Annie T - Motherhood, Chronic Illness, and The Adult Entertainment Industry

*This episode discusses the stigma surrounding the adult entertainment industry and uses adult language.

In this episode, I'm connecting with Annie, a mother of three and an advocate for marginalized groups, who shares her unique journey through motherhood while working in the adult entertainment industry. Annie discusses the challenges of unplanned pregnancies, the empowerment she found in exotic dancing, and the stigma she faced as a working mom. She also opens up about her health issues, the struggles of breastfeeding, and the importance of honesty with her children about her work. Throughout the conversation, Annie emphasizes the significance of community, self-acceptance, and the lessons learned from her experiences.

To learn more about Annie, visit her Website or Instagram.

Takeaways

• Annie's journey highlights the complexities of motherhood and work.
• Unplanned pregnancies can lead to unexpected challenges and growth.
• Exotic dancing was an empowering experience for Annie, contrary to stereotypes.
• Health issues can significantly impact parenting and self-identity.
• Breastfeeding struggles are common and often overlooked in discussions about motherhood.
• Finding community in the sex industry provided Annie with support and understanding.
• Honesty with children about work can foster open communication and acceptance.
• Single parenting can lead to empowerment and self-discovery.
• Annie's experiences emphasize the importance of self-acceptance and body positivity.
• The adult entertainment industry can provide financial stability for single mothers.

Sound Bites

"I was a single mom with two kids."
"I never wanted to lie to my children."
"I realized I just need to learn how."

This episode discusses topics that may be triggering for some individuals. Please check the show notes for more information and be mindful of your own mental health and comfort levels.

Transcript

Chelsea (00:01)
Welcome to Quiet Connection, a podcast dedicated to ending the stigma around postpartum mental health. I'm Chelsea. This week, I'm chatting with Annie, a mother of three who shares her journey through parenting and working in the adult entertainment industry. Annie is a fierce advocate for marginalized groups and is a badass when it comes to navigating life's challenges while also fostering self -empowerment. Life has thrown its fair share of challenges her way.

And Annie discusses the support and sense of true family she's found in the sex work industry. Her honesty and transparency have allowed her to foster open communication and empathy with her kids. Here's Annie.

Chelsea (00:45)
Hello, today I'm here with Annie. Annie, how are you?

Annie Temple (00:49)
I'm good, how are you?

Chelsea (00:51)
I'm doing pretty good. I'm excited to finally meet with you. Annie and I have had sessions set up and rescheduled several times, but I've been so excited to get to meet with you. I would absolutely love it if you could introduce yourself to my listeners and let us know who was Annie before Annie was a mom.

Annie Temple (00:53)
Thank

I knew you were gonna ask that, because I've been listening to your episodes. Yes, even though I knew you were gonna ask that, I didn't let myself think about it. I wanted to just answer naturally, but who am I? So I am a 50 -year -old woman. I have three children. Two of them are grown adults. And one of them is going into grade eight. So she's like,

Chelsea (01:20)
you

Annie Temple (01:42)
out of the preteen stage and into the young teenager stage. And they have two different fathers between the three of them. And I'm not with either of them anymore. Let's see. I have been an adult entertainer for the majority of my adult life. I've been working in and out of the sex industry. So being a mother and being in and out of the industry is

Chelsea (01:47)
Yeah.

Annie Temple (02:10)
been interesting. It's definitely impacted my motherhood and vice versa. And I've also been through a lot of health issues throughout my adulthood that have led me to be traumatized by doctors and love natural healing. But I still ended up

Chelsea (02:17)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Annie Temple (02:34)
very recently just in the last year getting a surgery and now I have a permanent ostomy which is a poop bag on my stomach. So I've had like quite a very full life of many different challenges and exciting and difficult things that I've been through. As a mother, let's see, who was I before I was a mother? Can I even remember?

Chelsea (02:42)
Mm -hmm.

Everybody says

that. I don't know. I can't.

Annie Temple (03:01)
Right?

mean, before I was a mother, I was a child myself, I believe. Even though I was 25 when I got pregnant with my oldest daughter, I still felt like a child at the time. I still felt very young and new. I'd had an abortion before that because I didn't feel ready when I was 23.

That experience though was really devastating. So when I was 25 and found out I was pregnant, I definitely was like, I'm having this baby, even though I didn't feel ready, you know? But I was an exotic dancer at the time. I was in a relationship, like a very loving relationship with my daughter's dad, but he had started to become a computer addict at the time. So.

Chelsea (03:39)
Mm

Annie Temple (03:55)
because we had just gotten a computer and he'd become a computer technician. He'd gone to school for it. And those were the years when people were just starting. So this was like 1999. And we got a computer and then he started gaming and he just got addicted to it. It's extremely addictive, you know, for some people. that kind of started to be the...

Chelsea (04:08)
my gosh, yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Annie Temple (04:21)
what caused the breakdown of our relationship. But that started before I got pregnant. But when I got pregnant, I was like, my gosh, now we have to make this relationship work for sure. And we tried, but we didn't make it work. Yeah, so, but I remember feeling very freaked out in my body.

Chelsea (04:35)
Such is life, that happens.

Annie Temple (04:46)
that first pregnancy because I was so used to using my body to make a living. And now I felt trapped by it because I couldn't, I not only couldn't work in the industry that I love to work in, I also was, you know, struggling to make ends meet, working two minimum wage jobs as a pregnant woman. And it was just a real struggle at the time. But yeah, been through a few of those struggles, those...

Chelsea (05:12)
Yeah. Yeah.

Annie Temple (05:16)
those mom struggles over the years as I'm sure we all have.

Chelsea (05:20)
Absolutely. Yeah. So that was like your, your entry into motherhood and, it came with a lot of feelings, a lot of feelings.

Annie Temple (05:31)
Yeah.

Chelsea (05:32)
so this pregnancy, this came after a previous abortion and was this, I'm assuming, and maybe I'm incorrect, was this an unplanned pregnancy? All of them were, okay.

Annie Temple (05:45)
All of them were, all

of them, all three of my grown and ungrown children were all unplanned and the abortion obviously was unplanned. But yeah, I knew I wanted to have children. It just always happened surprisingly when I wasn't expecting it.

Chelsea (05:53)
Yeah.

When

you weren't when it when it wasn't on your to -do list at the time

Annie Temple (06:07)
Yeah,

which I feel like, you know, people don't realize how easy it is to get pregnant. It's just so easy. And even if you take precautions, it can happen. You know, my my youngest child was, you know, with a broken condom morning after pill baby. So to me, what that meant is that she was meant to be absolutely 100 % meant to be and

Chelsea (06:20)
Yeah.

