something. Yeah, but
that's what I mean.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
Like the people who are running, you're running towards something,
but you're also running from something.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
I don't know that I figured out what I'm running from?
Do you know what you're running from? No.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
One of the reasons, I'm a it's hard to pinpoint. Yeah,
or could we just be excited about?
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Like? Can I just be excited? Yeah? I have a
hard time sitting sell. I think that's the reality.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
I never saw my mom sit still or my dad
like I've never known or witness them to relax, ever,
And so it's what I.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Grew up with.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
And I think I also have this like chip on
my shoulder to prove coming from privilege. It's like, I
don't want people to think I just got this because
I grew up rich. I want to work and work
and be like, no, I deserve this. And I think
two things can be true. Obviously, you can't deny there's privilege,
and you can have a hard work ethic. But I
(34:45):
feel for so long I felt so driven to prove
by my work ethic, and I think I've unworked.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
A bit of that when I see millennial moms, I
think that they've shifted a lot in motherhood and then
I see gen Z moms now and it's a whole
different brand, or at the gen zs are like moms.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Yeah, I don't think I know any gen Z moms.
Have you seen online? Do you see a difference?
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Like how do you think millennials in particular have shifted motherhood.
I think that there was a big movement of the
gentle parenting and the reparent ourselves and just be kind.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
And I think sometimes we let it get away from us,
where like my kids should be afraid of me, I
am in charge. I want them to always feel loved
and cared for. I know that I love them no
matter what, but I want to be able to give
my child a look and have them stop what they
are doing, Like there have to be repercussions, and I
think sometimes we've let go of the repercussions. I've witnessed
(35:46):
someone smack my child's in a playground and the dad
be like, we don't do that, like get him off
the playground, Like how do you feel. I'm all for
talking about our emotions, and I'm all for everyone inherently
is good and I want to so you're not enery
gentle to the children. I think gentle parenting has honestly
been misunderstood because if you go to the core of
(36:06):
gentle parenting, they will say that there are supposed to.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Be repercussions for your actions.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
It's just you're not yelling, and I don't yell at
my kids, but you better believe there are repercussions if
you do that again.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
This toy is getting taken away.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
And I'm not saying this is right or wrong by
the way, I don't know, but that toy will get
taken away if you do it again, and it does
and you don't get it.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Have you ever come outside of yourself and found yourself
yelling or doing something that you feel ashamed about later?
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Yes, I grew up in a very lout household.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
We yelled, we screamed crazy things at each other, and
I make a conscious effort.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
It's why I wake up early in the morning.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
It's why i'm out of tay, it's why I journal,
It's why I do all myself work so that I
do not lose.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
My shit all my children.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
Because my natural inclination is to just yell and be loud.
And lose my shit, and I don't want to have
I yes, but I believe that the repair is more important.
So when I have lost my shit, it's in the
conversations with my kids, specifically my four year old, because
he's older and he can understand of like, I am
so sorry.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
I should not have reacted that way. You did nothing wrong.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
I was just very frustrated and that's not how I
should behave And this is how we can work through
our anger. And so like when I was a kid,
I feel like I was taught I'm not allowed to
be angry, almost like, oh, be happy, even though we're yelling,
everyone be happy. And I tell my son all the time,
you can be angry, but you cannot yell at me.
(37:30):
Go put your head on that pillow and scream as
loud as you want. Go punch your pillow, go upstairs
to your room and be by yourself. That's so fine.
You are allowed to be angry, because I still get angry.
But how do we handle the anger and what.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Do we do with it?
Speaker 4 (37:43):
I really like that philosophy.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
What's something you used to believe deeply about raising kids
that you don't don't believe anymore? I don't know if
I believed it deeply, but I don't think I ever
thought about how you have to parent different kids differently.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
I just never thought about that, do.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
You have a kid who's more anxious or less anxious,
not anxious per se.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
I don't think we've gotten old enough to figure that
out yet. But I have two very different children.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Night and day. Everything about them is different.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
And I think my first kid, in the beginning especially,
was this like unicorn baby who didn't cry and slept
well and never spit up. And I was like, I'm
the best. I am so good at this. And then
my second kid humbled me in the most needed way.
I hear that so often, truly, he's the freakin' best,
But he humbled me in the best way. Where I
(38:42):
also let go of so much control because I was
so anal with our first and I tried the same
with our second and realized it didn't work. So I
just kind of threw caution to the wind. I was like, Okay,
I guess we're on this ride. And I think that's
the biggest thing that's shifted in me. Many things have shifted.
I used to be so type a controlling before I
(39:02):
was a mom, and I don't think I would say
I'm Type B. I'm Type A with my work, but
in other aspects of my life, I am so much
more comfortable giving up control over things I just don't
care about.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
I'm gonna do some rapid fire with you. A conspiracy theory.
You can get.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Behind what qualifies as a conspiracy theory. Like we were
talking about reincarnation on my show. Can we count that?
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Yeah? Okay, like fully get behind that. Ghosts all of
those things.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
I've never met a ghost, but I used to have
a good carnation in my house.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
You met them, I did not meet them hardly.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
Could have told you about her multiple Carli's her cousin
by the way.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
Yeah, they've since sold it.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
But the house I grew up in was over three
hundred years old, and it was an old farmhouse. And
multiple people have seen the same woman ghost, multiple.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
People who aren't connected. I want to meet her. Yeah,
me too.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
I never met her, but I used to do like
seances and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
I was kind of into it when I was younger.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
I always tell the women in my life that I
love that if we lived back in the day, we
would have been in the same coven.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Oh absolutely, I was a witch. So it's like that.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
A lesson you've learned in therapy that you use daily,
The power of and two conflicting emotions can coexist at once.
