Hey folks, this is Todd. So I'm cognizant of the fact that not everyone will be the sort of listener that wants to go back to episode one and listen to everything in sequential order. So that being said, if you're one of those people that is just starting at the top of what you see listed, this is not a typical podcast episode. For this episode, there's no music, there's no monologue.
It's not a finished show, and that's by design. What you're hearing here is the core of a finished production, just to give you a sense of what a stripped-down, raw conversation sounds like before. is edited and polished and finalized into what you'll hear in a typical show. And what I find most interesting about this conversation is just how close it is to being a finished product.
and really, I guess, how little there is for me to do as a producer in a lot of cases where the guest knows exactly what they want to say, and all they're looking for is just a platform to say it. So, I hope you enjoy this. Hello? Hi. Hi, how are you? I'm feeling better now, actually. I was kind of down in the dumps, and I put on my free agent t-shirt. And for a brief second, I kind of felt like Superman, like I can do anything.
I have this little reminder that I should be very grateful of the freedom that I have in my job to be able to do cool things and not be trapped like I was five years ago. Yeah, no kidding. How are you? I'm good. I'm ready. Okay. I think I am. I mean, I hope that it turns out okay for you and that you're able to create something out of it. Yeah, I really wouldn't worry about that. I think the only thing is, is that... When you tell a story like this in front of an audience, maybe you get
You can read people's, even if people aren't saying anything, you can kind of read expressions and sort of get the sense that, you know, you're being heard and you're making, you're having an effect on the people that are out there. Whereas with this, it's kind of,
It's kind of strange. So I know with Jen Ferris, I think it was her that she sort of said, are you still there? There was a couple points. And I had to sort of jump in and say, This is kind of my thing is that I know there's a lot of shows that sort of have a lot of back and forth banter and the host kind of cuts in a lot, but the only time I tend... to say more than just sort of a emote, sort of like a little verbalization.
is as if there's some dead airspace and i sort of sense like the person has come to the end or maybe doesn't know where to go next and then i'll hop in to sort of give it a push to keep it going Perfect. I was going to ask you, do you ask questions? How does this work if I get to a point where I'm like, okay, I don't know what else to say, right?
So, perfect, you just answered my question. Generally, I'll save stuff up to the end. I like to keep a little notepad of stuff nearby, and I might jot down some thoughts and stuff. And uh... Did you hear the most recent one that I just put out? No, I haven't had a chance. What was it about? Who was it? Her name's Mackenzie Kitchen, and she sort of had a rough start in life also because there were drugs and alcohol. and she sort of...
She had parents, but she sort of ended up in the foster system anyway just because home was just such a bad place to be. And with her... Other than expressing a little surprise at some parts of her story, I was just completely silent because she told it so well. I didn't feel like anything that I could say would do much other than to interrupt her flow, and she was flowing.
So just don't second guess yourself. Don't think about what words to use. Just tell your story as completely and as honestly and as explicitly, I guess, as you're comfortable in doing. And I'm just going to stay the heck out of the way. Okay. All right, then I guess I'll just start. So, I guess you're recording, yes? I am. You can start anytime. So, my name is Natasha Fraser, and I am here to talk today about my story.
My life has been a journey of unfortunate events that have led me to one place where I feel is a positive place. So how did I get here? And for me, it's always been about resilience and my ability to bounce back a little bit of luck. Also being agile and being able to create new pathways to allow myself to grow and learn. So, and I don't know why that is or how that happens.
It just is who I am and how I became to be. I don't know why it's led me to look at life that way because it's really, I should be a statistic. So I was a child who was raised by a child without a father, and I lived a life. That would typically, if you had looked at, like, I should have likely have been either in an abortion or gone through the foster care system and been adopted. But I didn't. I stayed with my mom.
So just to give you sort of a backstory pre-me, my mom was 13 when she met my dad who was then 19 going on 20. She was raised by traditional religious parents to different religions, which caused some turmoil in their homes. My grandmother was an extreme Roman Catholic friend. And my grandfather, her father was a traditional, very traditional Muslim.
from Pakistan and they had my mom and another daughter my aunt and my uncle who passed away when he was 19 from leukemia So for my mother's parents, As you can imagine, it was... very difficult for them to be married with such a difference of belief and raise children together. But in addition to that, one thing that was sort of traditional and common in both of the religions was that, you know, your children...