Wow.

Mm -hmm.

Annie Temple (06:35)
And therefore, of course, I welcomed that into my life. But by then I was more mature. With my first two kids, I was scared shitless. My third one, I should have been scared because I was a single mom with two young children when I got pregnant with her. But I was less scared just because I've been down the path, you know.

Chelsea (06:44)
Yeah, I can imagine.

Yeah, yeah, and I don't know if I buy into this or not. Maybe you can speak to it, but I've heard so many people say that like after two, the more that you add, it's just like, it's just another, it's not as huge of a shock. Going from one to two is really hard, but a lot of people have told me that like past two, like after that, you're like, okay, but I've been down this road before.

Annie Temple (07:18)
Mm

You're kind of an

old hat. Yeah.

Chelsea (07:26)
Yeah, yeah,

I don't know though. I only have two, so and that was...

Annie Temple (07:29)
Yeah, definitely

going from one to two is a huge transition because with one you can revolve them around your life. But with two, now you have to have like a you have to have a schedule because now you're trying to meet the needs of two humans plus fit them into your life. So it's like, no, we need a schedule now we need and then I think that's when you become a real family. That's when you start eating all your meals at the same time together. you know, whereas when you just have one.

Chelsea (07:47)
Yeah.

Annie Temple (07:58)
Like now I'm living with my 13 year old. My 19 year old son does have a room here, but he works in the United States and back in Canada, back and forth. But my youngest, my 13 year old, she and I will sit in front of the TV and eat. Now we don't usually sit at the table and face each other like we did when we were a bigger family, you know? It's funny because like the smaller the group, but we still sit and talk and, we spend so much time together. We talk so much that we don't need those.

Chelsea (08:24)
Yeah.

Annie Temple (08:27)
family dinners to connect, you But yeah, it's fascinating like the way the family evolves and even the traditions of the family as everyone gets older and everything changes.

Chelsea (08:30)
Yeah, I get that.

Yeah. So I'm taking us back again, sort of, to, and I don't know why, but I'm taking us back again to that first pregnancy, not to your first pregnancy that resulted in having a child.

There's a lot of feelings going into that. And at the time, like you said, your body was sort of like your identity and in every sense of the word. Can you talk to me a little bit about how that shifted?

Annie Temple (09:16)
So.

Dancing was actually, so exotic dancing or stripping was actually a very empowering experience for me. And a lot of people I think suspect or believe a lot of the stereotypes out there that it's a degrading occupation and that people who are in that industry are very disempowered and exploited and that kind of thing, which wasn't my experience at all. I came from a

a background of poverty and feeling very like helpless and feeling like how will I ever dig my way out of this poverty and also being really intimidated by other people. But when I started dancing, because I met so many men mostly, but people, including the dancers and everyone else I met in the clubs who were from different classes, different backgrounds, different occupations, a lot of them wore suit and ties, you know,

previous to that suit and tie people were very intimidating to me. But now they were like just people I talked to every day and rubbed elbows with and that respected me and treated me with kindness. And so I began to develop confidence that I didn't have before, even though I was 23 when I started dancing very shortly after the abortion. so the dancing was...

Chelsea (10:19)
Hahaha

Mmm.

Annie Temple (10:43)
definitely not what I expected because I had gone into it needing the money and expecting to be degraded and expecting to be exploited and thinking, I need the money. So I'm just going to go be degraded and exploited because I need the money. And then I got there and it wasn't like that. was the most powerful I'd ever felt in my life. And it enabled me to have some control in my life because I could

Chelsea (10:52)
Mm -hmm.

Mmm, yeah.

Annie Temple (11:12)
pay my rent and buy my groceries. So, you know, so it was, it was very empowering for me in that way. And so when I became pregnant and I had to work at these minimum wage jobs where people were really treating me like shit. And in the strip clubs, if someone treated me like shit, I could tell them off. I mean, we, even told co -workers or our managers off, like it, just was, it was just socially acceptable, you know?

Chelsea (11:15)
Yeah

Mm -hmm.

Annie Temple (11:42)
because it's a different culture really, because they expect you to be a hard ass when you're an entertainer, you know? So like, and a lot of people maybe wouldn't think of that industry or people in that industry as the entertainment industry, but it really is. And it's very similar in a lot of respects. So, so yeah, so being pregnant, not being able to work for money that I felt I deserved and that I was worth and having to put up with, being treated.

Chelsea (11:50)
Yeah, yeah.

Annie Temple (12:11)
poorly. like I was working as a waitress in a pub and the women there hated me, I think because I'd come from working in the strip club. And so their husbands wouldn't even look me in the eye. And the women were really catty to me and the other waitresses weren't nice to me either. was terrible. But but as my belly grew, people became nicer and nicer to me. Isn't that so effed up? It just was like, it bugged me.

Chelsea (12:23)
Mmm.

jeez.

Hmm... Yes!

Annie Temple (12:40)
Because I'm very friendly, kind, nice, sweet person. And I was even more so then than I am now because now I'm more mature. I'm an adult and I'm not as much of a people pleaser. Whereas back then it actually hurt when people didn't like me. Now I don't care. But yeah. And then because I wasn't making enough money there to...

Chelsea (12:52)
Mm

Yeah, yeah, that comes with that comes with life experience.

Annie Temple (13:08)
for my bills, I knew I had to get a second job and I was already starting to show. So when I went looking for jobs, I was hiding my pregnancy. Nobody was going to hire me if I was pregnant. So then I had to go through the humiliation once I was hired of my pregnancy coming out and how the management treated me then. You know, like, thanks a lot for telling us you were pregnant. You know, well, would you have hired me?

Chelsea (13:34)
Ugh.

Annie Temple (13:37)
We both know the answer to that. I did what I had to do for my family. And as a feminist, and a lot of people think you can't be a sex worker and a feminist, but you can. As a feminist, that to me is like the feminization of poverty. Women can't get jobs because they're pregnant, can't work because they have babies to take care of, can't have the momentum of their career because...

Chelsea (13:37)
Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Annie Temple (14:05)
it's interrupted with our pregnancies and our babies. And that's such a wonderful, beautiful thing. And so why does it have to have such a negative impact on all the other aspects of our lives?

Chelsea (14:17)
That's definitely a social norm that continues. It wasn't just a problem in the 90s and the early 2000s. It certainly still continues to this day. And again, like your journey is your journey too. Like you should be able to travel that journey without someone else dictating how you travel it.