I noticed you use that, you say it all the
time instead of but.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
Yeah, because I think it's the most powerful realization in
motherhood to give yourself the freedom to feel two things.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
There's a few definitions of wisdom. My favorite definition is
to be able to hold two opposing truths at one time.
So the and is literally wisdom. Yes, a belief you've
outgrown that I can white knuckle anything into happening. A
belief you refuse to let.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
Go of that you need to look or act a
certain way to be taken seriously or to be successful.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
A book that changed your life, something you think everybody
should read.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
I do not read books that I will blank and
statement change my life.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
You're such a reader. I read so much. But do
you know what I read? Yeah? You like smart romance,
I talk, but that could be life changing. Accord. Okay,
let me just tell you.
Speaker 3 (41:05):
Actually, Yes, if you are mom listening to this, I
don't know what your demo listeners are, but if you
are anyone. Okay, I hate saying mom, but I think
moms struggle the most with their sexual well being after
having children.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
Your partner becomes your roommate.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
You're freaking tired, your body doesn't feel like yours, your
sex drive just isn't the same.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
You feel like you don't have the time.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
Reading romance novels will ignite your spark again. And I
think sexual well being is so important. I talk about
it a lot on my platform because I think sex
is a part of our mental health and wellness.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
So if we're gonna go fantasy a Court of Thorn
and Roses by Sarah Jay.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
Mass, if we're gonna go non fantasy, I'm gonna recommend
the Windy City series.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
I love it. Thank you say it proudly. Something every
woman should try once. I'm thinking like there are a
few that are coming to me traveling alone. I used
to do a lot of that. I loved it. I
haven't done it recently.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
Doing something naked, just like anything anything, my mom's gonna
kill me. But I would sometimes come downstairs and she
was doing the dishes naked.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
Such a naked household. My husband has seen my mom
naked on multiple ocasions. Like, it is such a naked household.
So your mom is me.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
It's either like you're naked or you're not.
Speaker 3 (42:23):
We have this conversation at dinner last night. My friend
was saying she grew up in one and I was like, no,
you haven't. I've never seen your mom naked, and she
was like, what do you mean? I was like, how
many times have you seen my mom naked? My friends
have seen my mom.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
She's like, well, you're an abnormality, so just like doing
stuff naked. I'll leave it at those two. The last
question is the question everything card game question, which is
do plants thrive or die in your care?
Speaker 1 (42:44):
Neutral? No, plants, very few, and I would not say
they thrive, but you're not in the suburbs. Yeah, you know
what I'm thinking. Indoor plants, yeah, outdoor counts outdoor yeah,
but we have like a sprinkler resoll. My outdoor plants
thrive with money.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
That's fair.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
You're still taking care of Okay, then yes, sure they
don't die, but I really don't know if to thrive
it's the right word.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
They are alive. Cam, Thank you so much, thank you,
You're amazing.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Okay, you know what time it is? Today's a good
day to have a good day. I'll see you next week.
No one has all the answers, but when we ask
the right questions, we get a little closer, closer to truths,
closer to each other, even closer to ourselves. I'm journalist
Danielle Robe and each week, my guests and I come
together to challenge the status quo and our own ways
of thinking by daring to ask what if, why not?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
And who says?
Speaker 1 (00:30):
So? Come curious, dig deep, and join the conversation. It's
time to question everything.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Hello, Hello, my friends.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
I hope you're having a beautiful day and a beautiful week.
I looked at the calendar today and I realized we
artificially two weeks away from twenty twenty six. I don't
know how that happened, because I remember it being January
twenty twenty five. But here we are, and you know
what that means. My annual New Year's episode is going
(01:03):
to air next week. It is the only solo episode
that I do throughout the year usually, and I talk
about kind of a recap.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Of my year, what goals, I hit, what I didn't
personally professionally, it's probably you know.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
I deep dive, I cry, I laugh, and I talk
you through the New year transformation worksheet that I debuted
last year. You guys loved it. I got, you know,
thousands of downloads. This was one of the most popular
episodes last year, so I'm updating it. I updated the
worksheet with some new questions that I thought about and
(01:39):
some new tools that I learned. This year, I started
working with a life coach, like a year and a
half ago, or a career coach really, and some of
the tools I've learned that worked for me. Some I
didn't love and I threw out, but some that worked
for me. I added to this worksheet, so it's all updated.
You're going to be able to download it in like
I'll put the link in the show notes, but just
(02:00):
a heads up that that is coming your way. I'm
really really excited. I'm going to record the episode this
weekend when I'm alone and have time to just like
sit in all my feelings and really do a deep dive,
and then it'll air next week, so you'll have time
to download the worksheet and fill it all all out
(02:21):
before the new year. Okay, let's get into today's episode.
So we spend so much time building versions of ourselves
that work. The version that gets taken seriously the version
that doesn't ask for too much, the version that just
keeps everything moving. And then one day sometimes that version
(02:41):
stops working. It did for me in about twenty eighteen.
And this episode is about what happens when that person
or that persona that you created to help you succeed
starts to cost you your peace, when that ambition turns
into anxiety, and when control turns into exhaustion. Maybe your
(03:03):
life got bigger, marriage, motherhood, responsibility, and you realize you
can't white knuckle your way through it anymore.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Mine was different.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
It actually had to get smaller before it could get bigger.
But our guest today, Cameron Rodgers, knows about that shift.