I should not end up pregnant at 13. And my mom ended up pregnant at 13 and had me at 14. My dad was 19 going on 20. Wow. So he was... for all intents and purposes, an adult. But as you know, being an adult now, when you look back at the age of 19 and 20, we're not adults. We're just kids at that age. So, I mean... Not to say that that's the excuse for my dad, but, you know, he was young, so I don't... hold any grudges. So when my mother came home at 13 pregnant, her grandparents, her parents,
Obviously, they weren't happy. So they told my dad that he was basically just to hit the road and get lost. and that if he were to come back, he would be charged with statutory rights. And then my mother was sent to the convent. because that's what you did back then when you were a teen who was pregnant and stayed there until I was two. And so I have no memory of that time.
My mother speaks fondly of that time, actually. She talks about how nice the people were to her and how kind they were considering her circumstance. But I was an infant up to a toddler, so I have zero memories of that. My first memories are when I was maybe like... That's when I start to remember, like, my childhood. I lived at that time. My mom... was then older and no longer needing care of the convent.
and was sent away to go on welfare. And she worked and tried to support me at like 15 years old. I have a quiz, and I'm glad I have a 14-year-old daughter right now, and I can't imagine her doing any of this. As much as the struggle it was for my mom, I just don't know how she did it, and I have such admiration for her now as an adult.
that she was able to pull this off because I think a lot of people wouldn't have been able to. And, you know, I have some admiration for myself for being as resilient as I was because the circumstances were not good. And, you know, she was a child raising a child. So she was not the best mother. She was alone. She was abandoned by her family, basically, and had no support from my dad because he was told to stay away. And out of fear of being thrown in jail, he listened.
you know, lived on her own for a little bit. Then my aunt moved in with her. And I remember having some really good times when my aunt and my mom were young, living together. You know, we used to... They would have like dance parties while we were vacuuming the house and stuff. But like... When I think back to it, it was really like a young sort of happiness and jovialness that my mom and my aunt, who I refer to as my parents. because they raised me at that time. And it was...
I still put on music, and I'll do stuff while I'm cleaning, but the level of maturity is different, right? So, like, we would... We would do that and then she would go to work and I would stay with my aunt. Or, you know, she would explore options for returning to school because you have to remember at 13 she was in grade 8. So, you know, she wanted to go back to school and get her life together.
Because she was so young and had no structure in her life and was sent away so young, you know, she didn't really know what she should do. So it took her a while to figure it out, I think. And she also didn't know how to parent. So, you know, in those days, it was very common. And I think for most kids who are born in like the 70s and were growing up in the 80s, that their parents like.
smack them around, meet them, whip them, that kind of stuff. And I think my mom used those sort of, at the time, standard discipline tactics for myself. And because she was young, I don't think she really understood the limitations. And so I would say that, like... When I look back at those years, I don't look back at them fondly. I feel that that was a lot of trauma, probably, that was exposed to me in my life.
And my aunt ultimately left at one point because she was... wanting to pursue her own careers and own life and so it ended up being just my mother and myself and when we were alone together those times were dark. She, around the age, I guess I was probably four, she met my sister's father. And he was from the Caribbean and they married and had my sister, Melissa.
And he ended up going back to the Caribbean and leaving. So then my mother was alone with two kids at the age of 20. Wow. So I think at that point, she decided, I'm going to do something. And she went back to high school. And my youngest sister went to daycare at the high school, and I went to JKFK. And she finished her high school years and at the same time also worked. So there were a lot of times where I was alone.
because my mom was either working or at school. My sister was at daycare and it was just me. Um, and I was five or six and you know, at 80, seven, eight, like that, that was standard too. You know, you left your kids and you went and did your stuff and then you came back and you fed them and you put them to bed. Right. It was sort of how the times were, and to be honest, like, how did I survive that? I don't know, because I spent a lot of time.
on my big wheel, riding around the neighborhood, hanging out with friends in the forest, playing, you know, just really. grassroots kind of games and then going finding my way home at night. My mom would be there with my little sister. We would eat and we would go to bed. That was my summer. And then in the school times, I would bring myself to school. I would bring myself home from school. I would feed myself. And then my mom would show up around dinner time with my sister and we would eat.
