The Mikhaila Peterson Podcast - April 13, 2022


145. How To Raise Healthy Kids, WITHOUT Sacrificing Your Career Goals | Jen Fulwiler


Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 11 minutes

Words per minute

199.58

Word count

14,325

Sentence count

680

Harmful content

Toxicity

7

sentences flagged

Hate speech

27

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 When I think back to the person I was when I thought I didn't want to have kids, it was all
00:00:04.860 based on this misunderstanding. It was based on this false idea that you have to be boring,
00:00:10.460 especially as a woman. If you're going to be the ones having the kids and doing it right,
00:00:15.300 then you had just better get ready to be boring for like two decades out of your life.
00:00:20.080 And I can't sign up for that. I don't like I'll die. I mean that my brain will melt. I just,
00:00:26.360 maybe this is even a bad thing. Maybe it's something I need to go to therapy for,
00:00:29.320 but it is what it is. I can't have a boring life. And I almost missed out on this incredible life.
00:00:37.800 Like I'm so grateful for my kids, for my family. I love my life so much. I can't even put it into
00:00:45.580 words. And to think that I almost missed out on it based on the misunderstanding that you have to
00:00:52.220 be boring. If you're a mother, I swear my life's work. Like if I convince one person that you can
00:00:58.560 be interesting, and you can have kids, even a lot of kids, if that's the right path for
00:01:03.060 you, then I will feel like everything I have done is worth it.
00:01:09.100 Every sacrifice, every rejection, every difficult thing I've gone through in my career, it is
00:01:14.880 worth it if I put forth into the world a new model of what motherhood can look like.
00:01:22.240 welcome to episode 145 of the michaela peterson podcast i'm michaela peterson currently with
00:01:32.240 allergies hence my voice they were so bad last week i didn't release an episode because i had
00:01:39.700 no voice so this might just be what i sound like now anyway this is your new podcast host
00:01:45.160 This was an in-person podcast. Soon they will all be in person. How exciting. My guest today
00:01:52.300 is stand-up comic Jen Fulwiler, the author of three books. It was fun. I don't have as many
00:01:58.820 women on my podcast for some reason, but I really like Jen, a disagreeable, super conscientious
00:02:04.340 mother of six kids. We discussed making sacrifices for children, how she funded her first comedy
00:02:11.120 tour her by herself. Different personality types, thrill-seeking behavior, improvement, negotiating
00:02:17.720 a shared vision of your life with your partner, and more. Her tour is currently on sale if you're
00:02:23.700 interested in seeing her live. This episode was brought to you by Rabbit Air. I had serious
00:02:30.380 issues getting quality sleep. I kept waking up in the middle of the night, but kept writing it off
00:02:35.580 as just stress. It was stress, but it turns out it was more than just stress. I was also allergic
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00:04:25.960 Jen Fullweiler, welcome to my podcast.
00:04:28.100 I am so excited to be here. I love your podcasts.
00:04:31.580 You look great. Thank you. Thank you. I've got my makeup routine down to where I can do TV or
00:04:38.000 video podcast makeup. This is a 20 minute look. When you have six kids, you figure these things
00:04:42.780 out quickly. Mine's mine's down to about six minutes. Nice. Well, you look amazing. So we
00:04:47.700 need to trade tips before we get started. Can you give a brief background about who you are and what
00:04:53.380 it is you do? Yes. Um, I, well, what stands out to people about me is I have six kids.
00:04:59.220 I had six babies in eight years, no twins. I am a, uh, I'm a standup comedian. Uh, the jokes
00:05:06.620 write themselves when that is your lifestyle. And, uh, when I first got into standup comedy,
00:05:12.300 because, because I have six kids, I wasn't able to spend as much time in comedy clubs
00:05:18.460 as a lot of other comedians because that I just, I just couldn't, I mean, I did, I went to clubs
00:05:23.260 quite a bit, but not as much as other people could. So I had trouble getting booked for a tour
00:05:28.560 And so my best friend and I, uh, booked our own, they, we booked a tour for me just using my
00:05:35.220 personal credit card. So I went out and I did that tour and most of the events sold out.
00:05:39.020 It was incredible. And that really kind of launched my standup comedy career. We filmed
00:05:44.400 a special as part of that. And so that was really what, what kind of got momentum behind my comedy
00:05:50.480 career. Okay. So that must've been a little bit stressful trying like, don't you have to put up
00:05:55.640 quite a bit of money up front in order to book those venues yeah i mean i'll just tell you some
00:05:59.780 numbers like so here's the other thing i had to rent the theaters on like monday tuesday wednesday
00:06:05.300 nights because they're half price if you do off nights and so i could get them for maybe four or
00:06:11.120 five thousand flat fee but then i would also have to pay like there were fees for ushers and all
00:06:16.420 these other fees but you have to pay in advance and there are no refunds and i'd never done a tour
00:06:21.720 like this. And so I was on the hook for all of this money. I mean, we had the first round we
00:06:27.280 ended up doing about 15 cities, but the first round was like eight cities. And one of them
00:06:31.820 was expensive as 10 K it all went on the credit card. And I had to pay all that, whether or not
00:06:37.420 I sold tickets. And I will tell you, I have never been so terrified in my life as the night before
00:06:44.520 I put tickets on sale, because I was like that there's no plan B there's no backup plan. If
00:06:50.500 these tickets don't sell? Like, I don't know what I'll do. Did you have a social media following?
00:06:56.260 Like, so you could kind of gauge like maybe this percentage of my audience is going to buy tickets.
00:07:01.660 And did you knew where your audience was or how did that work? Yes. And what, what I had based
00:07:06.680 that on is the previous year I did a book tour. I had a book that came out and so I had gone around
00:07:12.900 to meet fans and I got a pretty good response. Now that was just for a book tour. So now do my
00:07:18.480 fans about stand-up comedy I don't know but um so I was I did have some reason to believe that
00:07:24.700 people might maybe show up if I did a tour and that was what I was was betting on okay book tour
00:07:31.580 I've always been curious so for a book tour is it just you standing there signing books or like an
00:07:36.740 hour and a half of talking about your book that is a great question uh that is so I didn't figure
00:07:41.900 that question out until after I booked my book tour I was like okay now I've charged people
00:07:46.760 to show up. So what will I be doing? And what I decided that's, it was one of the ways I sort of
00:07:52.860 worked out my standup comedy. I gave a speech related to the book, but I made it, I, it was
00:07:59.120 essentially standup. It was, but it was on the topic of the book. And so that's what I did.
00:08:03.780 That's what people were getting for their money. And then I would stay and just hang out with fans
00:08:08.500 afterwards. And so that's kind of what they got is a meet and greet and then a speech, which was
00:08:14.100 really standup comedy from me. Okay. And you've got, so you, you do standup comedy, but you have
00:08:19.320 a number of books, right? I do. I have three books. Yeah. And some of them were fairly popular.
00:08:23.760 I think, yeah. I mean, I got on the wall street journal bestseller list, didn't quite hit the
00:08:28.180 New York times and like number one seller at Barnes and Noble. So yeah, they did, they did
00:08:33.320 pretty well. And what's interesting is I, I always thought I would be a writer. I thought that was
00:08:38.600 my thing. It is how I defined myself. It earlier in my career, it really didn't occur to me that
00:08:44.340 I would do anything else. And so it's always kind of funny to me that when people meet me now,
00:08:48.820 sometimes people don't even know I'm a writer. I'm like, I'm a writer. You know, it's a big
00:08:54.680 shift. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. Okay. So I wanted to bring you on because I think I saw, I saw
00:09:01.000 something on your Instagram a long time ago. That was something about modern moms, like be a
00:09:04.860 traditional mom and then you have this little skit about being a traditional mom, which we can
00:09:08.460 probably throw up on the podcast. Yeah, yeah. People can get an idea of what it is. Ladies, be good
00:09:13.060 mothers this summer and spend time with your children the traditional way, which doesn't
00:09:17.920 involve any of this because traditional mothers were busy. For most of human history, survival was
00:09:22.860 a mom's full-time job. If your kids wanted chicken nuggets, it was up to you to take it from chicken
00:09:27.160 to nugget. Without refrigeration, food had to be cooked daily. Without indoor plumbing, getting
00:09:31.680 water was a whole ordeal. The laundry spin cycle was your bare hands. And without electricity,
00:09:36.000 this all had to be done during daylight hours. There is no historical precedent for moms being 1.00
00:09:40.340 the primary entertainers of their kids. They never had time. Meaningful moments with their 0.96
00:09:43.900 children happened, but it was in the midst of their busyness or in the evenings. Maybe traditional
00:09:47.780 moms pinned clothes on clotheslines and you pinned clothes on Pinterest. Either way, it's natural and 0.92
00:09:51.740 normal for a woman to have a lot of her daily focus on something other than entertaining her 1.00