So intimately, she left a high powered career in finance
to launch The Freckled Foodie back in the day. Her
platform has evolved since then, and she really blew up
(03:33):
during COVID because she was talking about postpartum in a
real way.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Now.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
One of the many, many things that I love about
Cam is she doesn't do polished or like a polished
version of honesty. She does the real version, the kind
that admits I'm anxious, I'm trying, I'm evolving, I don't
have the answer I'm scared.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
I thought I was going to love being pregnant, and
it rocked me, and postpartum rocked me. I struggled with
post pardon anxiety and depression, and that was when I
gained I think another download of my community because I
was so brutally honest about my experience.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
We're going to get into all of that today. We
talk about anxiety. We talk about some of her feelings
with postpartum and why she was so honest. We talk
about motherhood and how it cracked her open in ways
she didn't really consent to, talk about her therapy and
EMDR and the pressure women carry to be everything and
then somehow also be chill. And we get into partnership
(04:31):
and what it really means to have someone who shows up,
and why so many women are doing.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
The work of two adults.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
I really really like hearing Cam talk about partnership. So
the big question that we're circling today is how do
you become more yourself as.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
You grow and your life gets bigger.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Not letting fear, anxiety and other people's expectations run the show.
It's time to question everything with Cameron Rogers. Cam Hi,
I'm so happy to be with you.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
This is the best day.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
It's been a really long time coming. Your aunt has
been a career changing person in my life. And years
ago when you were starting your Instagram social media journey,
she said, you have to check out my niece. And
at the time, you were doing something called Freckled Foodie. Yes, yep,
that was my handle. Why did you name your business
(05:24):
off of that feature?
Speaker 2 (05:26):
And what's your relationship with freckles?
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Like, okay, well, you know, I actually feel I should
change my LLC name because it is Freckled Foodie.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
You can never change it. I don't think I can either.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
But the other day I was doing something with my
insurance and I had to get a COI for something
because I got an office space, and I said Freckled
Foodie and the woman goes, oh, that's so cute. Do
you have a restaurant?
Speaker 2 (05:48):
And I was like, how do I explain this?
Speaker 3 (05:50):
So the origin of the name was because I was
at JP Morgan. I was doing sales and trading, so
I was living a completely different life. And it was
around the birth era of the wellness influencer and food
porn accounts.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
They were both kind of coming up at the same time.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
And I was going through a bunch of digestive health issues,
and I was cooking all this food for myself, and
I was meal prepping like a maniac because I was
working these crazy hours. So I would bring breakfast and
lunch to the office and then I would get home
and I would eat the dinner I prepped, and I
would text my friends photos.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
I don't know why. I don't think they cared. You're
a sharer though, yeah, like you do not want to
be in a group chat with me.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
I guess they did care because they were asking for
the recipe and I said, oh, I just kind of
made it up. And I actually remember the night because
it was my little sister's birthday and I came home.
I think she had a party, and I was drunk
and I.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Was laying in bed. I was like, I'm going to
start a food Instagram. Why not. I have all these pictures,
I'm prepping all these foods. Let's try.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
And I started thinking what would it be? And I'm
covered in freckles. I have been my entire life. I
mean I wasn't born with them. People get very confused,
but like, since I was a very young child, I've
been covered in them, like face cover, everywhere covered, and
it was my identifier and then the food. And my
biggest thing was I didn't want my face or my
name on it. I didn't want anyone to.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Know it was me. But why what was the feeling underneath.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
That embarrassment, judgment and the fact that I had a
really big girl job and I.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Didn't want anyone in that career.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
I was very young, I was youngest on my desk,
and I had this great career path ahead of me,
and at that time had just gotten some really big
clients that were like a pretty big deal, and I
think people were very questioning of me having them, and
I didn't want them to be.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Like this girl's on Instagram posting, what is she taking
me seriously? Because I don't take her seriously. I felt
I had to prove myself.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
So I think maybe I put one photo of myself,
but you didn't know that it was me, And I
think it was three months went by were the only
people I told were my little sister and my husband,
then boyfriend, and then I remember we were sitting at
the beach and I had all these people over and
my friend turns to me and goes are you this
freckled foody girl on Instagram, and I.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Was like, Dianna, how did you find that she's like?
Speaker 3 (08:09):
It came up as a suggestion because I think maybe
it was when Instagram added the whole like phone number
contact thing and she's like. Then I started to realize
I recognized the background of the pictures and whatever. So
then I started telling people, and then it kind of
flipped where I told everyone I made these stickers. I
was posting them all over like mirrors and bars at
(08:29):
the shore or around New York City or in bathroom stalls,
like vandalizing, and I loved it. Again, though it wasn't
my face. It was all food focused because I was
still at JP. Everything has very much shifted now eight
years later, but that was the origin of freckled fooding,
and I do love that identity as a version of me.
(08:51):
It's kind of like this alter ego, not that she's
a different person, but I did and I still do love.
When I meet my community members, many people will reference
me as freckled foody, and I enjoy that.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
I don't know if you feel this way.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
It's very hard for me to comprehend that people would
want to approach me, or tell me that people exist
in consuming my content or listen to my show, because
my mind, we're all just friends. And having that kind
of alter ego was a nice barrier. Especially in the beginning.
They would say, oh my god, like freckled foodie and
(09:23):
I'm like, yeah, cool, isn't she awesome?
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Not thinking it was me. Does that make sense? Yeah,
it makes a lot of sense because I think at
the time it sounds like it really was an alter ego.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
It was, and I was living the same life, but
it wasn't my face, and it wasn't talking about anything
specifically personal.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
It was food.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
And at the time, when you started gaining some traction,
did you have a vision or a dream for what
you wanted it to be.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
In the beginning, the dream was to get free meals
at restaurants. I was like, do you think I can
go to Lartoozy and they'll like give me a free
meal if I post that was the dream.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
That's amazing.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Then when I actually started to really think about certain
things and lean in and try different things, I felt
like every time I opened a door, there were ten
doors behind it, and I did not have the time
to open them, and I desperately wanted to, but I
was being pulled so insanely thin, and I felt when
I eventually went to leave my job, I did sit
(10:21):
down and have this whole quote unquote business plan.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Was it at all what I'm doing today? None of it?