When my sister was old enough to go to school, then I was responsible for bringing her to school and her back from school and feeding her snack and making sure that she was good until my mother came home to make us dinner. So, you know, I would say that that parenting from that point onward, it was absent. And I spent a lot of time trying to sort of pick up the slack.
for where my mother couldn't because she was just trying to get on her feet. And, you know, she did. And I watched her struggle. I watched her cry. I watched her get angry. Sometimes the anger was directed towards me, and I know some of that was resentfulness, like she had wished, you know, things had gone differently. I was never born, perhaps. and that she could have had a normal life. But she dealt with what she had and whether or not she dealt with that the best way.
And with Grace, probably not, but she did it the best way she knew how, right? So I actually don't hold any resentment to my mom for those years. Because I know that I am the victim of circumstance. You know, she was alone. She had no guidance. She was a child. And I remember times when I was young where, you know, my mom would have to... go to the doctors herself, you know, and be treated. And they thought that
You know, she would go to CHEO, for instance. There was a time where I had scratched her eyeball. And she went to CHEO, which is the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, and they thought that she was there for me. because she had a child. And then when she explained to them that she was there for her because she was the child who was injured, there was a lot of shock and concern.
and surprised. So, you know, I look back and I don't have resentment. If anything, I learned from her how to fight through obstacles and try and create the best. situations when you have the worst situation. And also from her, I think I learned what not to do as a mom. Really, it was good training for me for when I grew up and became a mother, right?
I knew 100% by the time I was like age six that I would never be a kid with a kid and that that was a mistake. I knew that and I was young and I knew that. I knew that parenting... your kids, you know, and taking them to hockey and making them lunches when you could and being present with something that I didn't have and I saw my friends have it and I wanted it.
And I knew 100% that was what I wanted to give to my children one day. So it better prepared me for motherhood, if that can even happen for a six-year-old. But it did. And so... At the age of 14, I moved out and I went to live with my aunt because I was at the time where I was testing my mom and my mom was only, you know, 14 years older than me as she was 28. And she had had it. She was done. She had given up her entire youth.
and didn't know how to parent a teenager and just was tired. And I sensed that and I knew that it was time for me to leave. So I lived in my aunt for one year. And then... My aunt was not meant to be a parent. She gave me a lot of freedom, probably too much. You know, she didn't know. She had no kids. My aunt has no children. So she was just trying to be my friend, I think, and support me through. But really, I needed a parent. I never had a parent.
I had a teenage mom, but I didn't have someone to parent me, and I really needed that structure and guidance, and no one gave it to me from birth. And so at 15, I then moved out on my own. So I would have been in grade 9 and 10 at those times, and I was going to high school. I went to an art school. I loved it. But I was also really, I would say that those were the years where... I was
in turmoil. Obviously, I feel that those are traditional years for anybody to be in turmoil. Your hormones are changing, you're growing, you're testing, you're pushing back. But I had no guidance, no structure. I was lost. So my high school years, I did a lot of skipping of classes. And what should have been like a five-year process for me was somewhere closer to six years to complete. I had a really rough go in those years. I wanted someone to love me. I felt very abandoned and alone.
I didn't have a dad. My mom and I, we had a very, like, difficult relationship at that time. I resented her for even having me, right? And not really understanding, like... the struggle and the strength that it took to have me. But I resented her for having me. I didn't understand it from a bigger picture. I also didn't realize at that time that I was a victim of circumstance and unfortunate events. I just blamed it 100% on her. How could you do this to me?
Right. So we took a pause from our relationship, probably from 15 to 18, where we would just sort of check in and check out, but not necessarily have a relationship. And in that time, I... I tried to build relationships. I tried to build romantic relationships, friendship relationships. You know, I tried to bond with my sister who was five years younger than me, so that was difficult.
She was also equally struggling with being alone with my mom and my mom still being young and not really knowing. She was experiencing a lot of what I had experienced. And so those are the years I would say that I was in sort of like my own little mini tornado. I should have done drugs. I never did drugs. I should have ended up drinking my face off and becoming an alcoholic. I never did. I worked at McDonald's part-time. And then eventually Harvey's, you know, part time.