00:09:56.060 kids. Hug your kids, love your kids, tell your kids you're thrilled to be doing life with them,
00:09:59.700 and then unapologetically make time for your own adult work because that is what traditional
00:10:04.220 motherhood looks like. But I just want to talk to you a bit about just how you managed to,
00:10:10.220 first of all, you said six kids in eight years. Yeah. That's crazy. And that was,
00:10:17.080 so did you stay home? How did you manage to do the writing at the same time? Or was like for
00:10:22.240 a period of time, were you just like, just overrun with children or? Yeah, no, I did. I stayed home.
00:10:26.900 Um, I mean, we just couldn't afford full-time childcare for that number of kids.
00:10:30.960 You do end up in a financial situation where it's like, one of us is staying home because
00:10:35.540 you get, you know, to get, to get full-time childcare for that number of little kids.
00:10:39.760 It's like a teacher.
00:10:40.660 Oh yeah.
00:10:41.160 And a daycare.
00:10:42.160 Yeah.
00:10:42.420 Yeah.
00:10:42.640 It's, it's no joke.
00:10:44.040 And so I did stay home and, um, but I wrote those books while I was staying home with
00:10:51.280 those kids at that time with a bunch of little kids and people would ask, how do you do it?
00:10:56.820 Why would you add more stress to your plate to have these book deadlines?
00:11:00.920 And I got a pretty big deal with HarperCollins for my second and third books, and that involved
00:11:05.480 deadlines and pressure.
00:11:07.200 But what I always tell people is when you find that thing that you are called to do,
00:11:12.200 a friend of mine calls it your blue flame.
00:11:14.280 When you find that blue flame work that you're meant to do, not only does it not feel like
00:11:19.560 work, but it gives you energy.
00:11:22.320 I had more energy to be a mom.
00:11:25.180 I had three kids in diapers for the better part of a decade, three kids in diapers at once, because I have a baby as soon as the older one got out of diapers.
00:11:36.020 And so, you know, kids don't sleep through the night.
00:11:38.240 I mean, it was it was very difficult physically.
00:11:41.700 But what got me through it was doing that writing, having to do a chapter, having to have that chapter finished by Friday.
00:11:48.720 It made me get up a little earlier in the morning.
00:11:51.660 It made me keep the kids on a schedule so I could have that nap time to do my writing.
00:11:56.340 And I, I really believe that it, I was a better mom for the fact that I had those writing
00:12:03.000 deadlines during that time.
00:12:04.900 Okay.
00:12:05.680 Okay.
00:12:06.000 That's interesting.
00:12:07.200 So I think one of the things I struggled with when I had Scarlett was my mom was a stay at 0.99
00:12:14.660 home mom.
00:12:15.640 Um, so it was just my brother and I, but she stayed at home until I think we were in grade
00:12:20.100 seven. And then she became a massage therapist, went to massage school like full time. But I had,
00:12:25.740 I think what happened to me was I was in university, I had Scarlett, and then I stayed
00:12:30.040 home for a period of time, like when she was really, really little. And I didn't,
00:12:37.580 I felt guilty doing anything that didn't have, that seemed like it didn't have anything to do
00:12:41.960 with her. So at that point it was just like any type of writing or like blog stuff. I think I was
00:12:47.260 just writing a blog at that point or working for my dad. I was like, and I think it was partly
00:12:52.680 some people around me who were like, Oh, you should be only staying at home. And then there
00:12:58.540 were the other people who were like, you're wasting your life because you're only staying at
00:13:02.640 home. But how do you like, do you have suggestions or anything for, I guess, mothers who are trying
00:13:11.020 to figure out how much time they should be spending on themselves when they have little kids?
00:13:15.440 Yeah. And that's what, you know, you mentioned that sketch I did about traditional mothers, and that was exactly the point that I was making in that sketch. So to give you a little bit of background to lead into my answer to what you just asked. So I had the benefit of, I guess it was about 15 years ago at this point.
00:13:34.780 I interviewed some relatives of mine who were born in around like 1910, 1912, and they were
00:13:41.880 in their late nineties at the time. And I just asked them about life. I didn't even know what
00:13:47.320 I was getting at, but we just, we did some video. We set up the old heavy camcorder and videoed
00:13:53.340 this. And at the time I had just had a baby. And so I didn't intend for these to be interviews
00:13:59.220 about motherhood, but I was so stressed out because my kid didn't sleep through the night.
00:14:03.200 and I just was really maxed out about it. So that's just where my mind went. And I ended up
00:14:09.120 asking my grandfather and then his, his cousin and some of these other people I talked to, I
00:14:13.940 parenthood just kept coming up. And one of the things that was very clear to me and keep in
00:14:19.260 mind, these people, you know, they were in their twenties in the 1920s and thirties. So they knew
00:14:24.540 people as adults who lived in the 1800s. I mean, they were really connected to an old, old way of
00:14:30.140 life. And one of the things they emphasized is how busy mothers were. I mean, when you think
00:14:36.140 about it, I've been joking about this on my podcast. If your kids wanted chicken nuggets
00:14:40.780 anytime before, like the past 50 years, it was up to you to take it from chicken to nugget.
00:14:47.760 That was all on you. And think about how time consuming that is. You're slaughtering animals.
00:14:52.780 You're doing all that stuff to dress them. You're chopping it up. I mean, this to just get dinner on 0.68
00:14:58.060 the table was an hours long process. And so when you look at the history of humanity, when you look
00:15:05.220 at human evolution, it simply could not be the case that human children have evolved to need
00:15:12.760 their mother's attention for all or even 90 or even 80% of her waking hours, because the work
00:15:20.260 of survival was very, very time consuming for our female ancestors. And that's the principle that
00:15:27.180 I've always used in my home. Of course, your kids need to be your priority and they, they need your
00:15:33.360 attention and they need focused attention, but this is not all day, every day. It couldn't be
00:15:38.880 because that's what I said in that, in that sketch that you saw traditional mothers were busy. And so 0.54
00:15:44.180 if you are busy doing your, you're writing a book, that's similar to your ancestors who were busy
00:15:50.400 going, slaughtering animals, like getting them ready for cooking. The work you're doing is
00:15:55.240 different, but the time commitment is about the same. Okay. That's interesting. I guess
00:16:01.260 some people, I think, I think this was an incorrect way of the way I was thinking about it,
00:16:05.960 but it was because it didn't have anything to do. You know, it was work, but it wasn't work for the
00:16:10.900 kids. So if you're like trying to survive and chopping wood and slaughtering chickens, then
00:16:15.540 it's like, okay, that's directly for the family. But I know I certainly felt better when I had time
00:16:21.900 put aside for work. Cause I'm like, I'm very, you know, work oriented fulfills me. You find a
00:16:26.640 project to work on and it's great. Right. Uh, so it was tricky though. I definitely had a hard time
00:16:32.900 being like, no, even though I'm doing something that isn't related to that, it's okay.
00:16:38.640 Yeah. It was like deeply ingrained in me as the wrong thing to do.
00:16:41.980 Yep. And I think we all struggle with that, that there, yeah, of course there is a question of,
00:16:47.440 okay, I don't have to write this book the way my great grandmother had to wash the clothes
00:16:53.460 because everyone only had three pairs of clothes. But to me, it seems like I don't think it matters
00:17:00.500 as much to your children what work you're doing. I think it just feels natural that, yeah, mom has
00:17:08.160 stuff going on. And for our ancestors, that might've been washing clothes out on the washboard.
00:17:13.260 For us, it might be writing, but I don't think that it, that it matters to the children as long
00:17:20.200 as they know that you, that they are your priorities. Certainly there can be cases if,
00:17:27.160 you know, if someone were to become obsessed with the work that they're doing and they just
00:17:31.180 neglect their kids and they're, they're not there for their kids' needs and they don't care because
00:17:35.080 all they care about is this work that they're doing. Certainly that would be a problem and
00:17:38.920 those things can happen. But I think, um, I just, I never felt like it mattered that much,
00:17:45.480 whether I was slaughtering chickens or writing either way, I, I don't have time to sit down for
00:17:51.320 three hours in the middle of the day and, and only focus on crafts or whatever. And, um, and,
00:17:57.940 and it, it re I, and I also think that when we compare ourselves like you did to some of the
00:18:03.860 women. And I did this too. Of course, we all know the moms who were like, well, I just,
00:18:08.420 I'm just focused on my children. So I, I, I do glitter, glitter crafts for five hours every day
00:18:14.860 is that, you know, home is my priority. Well, what I've noticed in my years of, of watching
00:18:20.820 parents is these women are following their passions too. They have found that blue flame.
00:18:26.440 They are doing things that energize and inspire them too. It just so happens that their skills
00:18:32.140 have more of a natural translation to home life. They're the kind of women who, if they didn't have