Speaker 3 (10:26):
But I was online in school for health coaching. I
was meal prepping for people all weekend long. I was
doing these like grocery store run throughs with them or
kitchen audits. It was way more health focused and my
business plan at the time.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
I would actually love to find it.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
I think it was, or I know it was way
more coaching and cooking and maybe one sponsored post a month.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
But I had maybe three thousand.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Followers, and we didn't know the creator industry in twenty
eighteen like we do now. We didn't know the alex
Earls of the world and how they made money or
that they could make money, So that just wasn't It.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Was more gate kept.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Yeah, and it also didn't really exist in twenty eighteen.
There were like five wellness influencers that I can think of,
and that was kind of it, and there weren't even
many podcasts. I don't think in twenty eighteen there wasn't
like it is today, so I didn't know that was
even an option.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
I didn't know you as freckled foodie. And I want
to ask sort of like a tough question, which is
it sounds like you were not speaking of wellness in
terms of consumerism the way that a lot of wellness
influencers were. You weren't saying, like, buy this three hundred
dollars serum of unicorn tears and it'll make things better.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
I don't think wellness was as insane as it is
now in twenty eighteen, but I was struggling with my
own orthorexic thoughts around food and exercise, and if I
were to look back at some of the content, I'm
sure I would be like, you need to get your
butt in therapy because you do not have a healthy
relationship with quote unquote wellness.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
It did begin to consume.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Me, and I think I had spent so much of
my life focused on me. One of the greatest gifts
becoming a mom has given me is focusing on someone
other than myself.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
It's actually why we got a dog.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
I remember being so anxious and depressed and obsessed with
my own thoughts and feelings and life and every morsel
of food that went in my body, and how long
I worked out, and I knew I always wanted a dog,
as did my husband. And I remember being like, I
need someone else to focus on. I am so consumed
with myself. I need someone else to focus on. Did
it help, Yes, not at all in the way that
(12:46):
children do, but it did help. I had someone else
to think of. And so I say all that because
I think the wellness world can become so obsessive. And
it did an aversion for me, but not to the
extreme that we sometimes see on the internet.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Now, your content now is largely about motherhood and mental health.
What was the transition? Were you craving deeper conversation or
what was it?
Speaker 3 (13:08):
I was sharing a lot about my mental health once
I quit my job because I was very anxious. I've
always been an anxious person. I didn't necessarily have the
language or the wherewithal to understand that it was anxiety.
And then at my job, it was kind of as
if they turned the dial up on all of my
not so great tendencies fast paced, competitive, move it or
(13:31):
lose at my way the highway. Everything has to get
done this second. If you're slow, what the hell are
you doing? And it allowed me to thrive on a
trading floor, because that's the person that does thrive, and
it really hurt me in my personal life, and I
was really anxious and lonely, even though I had this
(13:52):
life that I had always thought I wanted, and on
paper it looked amazing and I had incredible people, but
I felt so isolated. And so when I quit my job,
I kind of thought it was going to be this
magic wand of my anxiety is going to be gone
because now I'm not on a trading floor anymore.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
And that was not the case.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
And I vividly remember I had gotten in a car
accident and had a back concussion that led to disability
while I was at GP that eventually led to me
leaving and making this leap of faith. And I remember
meeting with my neurologist about my postconcussion symptoms and my
mom wanting to come with me because she was very
concerned about my health at the time and she just
(14:30):
wanted to be an advocate in extra years. And I
remember sitting there and my neurologists asking me.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Are you anxious? And I said, well, I'm no more anxious.
Than I ever was.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
I left my job, so no, I'm not anxious now.
And my mom when we left was like, girl, you
are a lot more anxious now. You might have thought
that leaving that job was going to ridge you of
all of your anxiety, but now you're riddled with ten
thousand other things. And especially at this time, I was
trying to build this business and having no idea what
(15:02):
I was doing. And that was then when I started medication,
which kind of really sparked a lot of my discussion
around my anxiety on my platform. So once I left
my corporate job, I felt more comfortable sharing myself and
my experience. And when I did that, I noticed how
many people in my community were going through something similar.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Was it healing to hear them or was it difficult
and triggering.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Part of it was self serving in the sense that
I realized I wasn't alone, and then it was this
realization of oh, we all feel long And I've always
been a sharer. I've always felt very comfortable laying my
cards out and if you like it, great, if you don't,
that's also fine. And so when I was noticing how
isolated other people felt, I realized, oh, if I share,
maybe they'll feel less alone. And then I started to
(15:46):
build this incredible community. And then the largest turning point
was pregnancy for me. I had a surprise pregnancy. I
thought I was going to love being pregnant, and it
rocked me, and postpartum rocked me. I struggled with the
postpartum anxiety and depression and that was when I gained
I think another like download of my community because I
was so brutally honest about my experience.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
You really say the thing like I know people online.
There is a theme that people feel connected to you
if you are sharing your truth or sharing vulnerably. But
I sometimes have to be honest. I'm shocked at how
much you share and now knowing that's who you are.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
There has never been a moment in my life where
I felt forced to share something. There are things I
don't share, of course. There are many things that I
don't share. There are many aspects of my life that
I keep very close to my chest because it's a
no one's business.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Do you think there's such thing as TMI. No, not
at all.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Like if you know me in my life, you will
know every detail of everything I do. You will see
me naked within ten seconds. Like that's just how who
I've always been. But I mean in the sense of
I keep my family very close to my chest, my
personal family, my extended family, my in laws, Like there
are so much that happens.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
In my life that I don't need to share because
it's not my story, right, So you share what's yours.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
I share what's mine, but I never feel forced to share.