Annie Temple (14:38)
Mm -hmm.

Chelsea (14:40)
if that wasn't vague enough.

Annie Temple (14:41)
Well, I had a

bunch of things come into my head when you said that, so...

Chelsea (14:46)
Yeah, yeah, I just yeah,

that's like, that's a whole other podcast that that we could get into. But so many of the things that that you said, like struck me and I kept getting this this word in my head like empowerment, empowerment, empowerment. And like when you're gaining your footing and finally starting to feel empowered.

Annie Temple (14:51)
Mm -hmm.

Chelsea (15:09)
you become pregnant and all of the circumstantial factors are draining that empowerment out of you and you're like, no, F this. I can still, like, don't tell me what I can do. How, at this point, and you also did not have the support of your partner. Your partner was plugged into a computer. What?

Annie Temple (15:19)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes, I know.

Chelsea (15:35)
How did you find solace from that? Or how did you find ways to keep yourself balanced? Or did you?

Annie Temple (15:44)
I mean, honestly, was just, it was just, was my first pregnancy. was new. I just, once, once she started moving inside me, that, just became my new focus. And I just got through it. I just put one foot in front of the other, you know, when you have no choice, you just have to do it. And that's like, isn't that life? Been there so many times. I'm like, I really don't want to do what I'm going to have to do for the next

Chelsea (16:06)
Yeah

Annie Temple (16:11)
month or you know surgeries like recoveries anytime I've been sick like it's just like I don't want to do this but I have no choice.

Chelsea (16:21)
Yeah. Yeah.

I feel that so much. what it sounds like from one chronically ill person to what it sounds like another chronically ill person. It is not fun. It is not fun. And it does echo so much of what parenthood and motherhood especially is. It's just you got to keep putting one foot in front of the other because you don't have a choice. You just got to keep going.

Annie Temple (16:26)
Mm

Mm -hmm.

No.

Totally.

Chelsea (16:49)
after the birth of your what was that transition into motherhood like? So you weren't really supported. So listeners, there was a face and it said it all. So you weren't being supported and you were having your power stolen from you. Like, what were those early days like?

Annie Temple (16:57)
You

Well, they were so hard. didn't, couldn't, wasn't getting a good latch on my nipple for nursing. So my nipples were cracked and bleeding. My baby just, my little baby girl, she just would wake up and cry every few hours wanting to nurse every few hours. And, and every time she would latch on, would hurt so much. I had all the blinds closed. I just walked around with my shirt off for weeks. And when the public nurse came a few days after she was born, she made me feel horrible. She told me that my

Chelsea (17:29)
Yeah.

Annie Temple (17:40)
my daughter wasn't gaining weight fast enough because I wasn't getting a good enough latch. And if I didn't do better, she'd have to be hospitalized. I mean, I just bawled and bawled. felt like such a horrible piece of shit mother. So then I ended up going to my first appointment with my doctor and she helped me feel better because she said that that was horrible of the nurse to say and was not true that my baby was healthy and she was really upset. You know, so it was probably just like,

Chelsea (18:08)
Yeah.

Annie Temple (18:09)
some B -I -T -C -H nurse that just takes her miserable life out on new mothers, you know? And it is awful. It's so awful. No one should say something like that to a new mother.

Chelsea (18:18)
that's awful. Yeah.

No, it's something was going on in her life. And she was projecting it on to you clearly because that's awful. but that is a super common thing that I hear not the experience with the nurse, but like, that breastfeeding didn't necessarily come naturally, you kind of expect it to and we're kind of sold this narrative that it that you just put baby on and,

Annie Temple (18:29)
Mm -hmm. I agree.

Mm

Yeah.

Chelsea (18:50)
That's not always the case.

Annie Temple (18:53)
The other thing I was taught was not to give the baby a bottle because it would confuse them. And yeah, and that's a lot of bull, that's a load of bullshit. Okay, because like, so my first baby, I couldn't leave her. I couldn't go, I couldn't spend two hours away or three hours or something. I couldn't ever like just have a break because I was attached to her and because I did not get her accustomed to the bottle.

Chelsea (19:01)
yes, a nipple confusion.

Annie Temple (19:23)
she would not take a bottle. She just refused and would not take a bottle. And so with my next children, I made sure to give them just one bottle a day of breast milk or goat milk. Because I had trouble getting expressing milk. Once I got the hang of the nursing, I could do that fine, but getting it out like with a pump was just impossible for me. It was so hard. But...

Chelsea (19:33)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Annie Temple (19:49)
You know, I just wanted to have a little bit, get used to the bottle, just have one small bottle a day. And it just was such a relief when I wanted to go somewhere where I wanted to have a night out or have some time apart. just was, ugh, I really highly recommend that. Yeah, exactly.

Chelsea (20:06)
Yeah, there's Annie's nugget, like just one bottle

a day. Yeah, that and it and breastfeeding is so draining mentally and physically. And that's something that's not talked about as well. So 100 % like, feel for you.

Annie Temple (20:16)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Yeah, that feeling like

right when your milk comes down, like your whole body is being sucked dry. It's so weird.

Chelsea (20:30)
Yeah, well, and there's this whole,

there's this whole thing that is being talked about more and more now. And I wish, of course, I can't recall the exact word for it now when I need it. But it's essentially you experience

feelings of like dread and despair with let down. Like that's its own thing. Some people, a lot of people don't experience that. Yeah, I did. So I like there were many. Yes.

Annie Temple (20:53)
Really?

I could see why. I

can see why, because that feeling is a really, like it's a sick feeling that comes over your body when it sucks the fluid out of you, you know?

Chelsea (21:06)
Yes.

Yeah. Well, it's it's it's being talked about a lot more and which is good because there are a lot of moms that are like there's something wrong with me. Like I start bawling as soon as my milk lets down and I have it will happen to me too. And I again, no one told me about it. And I was like, what the heck is this?

Annie Temple (21:18)
Mwah.

You know, when I was in high school and I don't know about you, but you take sex ed and they tell you about boys having wet dreams, but they never told you about girls having wet dreams. That happened to me when I was a teenager and I didn't know what the F was going on. You know what I mean? But like girls' sexuality, girls' bodies, pregnancy, all the stuff that happens to us is so like ignored. It's messed up.

Chelsea (21:33)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Yeah, okay, there's -

Mm -hmm.