00:18:38.100 kids, they might work in a daycare or do work at a kid's camp or something because they have a
00:18:43.740 natural affinity to working with children. And so a lot of times I would say, okay, you guys are
00:18:49.620 getting unfair credit there. You're doing the same thing I am. You're following your passion.
00:18:54.220 You're doing things that inspire you. It just so happens that what inspires you is organizing the
00:18:59.700 kitchen cabinets perfectly. And I couldn't care less about my kitchen cabinets. I'm doing writing,
00:19:04.340 but we are both doing things that energize and inspire us in a given day.
00:19:08.680 I like that. I like that. Okay. So, uh, I saw on your Instagram stories a few days ago,
00:19:14.800 I think you posted about your parents and how you've been structuring your comedy shows and
00:19:20.360 you had a whole bunch of spreadsheets up. Yes. So I want to get into that again. Cause I was like,
00:19:24.680 that is something I would do. That's really cool. Not a lot of people can relate to that,
00:19:30.760 but I knew it's funny. I figured that that would resonate with you. And I so appreciate that
00:19:36.400 because most people think I'm crazy and I, and I'm so naive. It comes so naturally
00:19:41.480 to do things like, so I put my whole standup comedy set in a conditionally formatted Google
00:19:50.000 sheet and the conditional formatting is when I put in times between laughs and then the different
00:19:55.000 laugh level at the different punchlines, it automatically color codes it that a laugh of
00:19:59.680 three or above is red. A laugh at a two is orange. A laugh at a one or below is gray. So I can see
00:20:05.900 visually when, when I pull up my set, I can see the visual of how it's doing. And then the time
00:20:11.860 between laughs and it was great. I could scroll through it and say, Oh, wait a minute. There's a
00:20:16.000 lot of gray in this area, meaning time between laughs. So I thought, okay, I have some good
00:20:21.160 jokes there, but this is showing me visually that this is a weak part of my standup comedy set.
00:20:27.040 And one of my friends was just speechless when I showed him this. And he said, yeah,
00:20:32.280 that's just like Richard Pryor used to do it. And I am so naive. I was like, you know,
00:20:37.420 that makes so much sense. Cause he was so funny. And my friends started laughing like, no, Jen,
00:20:43.420 I was kidding. No one's ever done this. You're insane. But my dad was an engineer and my mom
00:20:51.500 was actually like, she calculated kill ratios as a mathematician at the Naval Weapons Research
00:20:57.440 Laboratory. So, I mean, I'm hopeless. Like I just have that mathematician, engineer's brain,
00:21:03.280 everything is spreadsheets. Everything in life is quantifiable for me. So yeah, everything goes
00:21:09.360 in a spreadsheet, including my standup comedy set. But what's interesting is, um, one of the
00:21:14.280 things that people in the comedy industry talked about when I, when I did that tour is they said,
00:21:20.140 okay, so first of all, you booked it yourself and that's crazy, but they said, how did you get
00:21:23.840 a set so quickly? Because that, that all came about very quickly. And I pulled together my
00:21:29.740 set from having nothing to having a pretty good set that was, it's now a special, uh, in, I mean,
00:21:35.800 I think it came together in five or six months, which is about half the time. And again, with six
00:21:41.260 kids, I couldn't spend every single night down at the clubs because that just would be impossible
00:21:47.060 with six kids. But it was that quantification that I would have a friend to come with me or
00:21:53.080 my husband and we'd video the set and I would have to go back and watch that video, which is so
00:21:58.840 painful, you know, full body video of yourself. And then you have to, and you know, of course,
00:22:03.940 Sometimes I'd bomb.
00:22:04.760 These people didn't know who I was. 0.53
00:22:06.200 And so I'd have to watch myself bombing.
00:22:09.280 And then, and I was the most painful psychologically thing I've ever done.
00:22:14.320 But so I would take that data every time I did it, I'd put it in a sheet.
00:22:18.220 I'd write down the punch down the punch lines.
00:22:20.580 I would do the conditional formatting.
00:22:22.460 And I have to say, I ramped very quickly because of that quantification.
00:22:27.320 It was a ruthless way of distilling my comedy into what works.
00:22:31.380 And it, and it cut my time in half.
00:22:33.940 wow that i mean yeah that's really smart that's a really good idea yeah to me i'm a results
00:22:40.440 oriented person i mean when my friends would make fun of me i would say okay i know it's crazy and
00:22:44.880 i know other stand-up comics don't do this but it's working you know yeah it's almost crazy not
00:22:51.360 to do that that's what i thought that's what i thought but yeah i mean when you watch my comedy
00:22:56.300 special i can hold up a spreadsheet right next to it there's that punchline yep that's a level
00:23:01.500 three laugh. I knew it would be cause it always is. I knew this one's a shorter laugh, but we
00:23:05.700 have a bunch of level two laughs in a row here. It works. Oh, that's so funny. Okay. So how old
00:23:12.620 are your kids now? Like how old is your youngest? So my oldest is now 17 and my youngest is eight.
00:23:19.240 So, okay. Yeah. So the, and these are really fun ages. I, okay. So I have a theory that every mom
00:23:26.180 has a, a childhood phase that she kind of specializes in. And then a childhood phase
00:23:31.760 that she has, has no natural skills for. Um, I don't know anything about babies and toddlers,
00:23:37.400 nothing like I having six babies in eight years only taught me that I don't know about babies.
00:23:42.680 I'm there. They're just so confusing to me. They're so cute. I love them, but I'm,
00:23:46.900 I am overwhelmed and confused by babies. Um, but I am really enjoying the teen years,
00:23:52.460 the tween and teen ages. That is more for me, like wrestling with really deep, heavy,
00:23:58.240 difficult subjects. I could all stay up with a kid till 4am talking about that. But when they're
00:24:03.020 a toddler, like screaming for 15 minutes, because you looked at their cracker, that's where I'm
00:24:08.300 like, I'm out. I don't know what to do with this. Like, so if someone get me a nanny, I need Downton
00:24:11.920 Abbey life where I need to ring the bell. Like where's the downstairs staff coming to help me
00:24:15.700 with this? Like I can't, I just can't. So yeah. So I'm really enjoying these ages. That's nice.
00:24:21.240 Did you have help when kids were really little? Did you have family or anything?
00:24:25.660 Not as much when they were little, but I do now. And, um, and I will be transparent about the fact
00:24:31.620 that it is a big stretch on my budget that I do have a nanny. And, um, and it's when we didn't
00:24:38.400 set out to hire a nanny, but she had been babysitting for us casually and she was such
00:24:44.100 a good fit. I mean, our house is, it's a little bit different. I have had babysitters or one in
00:24:49.460 particular, she walked out in the middle of her shift and quit and discussed because she was so
00:24:55.000 disgusted with how I ran my house. So at that time I let my kids jump on the couch because it was,
00:25:03.120 if they didn't have shoes on, because we were stuck inside a lot. I live in Austin, Texas.
00:25:07.180 It gets very hot in the summer. It's, it was too difficult to take all those little kids somewhere.
00:25:11.960 And so, and the couch was very old. We needed to replace it anyway. And so like my three-year-old
00:25:16.960 had a bottle, which she was horrified that I still let my three-year-old drink from a bottle.
00:25:21.160 They're all jumping on the couch. And she was like, I'm, I cannot, like, I cannot do this.
00:25:25.700 So when we finally found someone who was a good fit for our family, she reached, she reached this
00:25:30.740 tipping point where she was like, okay, I need, I need a full-time job or I have to go somewhere
00:25:35.000 else. We were like, we can't lose you. So, um, so we have stayed in, I live in a small house,
00:25:41.360 1900 square feet, three bedrooms with all eight of us in there. And that was a choice we made to
00:25:46.280 stay in that house. We got it really cheap. It's a not inexpensive house. And then that freed up
00:25:52.780 some budget to have help. And I really evangelize for that to women to have, to consider that as a
00:25:58.500 lifestyle choice. If you're able to upgrade your lifestyle financially, just consider it's not the
00:26:04.080 right choice for everyone, but consider instead of upgrading the house or the car or whatever, 0.92
00:26:08.820 upgrade your help, get yourself a nanny. Like I, I am a big, big believer that women were meant to
00:26:16.220 have helped. I mean, I'm not just a believer. This is a fact that throughout all of human history,
00:26:21.260 women raised children in villages. Women have never done this alone. They've never done it
00:26:27.000 alone. And I studied anthropology in college. And if you look at any traditional society on any
00:26:33.440 place, any time in human history, like a hundred years ago or before, you know, you could let your
00:26:38.460 kids run around outside or even back further when people lived in tribes, you know, your kids would
00:26:43.900 run around with the other kids of the tribes. I mean, speaking of the time we spend with our kids,
00:26:48.680 when you look at human evolution and tribal life, women did not see their kids that much during the 0.97
00:26:55.720 day because the kids were running around with their older teen siblings and women were with
00:27:00.780 their babies and maybe their toddlers. But even then they would have like a grandmother to help