And I tried to finish my school because I didn't want to end up like my mom. I didn't. I knew that I didn't. I just didn't know how to not be like that, right? I didn't want to be pregnant alone. and resentful. I didn't want to struggle, but I was struggling. I was alone. I was resentful. The only thing that I wasn't was pregnant. Thank goodness. Thank goodness. Yeah. Yeah. I literally had turned into my mother and I recognize that like, I didn't.
I didn't want to struggle in her. I was struggling, and I know that part of it was because of my upbringing, but I also know part of it was because of the choices that I was making at that time. So, somewhere around 18, 19, I rolled up my sleeves and I decided to really work hard and finish my high school. It took me an extra couple years, like I said, and I graduated.
But then, again, I went into a mini tornado because, like, then what? I didn't have any parents who were going to put me in university. I was still living on my own, paycheck to paycheck, scrubbing pennies, working it. like fast food joints or the retail shopping mall centers. And I didn't have any pathway or goals to get to anything that I would consider stable or great. in terms of a salary or a life or anything. And so I felt still incredibly lost.
But I wanted to be better than what my mom had. And I felt like I had achieved what she had. on a similar timeline. And at this point, I needed to like go beyond that. Otherwise, I would just stay in this sort of tornado of what do I do? What do I do with myself? So I then went to the University of Ottawa. I registered for OSAP and I started university. And I didn't know what to take. I took English, which was a terrible choice for me. I was not a writer. I wasn't, I don't think.
good enough in school to be writing. But I took it because it was the only thing that I thought I could do. I mean, I speak English. Why would I not be able to do English? I didn't really understand what it meant.
to do that program at a post-secondary education level. So I... I struggled again and because I was failing, I felt very... self-loathing and like I didn't want to be a failure so I talked to counselors and it took me a couple years more than what I should have to complete three years of university and English with communications. And at that time, I also landed my federal government job.
And I was working at the term through Kelly Services, which was a temp agency at the time. I don't even know if they're still around. I work for them. I don't know if they're around either. They threw me into a position that I was able to fulfill. It was a sky three. I don't even think they have those levels anymore in government. It was like the beginning of a secretary sort of phase. My job was to file.
they both photocopy scan and occasionally when the other admin person was absent i got to answer the phone but i was making like 40 000 a year And I was going to school also in the evenings. I would take my courses at university from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. And I could see wait a minute, I'm on a different path now, and I am going somewhere. I didn't know where, and I knew I started at the bottom, the very, very bottom, and I would have to climb, but...
there was some hope for me finally. And I think that was when my tornado stopped. And I really just decided that I was going to stop self-loathing, stop blaming, stop hating, and start making goals. start trying to learn more and try to build my um empire um So at the time, I met my now ex-husband, but he was my boyfriend in university, who became the father of my children, and we married.
He was doing a fellowship at CHEO. He was an intensivist, going into to become an intensivist, so that means an ICU doctor for children at the hospital. And I thought, wow, finally I found someone who loves me. It's a man, too. I never had a man love me. I didn't have a dad, and I only had a mother and a sister, so that was amazing. someone with some kind of goal and life focus, which I had never seen before, so I was completely fascinated with it, who liked me.
and wanted to invest in me. And I was like, wow, this is everything I'd ever hoped for. He was 10 years older than me. So I'm much older and in a different headspace, I think, than I was. Again, I didn't have any sort of role models or... adult figures and he was an adult and so I took that almost as like the parent that I was missing too.
He was like a husband and a parent in one, which sounds completely crazy, but it made sense to me at the time. I needed that structure and guidance, and he had that knowledge. He knew how to be structured and guide. And that was really attractive to me. So for those reasons, I chose him back.
I don't know if that's the right reason to pick a partner in hindsight now that we're divorced. I think it probably wasn't. But, you know, I don't regret meeting him and marrying him because we have four beautiful children together. I got pregnant at 23 and I had my firstborn at 24. And so we parented him together for a little bit before we got married. And then we ended up married and had three more children.