It absolutely is. And again, I've like, I've touched on this so many times with so many guests and it's like, I need to start another podcast because like the, so I identify as, non -binary, but obviously I, I was born female and I don't, there's so much I don't know about my body still to this day as an almost 36 year old person who is

who has birthed two children in two very different ways. There is still so much I don't know about my body. And I think that contributes, that's a contributing factor to a lot of moms and birthing people feeling so confused and so alone and so isolated in motherhood, especially in the early days. Because you're like, what the fuck is happening to my body right now? Nobody told me about this.

Annie Temple (22:24)
Mm

How they?

Chelsea (22:44)
before I go too far down that rabbit hole, my God, I could spend forever going down there. But so when, cause I know when we talk, we we've talked off and on over the last few months and you talked about how, you found community within the sex work industry and the, and the dancing industry and the entertainment industry. When were you able to go back to that?

Annie Temple (22:47)
I know I could go there too.

So after my first pregnancy, I went back to dancing when my baby was nine months old. That's when my maternity benefits ended. So I had to, but I was pretty happy to go back to be honest because I liked working. The hard part was being away from my baby, of course, which I think is hard for every new mother. So I would only work part time and try to work like, you know, I...

Chelsea (23:20)
Okay.

Mm.

Yeah.

Annie Temple (23:38)
I worked one long shift, they were called long shift. You would start at 11 a and you would be done at like 1 a And I did that for one week and I was like, I can't handle being away from my baby for that long. I just, after that I only took like part -time gigs, but I did go back to dancing. And I went back to dancing actually after all of my children, did I?

Chelsea (23:45)
wow.

Annie Temple (24:06)
My 13 year old I think after my 13 year old No, I think I just went back to do Massages. Yeah, I went back to do massage. So I went back to the strip club years later to to be the massage girl instead of a stripper But yeah

Chelsea (24:06)
you

Okay.

Well, it's,

I love that I'm getting another reason I was so excited to have you on is because this is a perspective that we don't often hear about. We don't often hear about, we hear about working moms, but we don't hear about working moms in the sex industry and hello, they're everywhere. Like,

Annie Temple (24:42)
Mm hmm. They

are, but they're scared to talk because they're scared someone's going to say, you're your mom and you work in the sex industry. I'm calling social services on you. You know, it's a real fear to be honest about your work when you're a mother in this industry. people, obviously there's stereotypes just about being in this industry, but the stereotypes about being a parent in this industry are

Chelsea (24:52)
Right.

Annie Temple (25:09)
horrible. Like, and it's really, really messed up because I would say that probably some of the best parents I've ever met and some of the most well adjusted children I've ever met were from families where the parents are sex workers. So it's, it's just a very false stereotype, you know.

Chelsea (25:31)
Yeah, and it's, it's, it's, how do I even word this? It's not even something that I'm super familiar with here. So I'm in the States, I'm in Vermont. So we're super rural and

those are not a thing here. Like we don't have strip clubs. But if you want to go to the strip club, you drive up to Canada. And it really is. It's like, well, it's like an hour and a It's an hour, hour and a half drive. like, so for many, many a young Vermonter, a rite of passage is to cross the border and go to a strip club. But, and I don't even, I can say I'm completely naive. Like I don't even know what it is in the rest of the States. Like,

Annie Temple (25:49)
Yeah.

yeah!

Mm -hmm.

Chelsea (26:17)
I don't know that I've ever been anywhere that has an active strip club. mean, that doesn't mean they don't exist. I just am sheltered and I'm in New England and we don't have them here. So even the the stereotypes that you're talking about, like, I don't even have a preconceived notion because I have no I have no point of reference. You know what I mean? Other than movies. I mean, I'm pretty darn open minded. I there is not much

Annie Temple (26:25)
Mm

Yeah.

Plus you seem pretty open -minded.

Chelsea (26:46)
that a person could say that would make me really be like, like, but all of my sort of my frame of reference comes from the media comes from movies and stuff. Clue me in if not just for just me, but like, what were some of the stereotypes that you faced as a mom in the sex work industry?

Annie Temple (26:50)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, if other parents found out that I was a stripper, then their kids wouldn't be allowed to hang out with my kids. What else happened? Teachers, because I was very vocal. I was not just a person who worked in the adult entertainment industry, but I was an advocate for people who work in the industry. And I was coordinating events, fundraising events called stripathons.

where the dancers all donate their shows so they don't get paid, and then the money collected by the bar and by the, not the door, and by selling tickets and whatnot would go to a charity of some sort. So I was in the newspapers promoting events and there was one particular year that a charity wouldn't accept our donation. And...

Chelsea (27:39)
Hahaha

Mm -hmm.

Annie Temple (28:05)
Well, actually, we have that problem a lot. But this this particular year, it was an organization that had accepted it the year before, but then changed their mind this year because their donor, their major donors weren't happy about it the year before, which they never told us until we were going to give them our money again. And then they said, actually, sorry, we don't want it this time, because our major donors for disgruntled donor disgruntlement. That's what they called it. Yeah.

Chelsea (28:30)
my gosh.

Annie Temple (28:31)
So, and we were only two weeks before our event at that point because we really just were intending to give our money to them and we couldn't understand why they weren't getting back to us. But they finally told us so. So I had to rush, tried to find an organization and instead of reaching out individually to the organizations, which is what we'd been doing in the past and getting turned down a lot, I decided just to write a press release and send it out to.

Chelsea (28:40)
Yeah.

Annie Temple (28:57)
the newspapers, some of my reporter friends that had already interviewed me before. I wouldn't say they were friends, but they were familiar with me. And then my press release got printed in one newspaper and I thought that would be the only one. And then another newspaper picked the story up and then the third newspapers picked it up and that was a provincial, like a provincial newspaper, which is bigger than the other two. And then it went viral.

Chelsea (29:04)
Yeah.

Mm

Annie Temple (29:26)
It went across, so this was 2007. went across Canada. I was being interviewed on radio stations, like all the way across Canada, having to get up at like five in the morning for morning shows and stuff. And even MTV, which is like a subsidiary of Much Music or whatever, they interviewed me. So it just went viral. Like I was on TV news, people were writing about it in blogs, everything. So.

Chelsea (29:26)
boy.

Annie Temple (29:51)
Overnight my face was everywhere and the next day when I took my daughter to school and at the time I was like the the chair of the one of the parent committees at the school and everyone just assumed I was just a mom like them but then now all of a sudden overnight I know I know I am I am but like because I had this other life that they didn't know about so the majority of people surprisingly were supportive and

Chelsea (30:03)
Yeah.

just a mom like that.