00:27:05.700 with the babies. And so anyway, um, I am a big believer that having help should, we should
00:27:12.420 redefine it in our mind, not as a luxury, but as a necessity. I think it should come right after the
00:27:20.140 electricity bill. There are times when you can't afford it, but if you can afford it, you should
00:27:25.680 not see it as a luxury. You should see it as a necessity. Yeah. So part of the reason I wanted
00:27:31.280 to have you on was to talk about that because I think like, um, I think part of the reason
00:27:35.720 people aren't having as many kids is because the idea of raising a kid like by yourself with your
00:27:42.660 partner is extremely overwhelming and scary and it's no wonder because people didn't use to do
00:27:49.000 that like they'd have a whole bunch of siblings they'd all have kids i know that in tribes there
00:27:53.740 would be people too kind of like what we do now but people who took care of a whole bunch of kids
00:27:58.980 and other people who went to do different like parts of being in a tribe berry picking whatever
00:28:04.060 different jobs. Right. And so it wasn't the same as what we have now. And I think that's something
00:28:10.300 women should really know about because women are putting off just in general, putting off having 0.99
00:28:16.120 kids for so long that they have trouble having kids. And then people don't really talk about 1.00
00:28:20.800 that. And you end up with people who can't have kids. And then that's heartbreaking for a lot of
00:28:25.440 people. Right. And so that just the whole, like the whole story around how to have kids at the
00:28:31.020 moment is a bit skewed. Oh, it's you, you nailed it. And it makes me so sad that so many women
00:28:38.020 fear having kids because they think for what you just said, but then also they think, well,
00:28:43.200 I wouldn't be good at it because the quote unquote right way to have kids is to focus on the kids for
00:28:49.800 80, 90% of your waking hours to have no thoughts or passions outside of what's going on with the 0.95
00:28:57.840 kids and so many women that understandably think, yeah, I don't think I can sign up for that. Like 0.99
00:29:02.800 I would be a terrible mom because I could not sign up for that. And what I want to shout from
00:29:07.440 the rooftops is like, yeah, no kidding. Like very few people can do that. There's some women,
00:29:12.500 they have a real talent for working with young children. Okay. They can do it. The vast majority
00:29:16.900 of us can't do that because that's not how humans have evolved. Like women never did this. They 1.00
00:29:22.160 didn't see their kids that much. Even more recently in human history, my grandfather was a kid in
00:29:27.780 like the the 19 teens and 20s and he said his mother did not see them because they lived on a
00:29:33.980 farm so they would go run out they'd get their guns and they you know hunt food to have for
00:29:38.340 dinner they would go fishing literally she did not see them during the day she would ring the bell 0.61
00:29:43.220 and they would come home and so yeah for for women who feel like yeah i'd lose my mind i just
00:29:48.620 couldn't i couldn't be that perfect mom from 7 a.m to 11 p.m every day it's like yeah no none of us
00:29:56.420 could and this is a totally insane expectation that has been put on you and is by the way
00:30:02.360 historically unprecedented yes thank you i'm very passionate i am very passionate about this
00:30:09.380 that would have really that would have really helped me i think uh before i had scarlet and
00:30:14.980 for the first year when i was like i can't i was like i can remember being like at home
00:30:19.420 all the time being like and it's different when kids are like really little like for the first
00:30:24.080 you know, three to six months, you're like, there's a child attached to you. But I can
00:30:28.680 remember being like, I don't think I can do this. Like, and then I was like, am I just a bad
00:30:34.140 person? Like, why is it that I'm like, I want to do stuff. I want to do work. Like what's wrong
00:30:40.960 with me kind of thing. And it wasn't until I mess it. I, I think I called my aunt cause I've
00:30:46.160 got an aunt and she had a nanny when her kids were little, not super little, but little. And
00:30:50.680 she's like a head nurse. So she was working all the time. And I called her and was like,
00:30:53.920 what do I do? And she was like, you'd like, you sound like you might need help. And her experience
00:31:00.520 was when she went back to work, it was hard, but she talked to her kids when they're older. And
00:31:05.260 like, my cousins are all, you know, doctors or something, something like that. And they were
00:31:09.500 like, yeah, we like, we didn't care. Like if you're happy, we're happy. Yeah. It's much better
00:31:14.260 than, you know, dampening down some part of you that wants to do things and being resent, like
00:31:20.320 god forbid becoming resentful or becoming resentful at your kids which would be even worse
00:31:25.640 so something to avoid oh yeah well i i went to so many play dates when my kids were young
00:31:32.080 which are they're always so awkward i mean that really emphasizes how much we don't have 0.99
00:31:37.260 community that it's like all these women who have nothing in common with each other and you're 0.92
00:31:41.640 trying to make conversation and and like they get it bad i've heard people sort of you know 0.63
00:31:46.180 be like well my like moms are uninteresting because play dates suck so much and i think
00:31:50.840 it's not that is that we have nothing in common yeah nothing in common and as i'm pretty introverted
00:31:56.240 and so honestly yeah oh yeah no oh i'm extreme hard no yeah yeah no no i am yeah i can get up
00:32:02.880 on a stage in front of people there's no way i'm not letting this go my love language is being left
00:32:09.320 alone in silent rooms maybe you're disagreeable but disagreeable but not yeah we're doing i'm
00:32:15.260 sending you my dad's personality test out okay i need to do there is no way really you're like
00:32:19.640 99th percentile extrovert you're like on the couch yelling an introvert would not do that
00:32:24.340 there's no way introverts are very we're very passionate about all these thoughts that we have 0.97
00:32:29.700 up in our heads no oh but well this is an example disagreeable to me it seems extroverted women 0.79
00:32:36.400 would like things like play dates that's agreeable women oh yeah okay okay then that's 0.93
00:32:42.180 i am that's what disagreeable sounds right yeah disagreeable i've got that like feisty scottish
00:32:47.000 ancestry like that yeah that's why you're like funny too because i think generally speaking
00:32:52.220 comedians in order to make fun of things you have to be kind of disagreeable yeah okay i like that
00:32:56.880 i'm adopting that okay send me your dad's personality i'll do that that's funny yeah
00:33:00.860 because the people who are like they can just easily have a conversation just enjoy kind of
00:33:06.440 those social interactions you would think that that's extroversion but a lot of that's agreeableness
00:33:11.480 just being like okay with things instead of just being like you this is like this is boring this
00:33:17.000 is extroverted and find things boring that is a paradigm shift that's a real paradigm shift for
00:33:24.880 me that does that's how i feel yeah it's like i'm just i'm like well i can't be in this situation
00:33:29.580 because i don't like how it's being run i don't like what those people are saying you know like
00:33:33.680 yeah but but if i'm running it then i can make it the type of event that i want you know oh i like
00:33:40.620 that. So, okay. Yeah. So at these play dates, I would hear a lot of women say, I mean, very common
00:33:46.520 in fact, that they would, they didn't mean to, they didn't mean to come across the way they did,
00:33:51.740 but they would say that, you know, they'd say, well, yeah, I, I used to love my life. I used to
00:33:57.660 have an exciting life, but you know, then Bobby here came along. So now I'm just being a good mom
00:34:03.980 and they would say it in front of their kids. And this would start happening when the kids were
00:34:08.640 five and six and seven years old. And, and then I saw someone say it in front of their adult child.
00:34:14.300 And it's interesting. I mean, this, this person really struggled with depression and just had a
00:34:20.180 lot of issues. And I wondered if this contributed that his mother would say in front of him all the
00:34:24.960 time, she'd say, well, I, yes, I had dreams of being an artist, but you know, well then being
00:34:31.000 a mom, I mean that, you know, he came along and, and I just thought having observed that, I thought
00:34:37.360 I'm not going to do that. And maybe I will err too far on the opposite direction. I mean,
00:34:43.180 some, I will be honest. Sometimes I worry, do I travel too much? Am I, you know, when I,
00:34:47.240 when let's say one of my teens is having an issue, I'm like, I shouldn't have done the tour.
00:34:52.060 If I had been home, they wouldn't be having this issue. So I'm not saying that I am executing it
00:34:56.980 perfectly, but I did make a commitment to myself early on. My kids will never hear me say that I
00:35:03.760 didn't enjoy my life because of them. I bring them with me into the things that I do. I mean,
00:35:09.720 I tell them financials, I'm like, Hey, I lost money on this one event. What do you think I
00:35:12.880 should do? I mean, I bring them into everything. Cause I, cause I just said early on, I said,
00:35:18.900 my kids will never hear me say that I didn't live my best life. And it was because of them. I'm
00:35:24.860 going to go live my best life and I'll, I will bring them into it with me and we'll live our