I think there's a huge difference of force vulnerability and
just oh, and.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
This is what happened.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
And so I felt like I was connecting with more
and more women, And honestly, food became less and less
interesting to me the more I let go of those
orthorexic thoughts, and motherhood became the most interesting thing to me,
and the way that we navigate motherhood and the way
that we speak about motherhood and the way that we're
impacted by motherhood alongside mental health. And so that's when
my content really shifted. And then I changed my name
(17:36):
to my actual name, Cameron Ooks Rogers, and then I
changed my podcast name. So it's been this kind of
like evolution of me as a being alongside my business.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
I've heard you say that your relationship with therapy ebbs
and flows.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Where are you with it now? We just moved to
every other week.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
I had been consistently in therapy every single week for
seven years and I love that I've been with the
same therapist because she knows all the players in my life.
I don't have to be like and this person, let
me explain who they are. She's like, yeah, I got you,
which is so amazing. But I also felt like, because
I do a lot of self work, and kind of
(18:27):
part of our job, I will say is a little
insular self work.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Oh, if you're not excavating, you have nothing to share.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
I felt this kind of plateau, and I said to her,
I'm almost dreating therapy because I'm having to really.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Think about what i want to talk about.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
There's nothing that feels needs fixing necessarily, there are certain
things that I wanted to figure out, and I felt
talk therapy necessarily wasn't getting to the root of it.
So we are in once a week and we'll go
I think to more maintenance. But I am doing AMDR therapy,
which has been extremely fascinating. But talking about boundaries, that's
(19:09):
something that I've said I'm doing and I'm not getting
into the details of it. Well, I'm happy to talk
with you about like the process and stuff, but I'm
not sharing like this is what the trauma is that
I'm working through because I just don't feel that's necessary
to share.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Right, And I like that it seems like you have
this like very strict constitution with yourself, like you don't
have to navigate the sharing. It sounds like it's a
quick yes or no for you.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
I'm very gut forward, Like even with parenting, I don't
read parenting really no, I'm what is my gut telling me?
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Have you always been that way? I have?
Speaker 1 (19:42):
I've always really trusted my gut. I've had to do
so much work to trust mine. That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Well, I always hear it.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
Whether I trust it is actually another conversation because there's
something I did with my career a few years ago,
and I remember my gut being like, this isn't right.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
But I wanted the shiny object. And you think about
it to this day.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Yeah, and it wasn't right, but I really thought that
it was the thing I wanted.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
I think everyone does that. That's part of no.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
I think that we're all going to have those Yeah,
But I do think with parenting especially, that's where I
feel the most connected to my gut, and I just
lead with that.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
One of the things that I hear people talking about
most often now is that the world feels hard and heavy,
and I do not want to ignore the real stuff
that is hard and heavy. I've always just kind of
been an eternal optimist, and when I talk to older women,
they feel like this is just the ebbs and flows
(20:39):
of culture and life, although they do say that it
feels worse than usual.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
You're such a sensitive person.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
I'm wondering how you're navigating being optimistic and also like
facing the realities of what's hard.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
I'm having a very hard time, like very hard, and
I talk about that a lot in therapy because I
can get really wrapped up in it, and I think
it's twofold one. I've chosen with my content to share
my stances and my beliefs in politics and be outspoken
(21:12):
on them and not shy away from it. So then
I think the more I talk about it, the more
I'm in conversation about it, the more I'm consuming it,
the more it feels all consuming. So I'm trying to
figure out what is this fine line between consuming the
news and not letting the news consume me. And I
serve on an impact board of an organization that's working
to end mass shootings, and so we do a lot
(21:34):
of work, whether it be the days that we're actually
lobbying in Congress. I never heard a million years said
I would say these words, But I'm on zooms with
like legislative teams of senators and meeting with families who
have lost children in school shootings, and like, it is
heavy work. And I love it because I think it's
wildly important.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
I don't love it.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
I think it's important and I feel very called to
do it, but it has a very last impact on
me that I don't think I fully acknowledge. But having
children and doing that work feels very intense, and so
I'm trying to navigate. Like, for instance, i can't go
on threads. I don't have Twitter, but I go on Threads,
and like I can't do it at night because I'll
(22:16):
be like walking into the bedroom. We don't do phones
in our bed, but when I walk from downstairs upstairs,
I'm on my phone and I'll just be enraged, yelling
about things that a certain someone is doing that day, and.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
My husband's like, why are you doing this right now?
It's ten o'clock. We're about to get in bed, Like
why are you screaming at me about him? So he
doesn't share your sort of outrage.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
He shares the outrage, but not at ten o'clock at night.
You just feel things really deep I feel things really deeply.
And he's not on social media, so he doesn't get
sucked into the same holes that I do, where like
I consume, consume, consume, and then I spiral and then
I'm outraged since ten o'clock and like he's trying to
wind down, and I'm supposed to be winding down, and
now I'm just angry and so trying to I have
(23:02):
a question about your relationship because I was actually just
talking with a friend who fell in love with her
husband at a point in time where she was super
career focused and she was doing one thing at a
very high level, and then a few years after they
got married, she was like, I'm burnt out. I'm kind
of done with this, and took a full step back
(23:25):
a pause, and she says, I think that I'm not
the girl that my husband fell in love with anymore.
And I'm still me but I think he fell in
love with some of that fire that I don't have anymore,
and you are plenty fiery.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
I'm not saying that.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
But the girl that your husband fell in love with
was in finance. No, the girl that he fell in
love with was sixteen. We've been together since we were sixteen,
so he's seen all the iterations.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
We have seen so many iterations of each other. That's cool.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
So many iterations of each other, which has been the
greatest gift in the world, truly, the greatest.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Gift in the world. Has there always been space for
all the iterations?
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Where is there ever? Friction?