He took a job in London, and I was, at the time, climbing my career. I had grown my status from a Sky 3 to an AS 3. And I was working for the National Archives of Canada, so the library. And I was running, because I had an English degree, and because I was hungry and wanted to grow the Children's Forum on Literature. And I had my first experience with event planning and loved it. I then went on to continue to do that in the federal government and became my own sort of...
Free agent. I would find assignments, land them. They would be in my field of choice that I wanted, and at the time I wanted to run events. run whatever event needed to be run and then sign a new assignment and continue and so on and so on. And it was great. But then my husband said to me, you know, I found this job in London, Ontario, and I think we should move. And even though I was acting in these assignments at an AS3 level, my substantive was an AS1.
So I had to deploy at my substantive level. And at the time, it was a sacrifice I was willing to make because I knew that he had great potential for salary and income to support the children that I had, we had, and the children that we were going to make. And so I let that hit happen. And I came to London through the spousal rehabilitation program, which is a great program in the government.
and landed a job as an AS1, so answering phones, scheduling, that kind of stuff. So it was really, I would say, hard for me because... It was not what I wanted to do. I felt that I had so much more potential and I had done so much more and I was hungry, but I had to really take that. excitement that I had and bottle it up, put it on a shelf and just leave it for later because right now it was his turn.
And so in that time, he started working in London in the ICU here at the Children's Hospital. Then he became a professor. Then he started dabbling in some scientific research. He became very well-renowned and I was proud of him. I still am proud of him for his accomplishments. But there was a point in time in our marriage where...
I became, I guess, resentful as well because when was it going to be my turn? I was the one that had to stay home and raise the children. I was the one that had to work my admin job so that... I had an 8 to 4 job Monday to Friday. Now we shift work, no overtime. I could take my vacation when I needed to and my family related when I needed to. And he could do all the hard work.
But what ended up happening was, you know, as I was working and I would go home and take care of her four children, she would continue working and I was alone. So I became a mom who was not happy. I did a lot of crying. He did a lot of trips for work overseas and in the US and I was alone. And so I had felt like I had gone off the path again, right? Here I was hoping to have this happily ever after, but really what had happened was I ended up with a whole bunch of children who I loved very much.
And I got a parent. Mostly by myself. But I was alone and I really needed that support to grow me as well because I hadn't... started off in such a way where I didn't have that option and I really wanted to create that for myself and then it ended up where I just still didn't have that option anymore. So here I was living in London.
in a castle, literally, in the mansion. And I had a whole bunch of children. And on the outside, I would go out every single day to work. I would smile. I would talk to the moms on the street. We would get together and let our kids play, and then at night, I would tuck my kids into bed, and I would cry. So I wasn't happy. You'll have to edit this out. You take as much time as you need. All right. Okay. So that's what's fresh for me because I've only been divorced for three years. Yeah.
And I feel a lot of guilt as a mom, and I think most people who are divorced do because they wish to stay together for the family unit. For sure. I wanted my kids to have a mom and a dad, not a divorced family. I wanted them to have examples of strength and love, unlike what I had had. And they didn't get that. So that's me. The fears that I have right now is guilt. It's not sadness. It's regret. I wish I had been able to create that with my marriage so that they could have seen it.
You know, they don't. So. I decided that I was going to leave the marriage. Someone approached my now ex-husband and said that I'm not happy. And I think that it's time that we end things. And he was angry, of course. He told me any woman would want to live in the castle and do what I did. And he didn't understand why I would want to leave. But I just didn't feel fulfilled and no amount of money and no huge house.
would fill my bucket, right? Like, I just, it couldn't do it for me. I needed to be able to grow. I knew it from the minute I was six years old. that I needed to be something other than what I had landed in. So I decided that we would separate. So we did, and we had an ugly divorce. It wasn't pretty. We went to court, spent way too much money. We're in a better place now, thankfully. But when you have a lot of stuff,
Dividing it is not easy. No. And when you have a castle, selling it and walking away is a really hard thing to do. And I think... Yeah. I think for my ex-husband, there was a lot of pride that he had and the fact that he had it all, and then all of a sudden he didn't, and that anger. came from there. And for me, there was a lot of fear and a lot of dealing with demons, right? I had bottled up a lot of what had happened in my youth.
and had not dealt with it and i think you know i landed where i did with my ex-husband because of what happened in my youth and had i dealt with it i maybe wouldn't have gone there and maybe would have been different for me So I took some time to pause and like really deal with myself. and do some therapy and intro seeking. And that's when I think I realized that part of my unhappiness wasn't only that I was unhappy in supporting his career and development.