00:35:28.960 best lives as a family but that i was in i was like you before i had i actually said i didn't
00:35:35.020 want to have kids because i had that mentality yeah yeah i know isn't that funny i mean i if
00:35:40.280 you had known me up to my mid-20s i was like i'm never having kids i'm never having kids i don't
00:35:44.880 have the right temperament i can't i can't do literally yeah yeah yeah we should do that we
00:35:48.960 should do that after changing my life yeah i think that's like a big difference between
00:35:53.520 the women who are like okay with like you said being at home all the time and doing like glitter
00:36:00.100 crafts and things it's like i i like i die with those kind of things like a piece of me oh no my
00:36:05.300 brain like it physically i feel like physical pain in my brain when i try to do and and i admire a
00:36:13.040 lot of my friends can do that i admire them i'm not being dismissive of doing glitter crafts i
00:36:17.500 wonder if it's agreeableness yeah like are you think they're more agreeable the people who like
00:36:21.600 doing that because if i think about people who are like no i want to do that this is what i want
00:36:25.480 to do i want to go like do tea tea parties and like this is what i want to do and i'm like
00:36:30.280 i think i can't think of a single exception you're right everyone i know who's really
00:36:35.860 skilled at domestic anything especially things like crafting and activities yeah they all
00:36:42.660 you're right they all have that agreeable that is an such an interesting dichotomy that is more
00:36:48.560 typical with women. Like if you look at the average, right, women are more agreeable than 0.99
00:36:52.120 men, but then you have outliers, right? Yeah. Disagreeable women or something or agreeable 0.97
00:36:58.540 men. It happens, but on average. And that resonates. My husband has said too, he's like,
00:37:05.080 I mean, he's very complimentary. He's very supportive of me, but he's like, wow,
00:37:08.340 a lot of opinions coming from this area of the house all the time, you know, just like I'm
00:37:14.420 constantly talking smack about that which is very you know disagreeable yeah yeah he's like can you
00:37:21.900 go five minutes without talking smack like at one point i was really really sick i mean so worried
00:37:26.980 that he was about to take me to the hospital but i'm still sitting there talking about like the 0.97
00:37:31.760 temperature in the house is wrong and i don't like this jacket and this blanket stupid and he's like 0.98
00:37:36.100 do you ever stop i mean like you probably your last words are going to be talking smack about 0.97
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00:39:12.080 code tmpp enjoy the rest of the episode okay i saw another thing on your instagram story you
00:39:19.700 said when you first started doing the tours because you didn't have an agent you were booking
00:39:23.520 all these yourself yeah and i think you underplayed how difficult that is because when dad first
00:39:28.300 started touring he was just so this is when scarlet was six months old and i just started
00:39:31.680 working for my dad i didn't realize you had a little one at that time yeah yeah and so i was
00:39:36.780 at home he's like i was like he needs some help because my mom was doing all his booking or his
00:39:41.520 scheduling yeah and she was totally overwhelmed and they had to just kind of decide like who he
00:39:47.500 would talk to yeah and i was like some of these you know if he's gonna spend an hour talking to
00:39:52.480 someone he should talk to someone who has more of a youtube following than someone who has 10
00:39:56.180 followers right it's like so i started being like okay i'll just do that so because i can see who
00:40:00.840 he should talk to and then he he just like piled on the work because there was so much of it and
00:40:05.220 part of it was oh i made a list of like he had 30 venues and he's like i've emailed them all so
00:40:12.880 he'd emailed them all and he's like can you just follow up and book them and i called i called the
00:40:17.840 orpheum in la the orpheum in la and i was like hey like i'm just looking to book a show for my dad
00:40:26.380 and they're like i'm dying who's your promoter did you say what's the promoter yeah i didn't
00:40:32.740 know either i was like i we don't have a promoter i'm sorry i don't know i was like like i'm full
00:40:37.680 i just said like i don't know what a promoter is yeah i was is that someone who puts flyers up
00:40:41.500 or something like they put them on the walls and this is what's a promoter yeah and then the other
00:40:45.880 person she's just like like you're just here just like they probably have literally nobody calls
00:40:51.660 the orpheum and is like can i just uh pay my dad's anyway it gets it gets better so i was like no so
00:40:57.480 then i was mad about it because i was getting she's just talking down and i was like you don't
00:41:01.320 understand like i think he could he could sell a show like who is this person like who are you
00:41:06.960 like yeah and so then she sent me over a list and it was like i think it was 30k to book the orpheum
00:41:12.940 yeah and it was like you have to book all a bunch of these parking spots and pay for ushers and
00:41:17.240 things and i was like do you have to get insurance i didn't know about that to get insurance for
00:41:21.900 each of the venues yeah i can remember being like well do we we don't need all these parking spots
00:41:25.980 and we don't need that much security and they're like no it comes with the show and i was just
00:41:30.840 like okay anyway we met we managed to do it and he sold out the orpheum but that was
00:41:36.440 that was that so satisfying too that like they it's hard to sell out events even even for big
00:41:42.380 names and venues that big was that a satisfying moment where you're like oh i told you so yeah
00:41:47.160 they were they were surprised but it was great yeah and they're like who's your dad and i was
00:41:50.920 like oh he's a professor and they're like a professor we don't have a lot of professors
00:41:54.020 coming through here wow yeah what's your rider i was like yeah what's a rider i literally had
00:42:00.160 to google what is a rider okay and and we tried to play it cool like yes uh my people have my
00:42:06.220 rider uh i will get back to you like what is a right i copied and pasted a rider template that
00:42:12.980 i found on the internet that had in it had all these lighting requirements in it and it's like
00:42:17.000 we need the xyz gel filter and then i get there and it was for a broadway show and i'm like what
00:42:23.120 is going on with these light it was like you know like i'm gonna be a little orphan annie like doing
00:42:28.080 i was like okay so none of this is going to work and they're like but it's in your
00:42:32.480 rider i'm like yeah so tear that up and just give me a spotlight copy and pasted obviously
00:42:37.580 yeah yeah right and and then with the insurance i had to sign something you probably did too
00:42:42.760 because so i didn't know i had to get event insurance and i had to sign stuff that said like
00:42:47.320 there will be no flame throwing at my event initial here there will be no tractor pulls
00:42:52.220 put my initial there will be no mechanical bull riding oh nice and then i was like but you're
00:42:56.540 like maybe they're not yeah i mean actually i'm not sure if i can commit to that it just gave me
00:43:01.360 a bunch of ideas like it sounds like a lot of fun to do tractor pulls drag racing mechanical bull
00:43:06.960 riding and flame throwing i think that would be an incredible your dad might want to consider it
00:43:10.880 with this tour he's doing the bull for sure yeah yeah yeah yeah we could do that i'm opening yeah
00:43:15.760 i could just leave it there i'm doing the opening yeah yeah and well and or maybe it could be like
00:43:21.240 a um a darwinian like only the fittest fans get into this event like you have to last eight
00:43:26.920 seconds on the mechanical bull in order to get in even if you've already paid like we just want
00:43:32.340 to make sure that we have the heartiest fans in attendance he's pretty busy too i could pull that
00:43:37.200 off probably without anybody noticing for like a number of shows yeah if you're like wait what is
00:43:43.460 where is everyone yeah yeah right told them they had to write yeah and then people are coming in
00:43:47.420 with like bandages and eye patches on i think it's a vision it gives me good good ideas yeah
00:43:52.940 yeah uh anyway i got started on that that tangent because you said at the beginning before you were
00:43:58.940 more set up or had an agent or anything you had your kids coming to help you with shows
00:44:03.220 yes and uh because i could share a hotel room with my kids and so just getting a plane ticket
00:44:10.240 for some of the kids and we homeschooled at the time so i was homeschooling in addition to
00:44:14.640 booking this this big tour but that did help because i was doing weeknight shows the kids
00:44:19.900 could come with me. I couldn't afford to take all six. And so we, we laid out the tour schedule
00:44:24.800 and I let them choose in groups of twos, which ones they would go to. And, uh, fun. Yeah, I know.
00:44:31.300 I know. And we're doing it, I think with the next tour too. Uh, I think there, I think we'll do the
00:44:35.740 same thing. I'll take them out of school, which I'm sure the schools will really appreciate, but,
00:44:39.500 uh, but yeah, it, it, it was, it was really cool. And what's funny is that it never occurred
00:44:45.200 to the theaters that i was not traveling with staff and so i had a couple incidents where like
00:44:51.200 the sound guys or the light guys would say something they'd be like yeah i heard the
00:44:55.360 the manager said that the uh this headliner is you know she can get a little testy sometimes