Speaker 3 (24:03):
He allows me a lot more space. It's something I'm
working on with him, well with myself, actually, And I
find that has been such a gift in the sense
that we knew from a very early age and even
in college when we were together and we spent some
time apart, but it was this concept of we want
to grow individually, but on parallel tracks. So we always
(24:27):
had the freedom to have our own experiences and we
live individual, correlated lives. I have so many nights where
I'm at with my girlfriends. He has so many nights
where he's with his guy friends or weekend trips or whatever,
and then so many times there we're all together, and
then so many times we're individually together. I never wanted
a relationship where I felt someone had to be with
me twenty four to seven. We're both very independent people,
(24:49):
but we are each other's person like he is my
absolute fucking rock, and I.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Would not be able to do anything. I posted it
today this morning.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
I was like, if you are single or dating and
you want to have kids in the future, the number
one thing you should be thinking about is how they
are going to show up as a parent and a
partner in the household. Because I watch so many women
in my dms, especially parent they're partners, and it blows
my mind, absolutely blows my mind. They are married, single parents,
(25:22):
and I don't think we talk about that enough, because
that is the greatest onlock, in my opinion, to enjoying
your experience and fulfilling yourself as an individual, as a
mother and in your career after having children, is how
your partner shows up.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
I had a girlfriend of mine say that she feels
like most of her friend's husbands are great dads and
bad husbands, and I see what she's talking about. But
it's hard for me to be willing to accept one
of those things.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
No, you shouldn't. Yeah, I'll be single.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
So it's better to be single and have children on
your own than to be a single married parent.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
It seems like such a lonely experience.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
I can't even like the messages I'll get if I'm away.
It's like, who's with your kids? I'm like my husband
their father, and they're like, oh my gosh, do you
leave him? Like all this su I'm like what, No,
I walk out the door. They are his children, he
lives in this house. Like, I refuse to agree with
this narrative that we need to be babying our partners
(26:25):
and take care of them.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
They are grown ass adults. Start treating them like them.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Eve Rodsky wrote an entired book about it, with fair Play.
She changed my life because I actually had a limiting
belief around that as well, which was like I saw
my mom do so much and my dad is a
fully functioning partner, but she really did more, and I
still think he doesn't give her enough credit.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Nope, but that's that generation. I asked my mom all
the time, how in God's name did you raise three
of us while dad was never home. What does she say?
Speaker 3 (26:56):
She like, doesn't remember anything. She's like, it just was.
I don't no, But I also think they just didn't
expect differently. My mom and I talk about this a lot,
where we spend a ton of time with my parents,
and so they are observing myself and my husband as
parents all the time. And my mom is always commenting
Joe is my mom's favorite child's because she's also known
him for eighteen years now, like that's an ongoing joke.
(27:18):
He is her favorite child, and she's always saying, like,
how incredible. Oh, it's so amazing too, and I'm like, yeah,
it is, and he is an amazing parent, and also
he's a parent. You guys just saw and expected such
different things back in the day.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
But how did you expect something different if that wasn't modeled.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
I feel like it wasn't modeled in my household, but
it's been modeled in some media.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
So Eve is the perfect example. I love Eve. I
was just with her yesterday. She is the absolute best
and she's truly one of the best human beings I've
ever met. Love her.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
We bought her card deck before we had children because
I noticed in our apartment the toothpaste was running low,
and I was like, I wonder if Joe would buy
a new toothpaste. So I hit a toothpaste tube and
I used a fold toothpaste tube to see how long
it would take for him to buy a new toothpaste.
Because we had just fallen into this rhythm, because I
(28:15):
was technically in the apartment that he moved into, we'd
fallen into this rhythm of like I was ordering the
toilet paper, I was getting the tooth you know, all.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Shampoo, the little things you don't think about that are
there are a lot of times.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
And I remember when we got our dog.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
That was the first time we really sat down and
we were like, Okay, who's going to walk him?
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Like, let's structure this out. All do mornings, you do nights.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
You can feed him, then I'll feed him then and
we got fair play, and I remember having a conversation
around it. Then we had a kid, and he had
two weeks in paternity leave, so a lot fell on
me when he went back to work, and then we
sat down and did fair play again. And one of
the greatest things about Joe is that if I give
(28:55):
him feedback, he changes, and I wish I said the
same thing about myself.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
And he took the feedback and changed. And I don't know.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
I think it was I had dreams and desires of
things I wanted to do, and I couldn't make it
possible if I was carrying everything, and I didn't want
to be as mom like I just I don't know.
I don't know because I didn't see it modeled necessarily
my households, So I'm not sure where it came from.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Eve. I guess literally.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
When I had her on the podcast, she called herself
the ghost of Christmas Past because she was like, I
want to come back and help everybody, so you don't
get into this situation. People play fair play or read
the book like once they're in the situation. But reading
the book before marriage was life changing. Yes, do it before. Yeah,
there's so few people who shift culture like I'm just
(29:42):
she shifted culture.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
Has literally begun a movement, Yes, and I love it.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
It's amazing. You said that motherhood gave you an identity crisis.
What would you do differently to prepare for the shift?
Speaker 3 (29:56):
Okay, I have a hot take on this. I don't
think you can prepare Okay, I think you can. No,
I mean I think you can have the conversations with people.
If you have people in your life who had children,
what do you wish you knew beforehand? Or what's some advice?
I will say. The only preparation I think you can
tangibly do is have a therapist, a prescriber, and a
(30:18):
lactation consultant that you have a relationship with and are
a client of before you give birth, because you may
need those. You may not amazing, but you may need them.
To find a new doctor, to get off their wait lists,
to find one that's in network, to find one.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
That you like. You're in crisis.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
It's not good in crisis ten times harder, and all
of those things you could potentially need and feel in crisis,
lactation consultant especially, So that is my one tip. Otherwise,
I don't think you can ever comprehend, and I don't
mean this in a dismissive way. You will never understand
what that postpartum experience is like until you're in it.