But I was also unhappy with the fact that I had never gotten off my own ass to do anything about changing my own life. And, you know, I could sit there and point the finger and blame, blame, blame, but I needed to point the finger at myself too and say, okay, it's time for me to wipe my tears away. get up and go out and show my kids what I wanted to show them from the beginning and never had the chance to.
I was now a single mom living on my AS1 salary. So if anybody knows what that is, like $57,000, not a lot. And I just didn't have enough money for everything. I had spent all my money in court fighting for some equity. So I needed to recreate myself. So this is where I say, like, it was my rebirth. I really did change my mindset. I changed the way that I was dealing with my life.
And I changed my goals right at that moment. I wanted my kids to see a strong mom. I wanted them to see someone who was successful and fought for things. I wanted them to see all the positive attributes that were still part of my youth, even though there were some negatives. That was very positive for me. My mom worked her face off to try and give us what we could.
could have because she was just a kid and I was an adult so what was my excuse right um so I decided that I would build a second business because... I can't grow myself in my substances in London. There are just a few government departments here. Most of them are agencies. point of contact stations like Passport Office.
Our citizenship and immigration, there is an area here, Veterans Affairs is one of the field offices, so they deal with the veterans. And I wasn't trained as a social worker, so I couldn't take those jobs. And I wasn't... I didn't want to stand at a kiosk all day. I'm handing out passports at my equivalent. I was already working at that level.
for Industry Canada, which was in London. And so it would have been a lateral transfer just to shake up like what I was doing in the day, but it wasn't growth. It was the same. I was deploying right across at the same level and I wanted to grow. So there were no options in the government for me unless I quit, which I had already committed, you know, 16 years of my life to the government at that time. And I had a person.
I wanted to be able to maintain that and the benefits for my kids too. It would be irresponsible of me to walk away. So in the night, I researched how do I start a business. Then I researched what kind of business could I do. What did I know? What are my skill sets? What did I learn? So I knew that I really loved event planning. I did it as an AS3 in Ottawa, bouncing around in my acting position.
And I knew that I could grow something with that. So I then started doing the research as to what it meant to run events and how they would look. And I registered for a business and opened up an account and started bidding on contracts. And I landed special events contracts and I ran... events for three years and I doubled my salary. So I taught myself in that time how to be a manager. how to manage finances, how to manage employees, how to do scheduling. how to bid on contracts, how to...
do postmortems and wrap up and make recommendations for the following year so that they come back to me for business. And I really self-taught myself how to be a manager. And that was... really good growth phase for me I thought that I had accomplished a lot and my children were saying to me that they were proud of me and that they could see how hard I was working and all of a sudden I felt like I had had achieved what I wanted to do, which was teach them that if you do the hard work,
You can be something, because I saw my mom become something, and I wanted them to see that their mom could be something too, right? And not just someone's wife. Ciao. I did that for three years. It was very, very exhausting. I was tired. I worked at like... 80-hour weeks. It was long. I stayed up in the night. I worked weekends. It was physical. I had to go to the events, tear down stage, set up stages. just be there from, like,
8 a.m. until 1 a.m. after fireworks ended on Canada Day. You know, it was exhausting. And I did it all, and I tried to manage it around when I didn't have my children, so they were with their dad during those times. And then when I did have my kids, sometimes I dragged them to the events with me. And I would throw them on the bouncy castle while I would run over here and do something. And then I would come back and grab them.
And, you know, they were older. My kids are much older now. So it wasn't like I was abandoning them. They loved it. It was tiring, and I wanted really to grow myself and my government job, and I just didn't know how to. So, I guess just in the past year, I saw the advertisement for the cohort for the free agent program. And that's when I applied. And in order to get into the program, you have to write something. And, you know, I had written a lot in my lifetime, but like...