Annie Temple (30:21)
did not change the way they treated me, did not begin to ostracize me or anything. But there was one teacher who I had gotten along with really well and worked alongside a lot because of the committee that I was leading. And she wouldn't even look me in the eye after that. And she just wouldn't talk to me. And she just kind of, and I just let it go because what can you do, you know? But.

Chelsea (30:40)
Gosh.

Annie Temple (30:47)
But mostly with my kids, tried to, I never said you can't tell your friends what mommy does, that mommy's a dancer, that mommy works in the adult entertainment industry. I never said don't tell your friends, but I did say if you tell your friends, they might tell their parents and then you might not be allowed to hang out with them anymore. And just to prepare them that if they, that some things people just don't accept in our society and you have to be able to

Chelsea (31:08)
Yeah.

Annie Temple (31:17)
Either keep it to yourself or know that you can handle it if that happens, you And don't be surprised.

Chelsea (31:22)
Yeah. Right? Well,

and it's a conversation that you wish you didn't have to have. again, it translates in so many different ways too. For you, it's being in the adult entertainment industry and for families like mine, talking to my...

Annie Temple (31:32)
Mm

Chelsea (31:45)
having to explain to my nine -year -old like, yeah, you can tell your friends that mommy's non -binary or that mommy's pan or any of these things. That's cool. People might not take it the same way that we do. And that's such a, it's just such an ugly thing to have to face when you're facing all of the other challenges of A, life and B, being a mom. Like it's freaking hard.

Annie Temple (31:50)
Mm

Mm -hmm.

And

honestly, like mothering, right? Like, and everybody does it differently and I'm not judging, but, I'm not even trying to defend myself, only to make an observation that mothering for me was my most important job. And so I was always very stable home, very clean home, very, you know, present mother. And

Chelsea (32:38)
Yeah.

Annie Temple (32:38)
I mean, I made my mistakes. Don't get me wrong. Like I started out as a yelling mom and like, you know, I learned as I went, but, but, but I always was the kind of mother that people should feel comfortable to send their kids over for a visit or a sleepover. I was that mother, but if people found out what I did, then they might think I'm not that mother, you know? So there was always that fear of, of people rejecting my children because of what I did.

Chelsea (32:41)
We all do.

Annie Temple (33:07)
for work. then that also prevented me from making friendships. Sometimes I'd really hit it off with like another parent, one of my kids friends, and I would just feel too uncomfortable to get close to them because if they found out what I did for work or if I ever got comfortable that I actually disclosed it to them, what it could do. And so that fear really kept me separated a lot from other mothers.

as my kids were growing up, for sure.

Chelsea (33:38)
Yeah,

I can imagine. And motherhood is so isolating to begin with. You had also mentioned too that a lot of the parenting that you did was single parenting.

Annie Temple (33:42)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Mm

Chelsea (33:52)
but that you almost felt more empowered that way. Yeah. Can you talk to me a little bit about that?

Annie Temple (33:57)
Definitely. Well, yeah,

for sure. And I think that people who are in really good relationships wouldn't have this experience. They would probably have a supportive, wonderful partnership and there will be shitty moments and fights over arguments or whatever, disagreements, et cetera. But overall, it would be a better experience for them to be in that relationship than to be doing it single. But for me, because my children's fathers

Chelsea (34:07)
Yeah.

Annie Temple (34:26)
were people that, you know, don't, I didn't know how to choose my partners when I was young. And I met my, so one of them I met when I was 23, 24, 23 or 24. One of them I met when I was 27. And so you'd think I'm mature enough by 27 to have a better idea, but no.

Chelsea (34:32)
Mm.

Annie Temple (34:50)
and now that I'm 50, I look at anyone under 30 as children. Sorry if that offends anyone.

Chelsea (34:54)
No, it's, I mean,

I will say this straight out the lake. I still look for the adult in the room and I am, am, I'm in my, almost in my late thirties now. So I'm still looking for the adult.

Annie Temple (35:03)
Yeah

But in the case of the partners I chose, they weren't really compatible. I didn't look for the qualities that I should have been looking for. like in the case of my daughter's dad, I think that we might have had a chance if he didn't have addiction with the computer. that, and you know, but now looking at like how things have gone for him, he's still a wonderful person. He's a sweetheart. He's a lover.

Chelsea (35:25)
Mm

Annie Temple (35:36)
but he just never really made a success of his life or really like had goals or did anything with his life. And I feel like, and neither did the next one, neither did my other kids' dad. Like they both were just kind of people that were just kind of, you know, and there's nothing wrong with that. But I'm a person who is very forward thinking and I wanna fight for causes I believe in and I want to be

be remembered for something and do creative stuff and take risks and, you know, and make mistakes and learn from them.

Chelsea (36:13)
I know you're making

me think of you're making me think of Miss Frizzle from from the Magic School Bus. Yeah, take chances. Get messy. Yeah. Yes. I know. Yes.

Annie Temple (36:16)
yes, no doubt. I totally can relate to that woman. But yeah, and we're both redheads, right?

But yeah, so you know, so I think that my big personality was not a good fit for like kind of the track that they were heading on in their lives. And

I'm also very like my love language is, you know, touch and, and words of affirmation. I'm a real good communicator and they struggled with, those things. So we just weren't good matches. And so when I was single, I was always happier. I was just always happier. And I did have one pregnancy where I was completely single. That was my youngest. And how that happened is my son, my second child, I had with a new father.

So my daughter's dad and I broke up. I met my other child's father and we started dating and then my son was unplanned. I was became pregnant with my son and I had just recently before that moved in with this gentleman's with me and my little baby girl. And so we were together and we got married like after we were together for like seven years and

Chelsea (37:22)
Yeah.

Annie Temple (37:42)
and then I got sick. That's what happened, or not married for seven years, but shortly after we actually finally tied the knot, I got sick. And that was just way too hard on our relationship. It was.

Chelsea (37:49)
Mm

Annie Temple (37:54)
He just wasn't the type of person that could handle the added stress of everything. And he wasn't very good at communicating his needs or his emotions. And so it created a lot of stress in our home that I didn't like our children to be around. Like there were moments where he would be in such a bad mood that our little children would go and talk to him and he would ignore them. Like that's abuse to me. Like I consider that abuse.

And I just couldn't stand it. So even though I was really sick, I just decided you got to get out. And I started like applying for social assistance and all these things. And fortunately, I changed my diet right around that time and had a very dramatic improvement in my health issues because of that. And so I was able to actually start looking for a job and not have to go on social assistance. But then, so we're broken up.