You can read every book until you're blue in the face,
(30:58):
and you can think you are so prepared and you
can never prepare for it.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Is there anything that you wish you would have done
before having kids.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
I think about this kind of often, where I will
watch people who are really far in their careers, who
I really deeply admire, who don't have children yet, and
I have a pang of jealousy. And maybe that's because
I'm obsessed with my career, but like, I wonder what
I could have done more of before I had kids
if I had waited. I've never actually admitted that, but
(31:30):
then I also remember my children wouldn't be the exact
child they are because it's that exact egg, so that
kind of cuts.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
It right off. But I do feel not that I
had kids young.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
I was thirty, so it's odd, but in today's world
it kind of feels young in New York, like I
feel like a teen mom. Sometimes I'm trying to think
there's anything I would have tangibly done. I mean everyone
will say like travel more. I think I would have
just fucking laid down more. Honestly, I would have wrought it.
I would have rotted on a couch. I never roted.
I acted like I was the most important person in
the world and that I always had to be doing something,
(32:03):
and I would have rotted what do you mean like
you would do hobbies like.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Lay on a couch and do nothing read or what
did you do? What did I do with? Were you
busy doing? I mean you worked a lot.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
I don't know what the hell I was thinking. But
when I was working at chip Morgan, I would wake
up at four thirty in the morning to work on
Freckle Foody, to get to the gym at five thirty,
to get to my desk at six forty five, to
work until five thirty, to come home and then work
on Freckle Foody until nine o'clock at night. And then
on the weekends I would have a full menu and
(32:33):
grocery list, and I would spend all Saturday grocery shopping
at different stores, lugging it back to my apartment, cooking
all Saturday and all Sunday, and then delivering it to
people's homes on Sunday.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
How long did you do this for a year? That
is completely unsustainable?
Speaker 3 (32:48):
And then at the beach, I would wake up and
make breakfasts and like get these like plastic cups and
banners and whatever and hand them out to people just
so that they like knew about Freckle Foody.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
I don't know what you were really you were willing
to like do the hard thing. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
And when I sat down with Joe, because we were
engaged at the time, so we were like merging our
finances and this became a joint decision, and I said,
I think I want to quit my job and like,
see if I can do this. I remember him vividly saying,
if you were someone who sat on the couch all
day and I had to force to do things, I don't.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Think being your own boss would be a good idea.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
But I've watched you for many years in life, and
especially the past year grind and grind, and I believe
you and.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
You'll figure it out. And so I just feel like
I wish I would have relaxed more. Does it feel
gratifying knowing that you figured it out? Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
I love my work ethics in a sick, twisted way.
I love it, and I think that stems from feeling
like I have to prove something.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
The more I talk to people, the more I feel
like highly driven people have this like mix of trauma
and love in their childhood.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
You feel hundred percent, Yeah, it's there. They're behind every
successful woman. Yeah, is in needle well, you've got to
be running from something or running towards something. Yeah, but
that's what I mean.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
Like the people who are running, you're running towards something,
but you're also running from something.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
I don't know that I figured out what I'm running from?
Do you know what you're running from? No.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
One of the reasons, I'm a it's hard to pinpoint. Yeah,
or could we just be excited about?
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Like? Can I just be excited? Yeah? I have a
hard time sitting sell. I think that's the reality.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
I never saw my mom sit still or my dad
like I've never known or witness them to relax, ever,
And so it's what I.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Grew up with.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
And I think I also have this like chip on
my shoulder to prove coming from privilege. It's like, I
don't want people to think I just got this because
I grew up rich. I want to work and work
and be like, no, I deserve this. And I think
two things can be true. Obviously, you can't deny there's privilege,
and you can have a hard work ethic. But I
(34:45):
feel for so long I felt so driven to prove
by my work ethic, and I think I've unworked.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
A bit of that when I see millennial moms, I
think that they've shifted a lot in motherhood and then
I see gen Z moms now and it's a whole
different brand, or at the gen zs are like moms.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Yeah, I don't think I know any gen Z moms.
Have you seen online? Do you see a difference?
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Like how do you think millennials in particular have shifted motherhood.
I think that there was a big movement of the
gentle parenting and the reparent ourselves and just be kind.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
And I think sometimes we let it get away from us,
where like my kids should be afraid of me, I
am in charge. I want them to always feel loved
and cared for. I know that I love them no
matter what, but I want to be able to give
my child a look and have them stop what they
are doing, Like there have to be repercussions, and I
think sometimes we've let go of the repercussions. I've witnessed
(35:46):
someone smack my child's in a playground and the dad
be like, we don't do that, like get him off
the playground, Like how do you feel. I'm all for
talking about our emotions, and I'm all for everyone inherently
is good and I want to so you're not enery
gentle to the children. I think gentle parenting has honestly
been misunderstood because if you go to the core of
(36:06):
gentle parenting, they will say that there are supposed to.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Be repercussions for your actions.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
It's just you're not yelling, and I don't yell at
my kids, but you better believe there are repercussions if
you do that again.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
This toy is getting taken away.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
And I'm not saying this is right or wrong by
the way, I don't know, but that toy will get
taken away if you do it again, and it does
and you don't get it.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Have you ever come outside of yourself and found yourself
yelling or doing something that you feel ashamed about later?
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Yes, I grew up in a very lout household.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
We yelled, we screamed crazy things at each other, and
I make a conscious effort.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
It's why I wake up early in the morning.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
It's why i'm out of tay, it's why I journal,
It's why I do all myself work so that I
do not lose.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
My shit all my children.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
Because my natural inclination is to just yell and be loud.
And lose my shit, and I don't want to have
I yes, but I believe that the repair is more important.