What do you write to convince someone that, you know, you're worthy when your substantive is so low and your government resume says that you went from Sky 3 to AS 1? How can I prove myself? So I literally wrote my life story. And thankfully, I made it through. And today I'm a free agent and I'm working at...
high levels and I'm doing work that's meaningful and I no longer have to work two full-time jobs. I can now work one full-time job. I'm growing my pension and my children are seeing that I can be a manager in the government. and not have to break my back to do it. Instead, I learned how to use my skills. I grew myself through education and self-learning.
and a hunger and a desire to try and be better. But really, I think what got me here was my resilience to be able to go through all of that and still see the light at the end of the tunnel. What's it like being the single parent of four kids and being in the free agent role where... potentially every six months, maybe every 12 months, you're completely changing from one role in one organization to another role somewhere else.
Well, I think because I had to sort of roll with the punches for my whole life and change my mindset, I'm really easily adaptable because of that. Being agile is almost like instilled in me now. If I have to go anywhere and do anything, if they say, you need to be an expert in A, then I just go, okay, and I go back and I study and I become an expert on subject matter A. And then I join the organization and I do what I need to do.
juggling the family component with that is not hard for me because my kids are in school during the day. And in the night, they go to bed. So I can study if I have to from 9 till midnight. to become an expert for a whole two weeks if I have to. And, you know, sometimes they go to their dads, too, so I can spend a weekend doing a learning event or reaching out to my community of peers and just picking their brains. It's been a wonderful asset to have a network, you know.
to be able to do that. So it's hard, but it's not any harder than it was when I was a kid, living with a kid. who was parenting me, and it's not any harder than it was to live in a marriage where I felt very alone and not nurtured in terms of what I needed. Do you really feel like you take more of the blame for breaking up that relationship and the effect that it had on your children because you really wanted them to have both parents?
Yeah, I do. Because I think my ex-husband, although he wasn't happy, was complacent and willing to just roll with it for the children's sake. And it was me that brought up the idea of... divorcing and separating because I had reached my limit. I think at that time, it was a very dark time for me. And as much as I was acting, I could have had an Academy Award awarded to me because nobody knew how much I was struggling inside.
And I would even say that despite the fact that I told him I was unhappy over the years over and over again and asked for counseling and stuff, whenever he dismissed it as, no, you know, we're fine, everybody's like this. I would secretly like die inside, but I never expressed it to him. So that's on me. You know, I know my role. If telling him that you...
needed more and that you wanted to get intervention wasn't enough. I'm really not sure what else you could do to make him see that more needed to be done to nurture that relationship. But I don't think you're being fair to yourself. Maybe. I don't know. Yeah, maybe. I wish he had listened, basically. I don't think he would have changed. He is who he is, too, right? No, I think you hit it when you said complacent.
Yeah, I think he needed someone who was different, and I needed someone who was different, and we were just not matched well. At the end, we had changed so much that we were no longer aligned. When I hear you talk about yourself as a teenager, I kind of... And especially the way that you characterize yourself as sort of going through that rebellion thing with your own mom, who was like 28 at the time that you were 14. I'm still, I'm a little in shock that...
You kept away from boys. You kept away from drugs and alcohol. You managed to stay in school. That's an awful lot of discipline, really, for someone that claims that they were so rebellious that they left their mom, they went to go live with their aunt. Well, no, I wasn't as other... There's a lot of details that I can include. I didn't stay away from boys. We can skip and go back. I was boy hungry. I was boy hungry for sure at that time. And for me, I thought that like a relationship with love.
And I was just hungry for love. So I definitely... tried to land myself with someone who would love me back. There were, I had probably four or five relationships over my whole high school years and everyone that I ended up with was much older than me. And I think that tells the story of me really needing a parent. Yeah. Oh, and I looked at a whole portion of my life, which I totally forgot. You're going to have to edit this. Okay. Let's go back in time and insert that.
On my 21st birthday, my stepmother called me at my apartment. and asked me if I wanted to meet my dad. And I did when I was 21. I went out for a beer with my dad. He called me Natalie because he didn't even know my name. And I got to know my dad, and I have a wonderful relationship with him now. And I have two other sisters that he and my stepmother had together. And really, my stepmother is my measuring stick. She is the woman that I look to in terms of parenting role models.
because she's the only adult woman who is parenting people I love, my sister. and has, and in a way that was sort of, I would say, normal, quote unquote normal, like what you're supposed to do. So I learned so much from her and I have a really good relationship with my dad now. I've known him since I was 21. I'm 43. So, you know, we've had a good amount of time together now that he is my dad. It felt weird at first getting to know him, but...