00:45:00.120 like with a theater we'd had a lot of issues with and i was like oh that's me actually because they
00:45:04.240 saw me showing up to do light check they had no idea i was the headliner but then they'd say okay
00:45:09.240 like well where's your staff we need your we need your tour manager to kind of talk to the ushers
00:45:13.680 And I would just bring out my 12 year old daughter and, and we'd have homeschool stuff.
00:45:18.820 Like, um, I actually had, they got a good education, but I, I literally, I gave them
00:45:24.640 a homeschool project.
00:45:25.560 I had them watch a video of my set and make notes.
00:45:29.320 And you know, what's interesting is they gave me great feedback because if you have ever
00:45:34.580 tried to make your own tween and teen children laugh, especially the mom, like no tween and
00:45:40.820 teen kids ever think their mom is funny.
00:45:42.860 so when they would say this section is actually this is actually really good we think it's really
00:45:47.060 funny sure enough that would kill in the clubs because if you can if you can make your kids laugh
00:45:52.320 you can make anyone laugh so um so yeah so they were actually a really critical part of the tour
00:45:58.260 so much so um it would have been very hard to do it without them wow yeah because i wasn't making
00:46:04.480 quite enough money that i could like hire staff members you know i need i needed everything to
00:46:09.160 go back in my pocket that I made from ticket sales. Wow. Huh. So why do you think you had
00:46:17.080 like the self-confidence, I guess, to book shows and assume that you'd sell out? Like,
00:46:24.220 is that a personality thing? Is that how you were raised or something you learned?
00:46:27.420 So it's not how I was raised. Both of my parents were very, very risk averse people. Like you,
00:46:34.540 you get your nine to five and you, you know, you're respectful of the boss man to try to keep
00:46:39.920 your boss and to try to keep your job. So no, I come from very, very risk averse. That's interesting.
00:46:45.880 Yeah. Um, so I, I think that, um, it, it might be part of, I I've often thought I probably have
00:46:52.700 undiagnosed, uh, ADHD because I am, um, I'm a very like thrill seeking person. I need life to
00:47:00.340 be interesting. And actually one way. So one way in which my dad was not risk averse is he was a
00:47:06.800 green beret, uh, during the Vietnam era and he did halo and demolitions training. So he taught
00:47:12.940 people how to blow things up and how to jump out of airplanes at night, um, at high altitudes. 0.98
00:47:20.440 Cause that's how they would evade radar that the Viet Cong or whoever they were trying to avoid 0.85
00:47:26.080 would not guess that they were dropping parachute people
00:47:28.960 because they were way, way high up.
00:47:30.940 And it would always be at night so that you wouldn't be seen.
00:47:34.220 And that was my dad's specialty.
00:47:36.120 And so I've often thought that maybe I did get that gene for...
00:47:40.760 This is my version of jumping out of airplanes at night
00:47:44.020 is putting an entire theater tour on my credit card
00:47:47.040 and hoping it works out.
00:47:48.420 That's kind of the same thing.
00:47:50.300 So I guess maybe I did have that little element of thrill-seeking from my dad.
00:47:54.440 But, you know, I am one of those people.
00:47:56.560 I just I don't know if this is a good trait or a bad trait, but I cannot have life be boring.
00:48:02.760 Like I will not be bored.
00:48:04.980 And so I'm constantly kind of escalating and doing crazy things.
00:48:10.020 And my husband is the same way.
00:48:11.680 We're a good match in that sense.
00:48:14.080 He is also he just can't be bored.
00:48:17.340 He likes to try different things.
00:48:19.060 And so we were kind of a bad influence on each other in any crazy idea I have ever had.
00:48:26.160 He's always like, yeah, yeah, you should do it.
00:48:28.500 Yeah, absolutely.
00:48:29.540 Yeah, go for it.
00:48:30.620 And so, yeah, if I had a different spouse that it might have played out differently, but he is also likes to keep life interesting.
00:48:39.860 So he's been along for the ride for all of this.
00:48:43.840 That's so fun.
00:48:44.980 It really is. And that's part of my mission. I have this bigger mission with comedy and with everything I do. When I think back to the person I was when I thought I didn't want to have kids, it was all based on this misunderstanding. It was based on this false idea that you have to be boring, especially as a woman.
00:49:06.380 if you're going to be the ones having the kids and doing it right, then you had just better get
00:49:11.340 ready to be boring for like two decades out of your life. And I can't sign up for that. I don't
00:49:17.360 like, I'll die. I mean that my, my brain will melt. I just, maybe this is even a bad thing. 0.90
00:49:22.340 Maybe it's something I need to go to therapy for, but it is what it is. I can't have a boring life.
00:49:27.060 And I almost missed out on this incredible life. Like I'm so grateful for my kids, for my family.
00:49:35.920 I love my life so much.
00:49:38.900 I can't even put it into words and to think that I almost missed out on it based on the
00:49:44.820 misunderstanding that you have to be boring.
00:49:47.340 If you're a mother, I swear my life's work.
00:49:50.260 Like if I convince one person that you can be interesting and you can have kids, even
00:49:56.000 a lot of kids, if that's the right path for you, then I will feel like everything I have
00:50:02.140 done is worth it.
00:50:03.740 every sacrifice, every rejection, every difficult thing I've gone through in my career,
00:50:08.320 it is worth it. If I put forth into the world, a new model of what motherhood can look like.
00:50:18.600 And when you use that as the trailer for the episode, nice, that was really good. Nice. Yeah.
00:50:23.740 I really, I really appreciate that. I really appreciate that. That's very cool. I really
00:50:29.400 feel like that's, if there's like, you know, all these motivational people, they always say,
00:50:32.940 find your why. What is your why? I'm crystal clear on my why it's, it's bigger than comedy
00:50:38.100 itself. Yeah. I want to do great comedy. Of course I want to be considered a top notch,
00:50:42.340 you know, hilarious comedian, but I'm not just here to make silly jokes. You know, like if you,
00:50:47.420 if you see my comedy and the, even the sketches I do on Instagram, they're not all silly. I have
00:50:54.500 a very serious streak and I'm not here to just, you know, make silly jokes about silly things.
00:51:01.120 I'm here to have an impact on the world.
00:51:04.180 I wouldn't be doing this if I did.
00:51:05.720 It's hard.
00:51:06.200 I mean, this, you know, booking tours, I mean, this work that we do, it's very hard.
00:51:09.780 It involves a lot of rejection.
00:51:11.260 It involves a lot of frustration.
00:51:12.900 It involves haters, you know, people in your DMs and in your comments saying nasty things.
00:51:17.440 I wouldn't do this if I didn't have a bigger mission.
00:51:20.700 And it's to put forth a different way of existing as a woman and as a mother.
00:51:28.140 That's fantastic.
00:51:29.020 Okay. I wanted to talk. That's great. That's exactly why I wanted to have you on. It's like,
00:51:33.880 I think that could be helpful for like a lot of people to hear. And I don't think just
00:51:37.340 women, I think it's helpful for men to hear too, because depending on how you were brought up,
00:51:42.440 then you view what parenthood should be like completely like differently. Right. Some people
00:51:47.020 are like, Oh no, my parents were at work all the time. Some parents were at home. Some people had
00:51:50.600 to stay at home moms. Some people didn't. So I think it's really good for everybody to hear that
00:51:54.880 you can do what you want and you can make it work. You don't have to do things a certain way.
00:51:59.020 as long as you're, as long as it feels right to you, right? Like obviously you don't neglect your
00:52:04.940 child, but being at home and doing glitter paint for six hours a day, isn't necessarily what makes
00:52:11.600 you a good mom. It could be whatever makes you the happiest. So you can not be resentful around
00:52:16.100 your kid. Right. And raise them properly so that they don't have a resentful parent. Cause like
00:52:20.960 you said, those are, you see that at restaurants sometimes too, when there's a kid and they're
00:52:24.060 like freaking out. I went out for dinner with my mom and my dad and Scarlett in the summer.
00:52:28.860 and there was a kid next to us who was four too, like, like Scarlett. And she wasn't being that
00:52:34.480 bad, but she was, she could tell that the bad she was being was because she wanted attention
00:52:38.760 and didn't have enough attention. So she was like kind of acting out and the mom was there and she
00:52:42.960 was just like, right. Like the whole time and ended up apologizing profusely for her kid and
00:52:49.920 things. And we were just like, Oh, yikes. That is not going to go anywhere nice in the next couple
00:52:55.980 years totally already somewhere not nice right yeah and it's it's really about that like connection
00:53:01.720 with your kids and the more you are bringing energy into your life by living a life of passion
00:53:09.700 you have more energy to share with your kids to connect with your kids to get to know your kids
00:53:14.580 so that you don't end up in situations like that where you kind of block them out because you're
00:53:19.820 so depressed and overwhelmed by your existence that you're just you don't have the energy to
00:53:24.300 sit down. You might be physically with your kids all day, every day, but you, you just don't have
00:53:28.640 the energy to like really connect with them. Yeah. And by the way, I, I do think this is an