This is second time I'm broken up. Now I'm a single mom with two kids. I was a single mom with one kid. Now I'm a single mom with two kids. I'm living in one bedroom apartment. The kids have a bunk bed in the bedroom. I have a bed in the living room. And I go, he takes the kids on the weekends. And one weekend I went there late at night and the kids were sleeping and we were having ex sex.

Chelsea (38:54)
Yeah.

Yes. Yes.

Annie Temple (39:18)
Yeah, and we and that's the one that we really tried hard not to let any pregnancy happen, but the pregnancy happened anyway. So we weren't together at that time when I conceived my youngest, but she had the same father as my son. So we were, we didn't get back to move back in together or give it another shot until she was almost two years old. So that whole pregnancy, I, I got to have the temperature, whatever I wanted.

Chelsea (39:35)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Annie Temple (39:48)
I could,

you know, those really horrible, stinky pregnancy farts, you know, they're like the worst ever. Like, and you, you dread them happening. Like, and you hate, you, just, but, when you're in a relationship, your partner is going to smell those farts all the time, you know? But when I was a single pregnant woman, nobody could smell my farts. It was so great. I loved that, you know? And, and I don't know if this is TMI, but do you know how, you know how when you're pregnant, you got like really...

Chelsea (39:52)
Yes! Yes! Yes!

Yes.

Yes.

Annie Temple (40:18)
turned on. I do. my God. So in relationships, like, you know, as you get bigger and bigger, you don't want to actually have sex or anything, but you're never alone. But pregnant and single, whenever my kids are at school, I could just, you know, take care of those needs myself. So there were just so many advantages to being single and pregnant. And then when my baby was born, I never had anyone bitching about the baby in the bed.

Chelsea (40:18)
Some people do, I wish I had, but I, yeah.

Yeah, but you were.

Yes!

Annie Temple (40:45)
you know, or anything. Like it was just so peaceful. It was so peaceful and wonderful. Yeah. So that was my best pregnancy.

Chelsea (40:46)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

I just, I

know when you said, when I, when I read that, I was like, that is so often not what you hear that I was like, I love that. I love that. And to hear you talk about it too. It's like, yeah, there, there, there are some, I mean, obviously there are disadvantages, but like, yeah, like getting to have the house, the temperature you want.

Annie Temple (41:11)
Mm -hmm.

I mean, it's worse to be, yeah,

it's worse to be in a bad relationship and be pregnant than it is to be single and pregnant. So, yeah.

Chelsea (41:19)
Yes, absolutely.

So there's like, there's two directions that I can go and I'll decide which one I want to go to first. okay, so you sort of alluded to it a little bit earlier when you talked about like, telling your kids like if you didn't tell them that they couldn't tell their friends.

Annie Temple (41:28)
you

Chelsea (41:41)
What was that conversation like in your household? Or was it even a conversation? Or was it just like, this is our life? Just like in any other house, like mommy works at the elementary school or whatever. Is it just like mommy works at the club? like, I don't know, what was that like?

Annie Temple (41:54)
Mm

That's very, very

insightful of you because no one's ever said that or even thought of that. But yeah, that was the second one was mostly what it was like for me. I really wanted my kids to not grow up. Okay, so I had to make a decision like anyone who works in adult entertainment and the majority, like I would say maybe even 99 % of my colleagues lied to their children or hid it from their children or.

Chelsea (42:22)
Mm.

Annie Temple (42:25)
you know, maybe, maybe 90%. I don't know, but the ones who didn't, their kids were so mature and understanding and they had good relationships with their parents. And, and what I started to realize was that the ones who were honest with their kids, wasn't just that they were honest, but that they had opened the lines of communication and they had respected their children enough to give them the credit they deserve that they could handle that information.

or and that they would not use it against the parent kind of thing. And I think that when you hide something from your children for years and years and years and then they find out some other way or you break it to them that there's a much better chance that they're going to react in a very negative way. looking at that, taking all of that into consideration, I decided I did not wanna lie to my children. I didn't wanna tell them.

Chelsea (43:01)
Yeah.

Annie Temple (43:23)
I wanted them to know, but also I didn't want to wreck their innocence. you've got it. So it was kind of just a, mommy works in the adult entertainment industry. That was just a thing as they're growing up. They would hear me talking on the phone, planning events, talking about strippers. People would be would phone and my real name is Trina and they'd say, hi, is Annie there? And my kids would know Annie is mom, you know, so, so

Chelsea (43:30)
Right, right.

Mm -hmm.

Annie Temple (43:51)
you know, Annie Temple is my brand. It's my stage name and my brand now, but you know, my real name's Trina. So those kinds of things were just kind of the usual, just the way it is in our house. But there were conversations too. like when my daughter asked mommy, what's an exotic dancer? And I said, it's a beautiful dancer because she was five years old or something, you know? So giving like age appropriate information, like if you're a financial advisor,

Chelsea (44:03)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Exactly, yeah.

Annie Temple (44:19)
and your five year old says, mommy, what's a financial advisor? It's somebody who works with money. Like it's age appropriate, you know what I mean? And you don't go, nobody goes into details about everything in their work. And because adult entertainment is a sensual or sexual type of industry, you're even less likely to go into details about it because you know, who goes into details about sex with their kids unless it's like a

Chelsea (44:25)
Yeah.

Annie Temple (44:48)
educational talk and they're asking questions, you know what I mean? So when people would suggest being honest with your kids is inappropriate, I'd be like, well, it could be, I guess, if you start going into detail. But I didn't say to my five -year -old, I take my clothes off on stage with a bunch of men throwing money at me. You don't tell that to a five -year -old.

Chelsea (44:51)
Absolutely.

Right, right, yeah.

Annie Temple (45:16)
And honestly, I think my kids kind of just really figured it out as they got older because they just, it was just normal. And then, that's what a stripper is. mom.

you

Chelsea (45:29)
I they're like, yeah, mom, mom, you're

a badass. But I mean, that's my vibe anyway. That's the vibe I'm getting.

Annie Temple (45:37)
Well,

I got really lucky that my kids just always accepted me. But I do feel like my oldest daughter, was the only one who ever told her friends that I was a dancer. She was the only one who felt strong enough and vocal enough to stand up for strippers and people in the adult entertainment industry, whereas my other kids have just kind of not talked about it because, not because they have a problem with it, but just they didn't want to invite people to insult me to them. They didn't want to hear anyone

Chelsea (45:48)
Okay.

Mmm.