Because, you know, even though I could see the similarities in our personality and I could see the similarities in our physical makeup, and genetics are a crazy thing because I would say I'm 100% like my dad. And nothing like, you know, in terms of like what makes me laugh, what kind of food I like. And, you know, it's all my dad. It's not my mom. And my mom was the one who raised me and I was only exposed to her. So it's really weird how that works.
You know, he explained to me years later, like, he wanted to be there. He wanted to be present. And he did love my mom. And my mom also tells me that she did love him and wished he was there. But it's just, it's really sad that they couldn't be. I'm not fated, though. I know 1,000% that if my parents actually had tried to make it work and stayed together, that it likely would have failed their children. As adults, they are polar opposite.
So I know it wouldn't have worked, but, you know, it's nice to know that at least I was made out of love. You have to help me get into his head a little bit because when I think about where I was mentally as a 19-year-old... I can't, like, the age gap has really exaggerated the younger you get because 13 is so far away from adulthood and 19, you know, you're still figuring out yourself.
So how is it that in his own head it made sense for him to have a sexual relationship with someone like six years younger? Yeah and so my mom also is similar to how my daughter is. She looks much older than she is. Which really makes me insane. But the minute she opens her mouth, she sounds like a teenager, right? So my mom was exactly the same way. She looks like a woman. And I think because of her situation with her family, you know, and her...
her parents not having the best environment for her too because they were mismatched with such profound differences of beliefs on how to raise children. You know, she grew up much quicker than she needed to as well. And also, my dad is the youngest of 13 children. Wow. A lot of kids. His oldest brother is like... so much older than him. And like their children are so much older than me because of the age span between child one and child 13. So by the time it came to my dad being young and free,
I think he was 16 or 17 when he went out on his own. His parents were more than eager to be like, go be an adult and just like do your own thing. So again, he was left a little bit misguided as well without any. any real sort of like path to follow. So I think he was lost as well and they just happened to fall into each other at the right time. And I think that they didn't really look at what was taboo and what they should and shouldn't do.
They were just two really sad kids who were lost and had found each other. Okay. So, yeah, I don't think that's an excuse, but at the same time, like, I understand it. I don't think I would do it. I know 100% I wouldn't have done it. I can't imagine. I can't imagine. Yeah, and nowadays, you know, our kids are taught, you know, very young about all of these sort of like... Rules and regulations on AIDS, you know, they know, my daughter already knows at 14, you know, like.
If a child is, she's in grade nine, and if a child in grade 12 says, hey, what's up? Like, that's too old, right? You can't do that. Where he is and where you are are totally different. But I taught her that.
and school taught her that and peers taught her that but if you don't have that in your school system in 1976 or 75 and you don't have parents teaching you that because it's taboo to talk about those things in the 70s and you're you're in a home that's, you know, fragile and or has been exiled because those parents don't want to parent anymore, I get it, right?
Natasha, that's a remarkable story. Thank you so much for sharing it with us. You're welcome. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me. Alright. And we're out. All right. Have fun editing that, I don't know. Sorry, I cried. No, no, no, no, no, no. That's the best part of this show is when people get overwhelmed by the feelings that they're feeling, and it just brings so much warmth and genuineness to the show, and that is always what I...
I don't want people to cry. Like, don't think that. But when they're feeling the feeling so strong. The people that listen, including me, are getting watery, teary-eyed, just sort of feeling that same sort of pull along with you. So, yeah. No worries. No worries. Okay. Alright, well I hope you can make that into like a nice episode. I'm not even going to change the order with the father thing because I was just about, I was
Yeah, because it flows nicely. And I was going to ask about your father, whether you'd had any contact with him, but you went there. And it ties up nicely at the end. So, yeah, I'll edit out maybe some ums, and that's it. I think it's ready to go. Okay, perfect. All right. Well, thanks so much, Todd. You take care and have a great day. And you too. Thank you. Bye. Bye-bye.