00:53:34.040 important message for men too, because I know that for example, my dad, he, he passed away a
00:53:39.380 couple of years ago, but I saw him struggle his whole adult life because he did have that thrill
00:53:45.060 seeking tendency from being a green beret, but he very much felt like he had to stay in jobs he
00:53:51.540 hated because he was a father and he was so unhappy. And it, I've actually never spoken
00:53:59.460 about this publicly, but Hey, this is a good time to get this out there that I have been in therapy
00:54:04.320 about that. And I really struggled with feeling that I I'm an only child. Um, what's interesting.
00:54:11.760 My husband is an only child. We're both only children, but I, even though I'm an only child,
00:54:16.260 I, I grew up feeling like as much as my parents loved me and they loved me a ton.
00:54:22.720 I mean, like great, great, great parents, but I did have this sense that my dad's life
00:54:28.460 would have been more exciting to him if I hadn't been born.
00:54:32.520 And I was also, I was a surprise that my parents didn't intend to have kids.
00:54:36.340 And, um, I carried that with me my whole life.
00:54:40.200 This feeling that my dad, he always hated his jobs.
00:54:42.840 They were constantly, I mean, my, my association, my association with my father and work was
00:54:48.820 misery, stress, anxiety.
00:54:51.600 Um, I, I don't think I ever saw him happy in his work, but the met the narrative was
00:54:56.320 like, well, I'm a dad, so I don't, I don't get to like follow my dreams or do interesting
00:55:00.580 things.
00:55:01.200 I haven't even thought about, I haven't even thought that that would hit men too.
00:55:05.260 Oh yeah.
00:55:06.080 how many men are living existences they hate because they feel like i have to or it pays
00:55:14.880 slightly better you have to earn more money the hours are more stable yeah and they think the
00:55:19.900 right way to be a dad is to make sure that every kid has a car when they're 16 you can give them
00:55:25.420 a full ride to college they have brand name clothes and so many men you know they wake up
00:55:31.820 one day and they're 50 or they're 60 and they're like, well, there, there went my life, you know,
00:55:37.040 there went so many years out of my life. And like, I don't feel good about a lot of what I've done.
00:55:43.480 Like I've hated my job. I've been a wage slave. And so part of my message, even though I mostly
00:55:48.680 speak to women is when, when you have this kind of life where you see, where you say that we will
00:55:54.900 live an exciting life, like we're not going to be boring. You can partner with your family and
00:55:59.960 with your spouse and say, Hey, you know what? Let's actually not upgrade the house, even though
00:56:05.660 it would be great to have more room so that dad can quit this job. He hates, you know what? Let's
00:56:10.700 downgrade the house. Like let's, we'll have three kids in a bedroom, throw some bunk beds in there.
00:56:14.680 You know, I know all these big families, like four kids in a small room. That is nothing like
00:56:19.000 they're fine with that. Let's, let's downgrade. Like let's live a more free life so that dad can
00:56:24.560 start that business that he always dreamed about doing. And yes, it might be a financial disaster
00:56:29.900 but let's be with dad as he takes a shot on that. And so, so men are really in need of that message
00:56:39.000 of freedom as well. And, and I think I benefited from my husband's experience that he was raised
00:56:44.880 by a single mother. His father was just not part of his life. His mom, I mean, she hardly made any
00:56:50.180 money. They were so poor that there were times when she didn't know what, how she would get
00:56:55.240 dinner. I mean, they like no money poor. And, um, and so she wasn't able to pay for him to go to
00:57:03.180 college, but you know, he ended up going to Yale and having, you know, doing very, very well
00:57:07.800 academically. Um, but his mom couldn't help him with any of it. She was like, you're on your own
00:57:13.020 for college. You're on your own for buying clothes. You have to get a job. And, and it was
00:57:17.080 fine. And so my husband never walked in with that expectation that the only way to be a good parent
00:57:23.260 is to give your kids a high upper middle class life. Cause he was like, I didn't, my life was
00:57:28.460 great. And I mean, it was hard in a lot of ways, but he was like, I, my mom couldn't pay for
00:57:33.040 anything for me. And all that mattered to me as a kid is that I had her love and I had her support
00:57:39.280 and that I was her priority in life. And so, um, so, you know, and I, I try to support my husband
00:57:47.260 in that to not have him feel like he has to be stuck in, in jobs that he hates, um, just so that
00:57:53.420 we can live a certain lifestyle. I'm really glad we covered that. Maybe that's partly what's
00:57:59.260 contributing. That's gotta be. Cause I, like I know I grew up in a downtown Toronto. So people
00:58:04.500 are pretty liberal and nobody has kids still like the average age of kids. I don't know,
00:58:09.560 maybe 33 or 34 like it's much later and a lot of my friends who were guys were like
00:58:17.760 you know you get you you get married and have a kid your life's over right like literally
00:58:22.660 your life is over right right and when i had scarlet and was pregnant i can remember some
00:58:27.420 of my friends being like you do this your life is over yeah right yep and i'm like
00:58:31.500 that's terrifying what a horrible thought like i don't think you're right but that's really scary
00:58:39.680 so no i'm glad we we covered this because i'm sure men are worried about that too and i think
00:58:45.760 my dad's got a rule and it was in his first book i think which is don't let your kids do anything
00:58:50.420 that makes you hate them basically i remember that i read that and i was man that's that's
00:58:54.700 solid that's really good yeah and one of the most like insidious types i think of hate for kids is
00:59:00.220 when it's not as outward it's like oh well till this guy came along life was pretty good but i
00:59:06.740 love him that was that was my dad's like and he did like he was my biggest fan my biggest supporter
00:59:11.660 but there was this we constant sort of background static of but his life was more exciting before i
00:59:20.160 came along so it's not his life and tricky yeah when i came along i think that could also go badly
00:59:25.700 like if you're in a relationship that's not great you could also be like well it's not the kid's
00:59:31.060 fault it's this other person's fault right so then that could happen right so it's just better to try
00:59:35.940 and be aware of all those potential areas of resentment and whatever you do even if it feels
00:59:42.700 like it's i guess selfish then maybe it's something to try out so that you don't end up resentful
00:59:49.080 usually if it avoids resentment i don't think it's selfish right because being resentful makes
00:59:54.640 everyone miserable. Totally. Well, so this actually just crystallized for me in this moment
01:00:00.740 that I think a very important dynamic with this whole women finding freedom when they have kids
01:00:06.180 is this. It's funny you saying that just made me realize, I think a dynamic that can come up is
01:00:12.300 if your husband hates his job, but he is slogging it out every day so that you can stay home with
01:00:18.920 the kids, or even if you don't stay home, if just, you know, you're trying to do the right
01:00:22.580 thing as a mom, you feel all the more pressure because if your husband is out there, like he
01:00:27.260 hates what he's doing, he's not happy ever during the day. He's, you know, coming home just frazzled
01:00:33.380 and frustrated every single night. You, you feel guilty being like, well, who am I? I think
01:00:39.260 subconsciously almost you're like, I should be miserable. You know, I could, you know, get this
01:00:43.500 book deal. I could do this writing project while I'm staying home with the kids, but I'd better be
01:00:47.920 doing things that make me miserable, because how unfair would that be if I'm like following my
01:00:52.720 passions and living my best life while my husband is punching the clock in a job that he despises.
01:00:57.620 And I just now kind of remembered that this was something that my husband and I
01:01:01.640 had to go through when things were taking off for me with writing. And I was really in the zone and
01:01:06.260 and using that, you know, blue flame. He hated his job. And there was this unspoken tension of like,
01:01:13.140 okay, we need to even this out a little bit. I shouldn't have all the joy, you know? And so that
01:01:19.580 was when we started talking about doing the tour, finding better ways to monetize my career. I said,
01:01:26.300 look, I, it's going to take me a few months to monetize this to the point that you might be
01:01:30.440 able to scale back the amount of work that you're doing so that you can go, you know, he loves
01:01:35.040 sailing, you know, go explore that passion a little bit more. And it did. I mean, it took
01:01:38.980 about a year before I could shift things with my income so that I could monetize this work that I
01:01:44.960 was doing. But then it became this really beautiful thing where we were partnering together
01:01:49.940 financially where neither one of us had to live a life that we hated where each one of us could
01:01:56.320 wake up and say, wow, I'm really looking forward to this day. Like I have things I'm passionate
01:02:01.360 about. This is great. And, and it, again, it was a very intentional process and it took
01:02:06.080 a long time of us working together to figure out how to make that work for both of us. But