So when I have lost my shit, it's in the
conversations with my kids, specifically my four year old, because
he's older and he can understand of like, I am
so sorry.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
I should not have reacted that way. You did nothing wrong.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
I was just very frustrated and that's not how I
should behave And this is how we can work through
our anger. And so like when I was a kid,
I feel like I was taught I'm not allowed to
be angry, almost like, oh, be happy, even though we're yelling,
everyone be happy. And I tell my son all the time,
you can be angry, but you cannot yell at me.
(37:30):
Go put your head on that pillow and scream as
loud as you want. Go punch your pillow, go upstairs
to your room and be by yourself. That's so fine.
You are allowed to be angry, because I still get angry.
But how do we handle the anger and what.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Do we do with it?
Speaker 4 (37:43):
I really like that philosophy.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
What's something you used to believe deeply about raising kids
that you don't don't believe anymore? I don't know if
I believed it deeply, but I don't think I ever
thought about how you have to parent different kids differently.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
I just never thought about that, do.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
You have a kid who's more anxious or less anxious,
not anxious per se.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
I don't think we've gotten old enough to figure that
out yet. But I have two very different children.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Night and day. Everything about them is different.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
And I think my first kid, in the beginning especially,
was this like unicorn baby who didn't cry and slept
well and never spit up. And I was like, I'm
the best. I am so good at this. And then
my second kid humbled me in the most needed way.
I hear that so often, truly, he's the freakin' best,
But he humbled me in the best way. Where I
(38:42):
also let go of so much control because I was
so anal with our first and I tried the same
with our second and realized it didn't work. So I
just kind of threw caution to the wind. I was like, Okay,
I guess we're on this ride. And I think that's
the biggest thing that's shifted in me. Many things have shifted.
I used to be so type a controlling before I
(39:02):
was a mom, and I don't think I would say
I'm Type B. I'm Type A with my work, but
in other aspects of my life, I am so much
more comfortable giving up control over things I just don't
care about.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
I'm gonna do some rapid fire with you. A conspiracy theory.
You can get.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Behind what qualifies as a conspiracy theory. Like we were
talking about reincarnation on my show. Can we count that?
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Yeah? Okay, like fully get behind that. Ghosts all of
those things.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
I've never met a ghost, but I used to have
a good carnation in my house.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
You met them, I did not meet them hardly.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
Could have told you about her multiple Carli's her cousin
by the way.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
Yeah, they've since sold it.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
But the house I grew up in was over three
hundred years old, and it was an old farmhouse. And
multiple people have seen the same woman ghost, multiple.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
People who aren't connected. I want to meet her. Yeah,
me too.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
I never met her, but I used to do like
seances and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
I was kind of into it when I was younger.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
I always tell the women in my life that I
love that if we lived back in the day, we
would have been in the same coven.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Oh absolutely, I was a witch. So it's like that.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
A lesson you've learned in therapy that you use daily,
The power of and two conflicting emotions can coexist at once.
I noticed you use that, you say it all the
time instead of but.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
Yeah, because I think it's the most powerful realization in
motherhood to give yourself the freedom to feel two things.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
There's a few definitions of wisdom. My favorite definition is
to be able to hold two opposing truths at one time.
So the and is literally wisdom. Yes, a belief you've
outgrown that I can white knuckle anything into happening. A
belief you refuse to let.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
Go of that you need to look or act a
certain way to be taken seriously or to be successful.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
A book that changed your life, something you think everybody
should read.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
I do not read books that I will blank and
statement change my life.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
You're such a reader. I read so much. But do
you know what I read? Yeah? You like smart romance,
I talk, but that could be life changing. Accord. Okay,
let me just tell you.
Speaker 3 (41:05):
Actually, Yes, if you are mom listening to this, I
don't know what your demo listeners are, but if you
are anyone. Okay, I hate saying mom, but I think
moms struggle the most with their sexual well being after
having children.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
Your partner becomes your roommate.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
You're freaking tired, your body doesn't feel like yours, your
sex drive just isn't the same.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
You feel like you don't have the time.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
Reading romance novels will ignite your spark again. And I
think sexual well being is so important. I talk about
it a lot on my platform because I think sex
is a part of our mental health and wellness.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
So if we're gonna go fantasy a Court of Thorn
and Roses by Sarah Jay.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
Mass, if we're gonna go non fantasy, I'm gonna recommend
the Windy City series.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
I love it. Thank you say it proudly. Something every
woman should try once. I'm thinking like there are a
few that are coming to me traveling alone. I used
to do a lot of that. I loved it. I
haven't done it recently.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
Doing something naked, just like anything anything, my mom's gonna
kill me. But I would sometimes come downstairs and she
was doing the dishes naked.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
Such a naked household. My husband has seen my mom
naked on multiple ocasions. Like, it is such a naked household.
So your mom is me.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
It's either like you're naked or you're not.
Speaker 3 (42:23):
We have this conversation at dinner last night. My friend
was saying she grew up in one and I was like, no,
you haven't. I've never seen your mom naked, and she
was like, what do you mean? I was like, how
many times have you seen my mom naked? My friends
have seen my mom.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
She's like, well, you're an abnormality, so just like doing
stuff naked. I'll leave it at those two. The last
question is the question everything card game question, which is
do plants thrive or die in your care?
Speaker 1 (42:44):
Neutral? No, plants, very few, and I would not say
they thrive, but you're not in the suburbs. Yeah, you know
what I'm thinking. Indoor plants, yeah, outdoor counts outdoor yeah,
but we have like a sprinkler resoll. My outdoor plants
thrive with money.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
That's fair.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
You're still taking care of Okay, then yes, sure they
don't die, but I really don't know if to thrive
it's the right word.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
They are alive. Cam, Thank you so much, thank you,
You're amazing.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Okay, you know what time it is? Today's a good
day to have a good day. I'll see you next week.
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