Annie Temple (46:06)
They didn't want to have to defend me, you know, but they would have. But my son did tell me that in high school, one time one of his friends says, don't you think it's weird when your parents try to act cool? And my son said, my mom is cool.

Chelsea (46:08)
Yeah. Yeah.

Well, that like speaks, that shouts volumes for your parenting skills, seriously. Well, because, again, it goes back what you were saying, like not hiding yourself and who you are from your kids and obviously doing it in an age appropriate way, but like, yeah, it's very, very cool. You are cool. You are a cool mom.

Annie Temple (46:26)
Mm -hmm.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Chelsea (46:50)
So through, like you'd mentioned when we first started talking, like you've been through a lot of ups and downs and you've been through a whole lot of things and you're still going through things, which I think is important for a lot of listeners to remember. the whole like healing isn't linear thing, life isn't linear. I'm definitely learning that.

It had to have had some sort of an impact on your mental health, all of the things that you have experienced along the way. And I'm curious if you found where you were finding comfort and where you were finding acceptance through all of those trials.

Annie Temple (47:30)
Hmm.

Yeah. Well, definitely. So yeah, my health issues and that is honestly another reason why I think my kids are so accepting of me is because they watched me suffer for a lot of years and for a long time, my kids were my caretakers and I would have to constantly ask them for help. And each time I go through another health issue,

they're right there having to help me again, you know? So it's kind of like you say, it is an ongoing thing when you have chronic illness. But definitely the adult entertainment industry was always there for me. It was always there for me. So because I became too sick to work, there were periods of time where I was so desperate that I considered, like there was a time when I was pregnant.

And I considered becoming a sex worker, like a pregnant sex worker when I was pregnant and single, you know? And I had my baby, I was gonna be having my baby soon and I didn't have enough work and I didn't know what I was gonna do. And then right just when I was like on the verge of becoming a sex worker, like an in -person sex worker, my...

Chelsea (48:29)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, and had some needs.

Annie Temple (48:52)
colleagues in the adult entertainment industry got some funding for a project and they made me the project coordinator. So then, so, and it was a health and safety project for sex industry workers. So it was something that was right up my alley. But so that's an example of how they helped me. But then other times, like after I became really disabled and I wasn't pregnant, but I was too sick to work a job where I would be able to show up every day. And, and I actually literally

Chelsea (48:59)
my gosh.

Annie Temple (49:20)
had to quit a job because I was calling in sick all the time. And my boss said to me when I called in to quit, she said, I'm really glad that you are quitting because you've called in six, six, 60 % of the time since we hired you. And I was so ashamed and humiliated, but I really just, I I loved my job and I wanted to keep it and I wanted to be there, but I just kept getting sick and I kept being hospitalized. So I was missing a lot of work and I finally just quit because I just couldn't work anymore. But when

Chelsea (49:32)
my

Yeah.

Annie Temple (49:50)
I was well enough to like work part time. What, what job could I do? Cause you don't know which days you're going to be well or which days you're not. So that's when I went back and started doing massages in the strip club. And that's when I became an intimacy specialist and those like being able to have work that I can't get fired from because I'm sick that day. And where I could just say to my clients, you know what? I'm, not feeling well. And they actually.

Chelsea (49:58)
Hmm?

Annie Temple (50:19)
are like, I hope you feel better. Like they feel bad for me. They don't begrudge me, you know? And that's so different from having a job where like you're letting everyone down when you're sick, you know? So it's been, it's really saved me and it saved my family because if I hadn't had...

Chelsea (50:23)
Right?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Annie Temple (50:40)
that adult entertainment industry, my kids wouldn't have had activities. We wouldn't have been able to go out for meals once in a while as a family. We wouldn't, there are so many things that my children wouldn't have had and they would have been fine and we would have all survived, but it's nice to have some of those luxury. I consider them luxuries. mean, people with money just consider it normal, but when you've had a mostly poverty stricken life,

as a child and as a single mom, those little things like putting your kids in an activity or taking them out for a family dinner, those are such meaningful things, you know, or being able to have Netflix and Prime and just like buy them some school clothes or whatever, you know? So these are things that I wouldn't have been able to provide for my family if I didn't have the sex industry, so.

Chelsea (51:23)
Right? Yes.

Yep.

Annie Temple (51:36)
It's definitely been a big wonderful part of my life. I think, yeah, my memoir is all about this, how sex work shaped my life.

Chelsea (51:46)
Yeah. And I'm, I know I'm gonna, it's, it's, it's on my agenda. I'm going to ask you about it. but seriously though, cause that leads us kind of beautifully into like, we've talked, we've talked a lot about your journey as a mom and it is sort of like, parallel isn't the right word, but it goes so closely hand in hand with your journey in the sex work industry. cause it was all kind of happening at the same time. And

Annie Temple (52:09)
Mm -hmm.

Chelsea (52:13)
It really shaped you and also really, really saved you in a way, like really supported you. So where does that bring you now? What would tell me about what you're doing now?

Annie Temple (52:18)
Mm -hmm. Yes.

It's pretty exciting. So now, because honestly, like my health issues were pretty severe until 2015. 2015, I started to make a bit of a comeback. So now it's been, and then obviously COVID side railed everything for everybody. But only, so,

Chelsea (52:44)
Yeah.

Annie Temple (52:47)
Only in the last like three or four years, I decided finally that I had the energy, the capacity, the time, because my children are getting older, and the ability to get into my own dreams and do like start to achieve the dreams that I had for myself as a young woman. And a lot of these dreams I had suppressed because, you know, when I was young, before I got sick, I just thought they were impossible.

I'll never be a bestselling author. I'll never be able to achieve these things that I want to achieve. Like I just didn't believe in myself. It just seemed out of my range of experience and didn't know how to make it happen. And then just a few years ago, like as I was starting to get well and having more time, I thought to myself, you know, how do people become wealthy? How do people reach their dreams?

of like becoming a bestselling author and whatnot. Like I've always assumed that they just must know how or that it just happens for them naturally. But then I thought, but maybe they had to learn how, maybe I just need to learn how. And so then I started doing research and I read books like, Think and Grow Rich and Rich Dad Poor Dad and books about people that have accomplished a lot of things and what they went through.

Chelsea (53:58)
Yeah.

Annie Temple (54:09)
to get there. And I realized, no, these people are accomplishing things because they made a decision specifically what they wanted. And then they did what they needed to do to learn how to achieve it. And so then that was when I started my dive into learning how to become the person I wanted to be. And that person is someone who writes books and helps people and changes people's lives. like I experienced a lot of

touch starvation when I was sick, that was a big thing. And when I became an intimacy provider, that was something that I was just so shocked at how many people would come and see me for intimacy that were also experiencing touch starvation. And I could relate to them and I could understand because I'd been through it myself. And so then that kind of started me on this new mission of wanting to help people feel

connected and loved and cared for and special and seen, you know, and remind them who they are because I feel like when you're not touched for a long time and when people don't make you feel like you're interesting and you're funny and you're worthwhile to be around and someone that they want to spend time with and like touch you and hug you and, you know, find you desirable, all of those things, those are things that when you don't have that in your life,

Chelsea (55:11)
scene, yes.

Annie Temple (55:34)
Your life, you can become depressed. can, like your life is just, it's kind of gray. It's not, it's not living. And as humans, we need connection. we're, you know, needing to be touched isn't something that only infants have. It goes through us throughout our lives. And so when I was lying sick in a hospital bed, I mean, if someone could have even just gently rested their hand on my leg.

Chelsea (55:46)
Mm -hmm.

Annie Temple (56:02)
or rubbed a little bit of lotion into my feet or like just pet my hair for a few minutes, but really gently because I was just so fragile. And I think a lot of people when they're sick and maybe you can relate too is when you're really sick, you might not wanna be touched, but you need to be touched. And so you gotta be touched very gently, very gently and very tenderly. that tenderness is something that's missing in our society now.

Chelsea (56:12)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Annie Temple (56:32)
It's so, so like lacking so being in this work, going through what I've been through, I've come to this place now where I want to impact people and make them, help them find their strength, like I did, to overcome whatever's holding them back from getting their intimacy needs met or finding a relationship or having good.

communication with their children or whatever it is, you know, because after you've been through all this shit, you know what really matters, you know, and you also stop caring about the stuff that really doesn't matter. So, you know, I can do a lingerie photo shoot with my ostomy bag showing and other people will be embarrassed for me, but I'm not embarrassed. You know, not at all because for me, I...

Chelsea (57:06)
Yeah.

Yeah.

my gosh. Yeah, no!

Annie Temple (57:28)
I want to give other people permission to embrace their own bodies and feel beautiful in their own bodies. And I couldn't do that if I didn't feel beautiful in my own body. So it's just, it's a lot of it is, is being an example, but also a lot of it is just like showing people their beauty through my eyes, you know?

Chelsea (57:52)
my gosh, what a powerful, powerful thing. what strikes me, especially hearing you talk about it, is like, again, that word empowerment just keeps like flashing in front of my eyes. And what a gift you're giving to share your empowerment with other people. That's so beautiful. What I think is...

Annie Temple (58:10)
Thank

Chelsea (58:15)
amazing about hearing your story. One, it's a perspective that I have yet to be able to share. So it's a perspective that I think needs to be out there. Two, it's so relatable when the stigma would tell you it's not and the stereotyping would tell you it's not. It's so relatable.

Annie Temple (58:38)
Mm -hmm.

Chelsea (58:42)
the challenges that you went through as a person and as a mother are the same challenges that so many of us are going through and your occupation and your passions don't impact that in terms of like, you're not an alien experiencing life differently than the rest of us. Yeah. and then also this whole other

Annie Temple (58:58)
Yes. Exactly!

Chelsea (59:09)
side of the story of like being chronically ill and and having a visible disability or an invisible disability like that is a challenge in and of itself while also parenting and having to make ends meet. That's going to resonate with so many listeners as well. I know it resonates with me. So you've listened to some of my episodes. So you know that I have like these two questions that I always end on one or the other.

Annie Temple (59:28)
Mm

Chelsea (59:36)
And I'd usually take the whole episode to decide which one I'm going to ask. And I can't decide for you because they're both, like, I'd love to hear the answer to both of them.

I think, I guess what I want to know is if you could go back in time, if you could go all the way back before your very first unplanned pregnancy and everything that you had to endure with the abortion and then going into the next pregnancy and this whole journey, which is ongoing, and you could instill something within yourself.

So some of my guests have taken that as a word. Some of my guests have taken that as like an attribute or a feeling. It literally can mean anything. What would you instill in Annie way back then?

Annie Temple (1:00:32)
I would have told myself, you cannot control anyone, you can only control yourself.

Chelsea (1:00:41)
I need to learn that lesson.

Annie Temple (1:00:44)
Because it took me a really long time to learn that and I think that was the most profound thing I ever learned because before that I just tried to control everything. Once you realize you can't control everything and you can only control yourself, it really changes the game for everything. Like it helps you to handle shit when it happens and it helps you to become a better person.

That's probably the biggest thing I wish that I learned as a child. And I say it a lot to my children when they're pissed off about something I say, you can't change anyone else. You can only change yourself and you can't change anything. You can only change yourself. So true.

Chelsea (1:01:15)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's so, it's always an interesting, well, I always get a different answer and it's just an interesting exercise, think too, because it's like, wouldn't it be nice if we could do that? Like, would it be nice if we could, if we could just go and plant those things that would make life so much easier? But the point in me asking that question, I think is for the people who are sort of in the thick of it right now to know like,

Annie Temple (1:01:36)
man, I wish.

Mm

Chelsea (1:01:51)
look, I got to this point and I figured this out and you're going to too. So, and that's also why I love that I've never gotten the same answer twice because there's, we're all learning. We're all learning and we're all growing. Annie, where can my listeners find you and what you're doing, to follow along your journey?

Annie Temple (1:02:00)
Mm -hmm.

Go to my website, annietemple .com, and please sign up for my Fearless Living newsletter.

Chelsea (1:02:18)
Yes, I love it. I can't remember if I have, but if I haven't, I will. And thank you so much. This has been a really fun conversation and I have loved getting to know you.

Annie Temple (1:02:24)
Yay!

Thank you so much for inviting me to your show. I have enjoyed listening to it and I've enjoyed being on it. Thank you so much. It's an honor to be here.

Chelsea (1:02:42)
Annie, thank you so much for sharing your journey with me. I feel honored to be able to amplify your voice and help a community of parents feel seen in a world that too often stigmatizes them. Listeners, please check the show notes to learn more about Annie and to follow her journey. You can keep up with us on Quiet Connection by following us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and threads at Quiet Connection podcast.

You can help our community grow by leaving us a rating and review on Apple podcasts or Spotify and consider sharing our episodes on social media. To share your personal journey, you can contact us through our website at quietconnectionpodcast .com or by email at quietconnectionppmh at gmail .com. Join us next time when another story is told and you realize you are not alone. I see you.