01:02:10.980 it is a really beautiful thing when you can hook that up.
01:02:15.900 Okay. Let's get into that a tiny bit. So it's like negotiating. I think if I'm correct,
01:02:22.480 we'll see what happens with your test. But if you are disagreeable, which I think you are.
01:02:25.700 Yeah. I want to do the test though. I think that makes, because I scored like a high on
01:02:31.280 compassion, agreeableness splits into, um, compassion and politeness. Okay. So I scored
01:02:36.480 like 88 on compassion and like zero on politeness, like, like rock bottom, but then it makes it
01:02:44.000 averages me to like, kind of like low average for agreeableness cause they combine. Um, but I think
01:02:49.880 being lower in politeness makes it easier to negotiate, uh, because you're less likely to be,
01:02:56.220 at least for me, I'm less likely to be concerned about not saying something because I'll hurt
01:03:01.600 somebody's feelings. Right. It'll be like, well, no, it actually, it's something we need to talk
01:03:06.540 about so that there'll be fewer feelings hurt in the future. Right. Even if it's kind of
01:03:10.500 uncomfortable at the moment, that's such a good skill. And I probably don't get that uncomfortable.
01:03:14.220 So that also helps with negotiating because this isn't that bad. That's a great skill. I'm not as
01:03:19.920 good at that. I am, I guess, with people I know, but that, that is hard for me. Um, with my,
01:03:26.060 you know, what helped with the conversations I had with my husband is that we started with the
01:03:32.000 goal. We started by saying, let's dream of a life where we are both doing things that we're
01:03:38.360 passionate about. We, we both have elements of, you know, we, we just love what we're into and
01:03:44.080 we can somehow pay the bills. Let's start with that vision in mind. So it felt very collaborative
01:03:50.300 that we were heading out on this crazy venture together. And that definitely helped those
01:03:55.500 conversations have just have a little bit more smoothness to them that it wasn't, it wasn't
01:04:03.060 me versus him. It wasn't us versus them. It was how can we both sacrifice and work towards this
01:04:09.840 vision. And that helped a lot. That's a good idea. Okay. So a few more questions. I think
01:04:15.500 another kid question, how are you teaching them to be like, you think you going on teacher on
01:04:21.460 tour helps them become more self-confident? Like there, are they concerned about, are they
01:04:26.660 confident children, especially with homeschooling? Do you think they'd be concerned with performing
01:04:31.220 in front of other people? Oh, that's an interesting question. Um, actually, wait,
01:04:35.400 let me say what, I just remembered something I meant to say on the previous subject that I think
01:04:38.660 is really important for women who are interested in that. The key thing that made that work with
01:04:43.220 me and my husband is I had to let go of imposter syndrome. Um, when women start to develop their 1.00
01:04:50.380 passions, like figure out what, what might I like to do while I'm raising these kids,
01:04:55.040 there is a tendency to have imposter syndrome where you don't take it seriously. You know,
01:04:59.560 maybe you're doing writing, but you won't call yourself a writer in order to have these
01:05:03.580 conversations with my husband where it's like, okay, how can we have you work less? How can I
01:05:08.920 help you with that? Well, I had to start to take myself seriously in my work and say, you know
01:05:13.220 what? I'm, I'm okay at this. I'm pretty good at this. I might be able to make money. And so a key
01:05:19.400 element for women who are listening to us and thinking about this, you've got to let go of
01:05:23.580 imposter syndrome and own your gifts and own your talents and be willing to go for it because then
01:05:29.980 that can help you monetize whatever your passion is, which matters if you're, if you need to
01:05:35.540 support a husband who is like trying to quit a job he hates. So that letting go of imposter
01:05:40.220 syndrome is, is really important. Um, so for my kids, I think they are very confident. Yes.
01:05:47.060 They all seem, I mean, these kids are not that susceptible to peer pressure. I mean,
01:05:53.560 some of the stuff like they just they just don't they don't seem to care that much what their what
01:06:00.560 their peers I mean they're they're I mean they have friends I don't mean to say they don't they
01:06:05.420 don't care about their peers at all but they do seem to be very confident now I don't know how
01:06:10.460 they would feel about speaking on a stage but they have certainly grown up in a house where
01:06:18.020 it is normalized to bet on yourself that they have, they've seen, they've seen no contrary
01:06:25.700 examples to that. It is a bet on yourself household. And so they don't know anything
01:06:31.360 different than that. And, and four of my six kids are girls. Uh, I have four daughters. And so I
01:06:37.660 love it that they're growing up, um, in a culture of freedom to be yourself and encouragement to
01:06:45.360 believe in yourself and to bet on yourself. Yeah, actually. And I think that's one of the
01:06:50.260 other reasons for women and men for that matter, but to pursue what they want, because it would
01:06:56.660 teach your kid that they have the ability to pursue what they want, which is what you're
01:07:01.080 trying to teach them anyway. So if they grow up in a household and they see one of their parents
01:07:05.580 stifled by something and miserable, then they're just going to learn the wrong thing about what
01:07:09.900 they're capable of. Right. So that's, that's actually a less, you know, selfish reason to
01:07:14.320 go pursue something would be to teach your kids that they can when you discover who you really are
01:07:20.060 as a parent and you go for it and you be that person unapologetically even if you know what
01:07:26.720 if you're glitter craft woman and you're like michaela jen i'm glitter craft woman i we do
01:07:31.460 glitter crafts five hours a day every day and i love it and like screw anyone who doesn't like
01:07:36.980 this whatever whoever it is you are when you discover that and you go for it you are implicitly
01:07:42.980 giving your children permission to be whoever they are yeah you have normalized being your authentic
01:07:49.420 self in your house and i think that that is a real gift for kids that's great yeah i like that a lot
01:07:58.660 i had one more comment what was the topic you were you came back to it oh i said that uh letting go
01:08:05.400 of imposter syndrome okay yeah that's what yeah oh i wanted to address that and then it completely
01:08:09.540 left my head i think i've had i think everybody who gets into something new has that issue
01:08:14.960 i'm surprised you have that you you come across as very confident i well i am confident but
01:08:20.900 so i don't know if it's not a confident problem i think it's just underplay undervaluing maybe
01:08:27.160 some of what i do and part of it's from having dad get as famous as he's gotten yeah but i have
01:08:34.280 this to be hard well i've gotten like i've had actual hard things happen so it's not that hard
01:08:39.920 but uh not compared to like hard and painful things right i'm like uh yeah it's not that hard
01:08:45.100 but um i have noticed like some of the no i just i'll figure it out eventually i think i have had
01:08:50.960 that problem though i don't know if it's from being like female or from my dad or being a mom
01:08:57.820 i'm not sure yeah something to think about though i had that problem with the i told you i'm doing
01:09:03.020 a show at zany's tomorrow yes yeah and i was like oh cool like i have a show but i have like i've
01:09:09.460 been doing so much work for my dad with his brand that it was like i didn't put ticket like i didn't
01:09:14.120 advertise it for like a long time like it was on sale and my like agent is messaging me is like
01:09:20.660 can you tell people and i was like oh yeah yeah okay yeah it's like i don't know a self-sabotage
01:09:27.460 or something? No, it's just, well, that's the thing is there is no tidy way to live an interesting
01:09:35.560 life. Interesting lives are messy by definition. And I think sometimes we, we resist living an
01:09:42.420 interesting life because we're afraid of mess, but that's how it is. Like when your father has
01:09:47.100 this super interesting career, yeah, like, of course you want to be part of that. Who wouldn't?
01:09:51.020 That's amazing. And, um, and you're a mom and you've got stuff going on with your daughter and
01:09:56.860 you've got your own podcast you've got your own media empire going things are going to slip it's
01:10:02.300 messy yeah you know i mean with my own tour yeah i've had like i'm about to go out on tour very
01:10:07.620 soon and um i've had things slip and i beat myself up about it but you have to keep coming back to
01:10:14.160 um an interesting life is is always a messy life you know if maybe you would have been perfectly
01:10:22.040 on top of ticket sales if you weren't doing all this stuff with your dad but like who wants that
01:10:25.900 yeah yeah exactly yeah okay jen if people don't follow you online where should they go and is
01:10:33.260 there a place they can go to buy tickets yes jf comedy tour.com you're welcome for not making
01:10:39.440 anyone spell full weiler i just did jf comedy tour.com uh yeah i'm going to let me see if i
01:10:45.860 can get the cities off the top of my head to pika dallas san antonio boston new york city some oh dc
01:10:52.920 uh, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando and Atlanta to start. We will add cities after that
01:10:57.680 JF comedy tour.com. And this is my first big theater tour with my new fancy agents and my
01:11:03.820 new fancy managers. So not, not just cold calling theaters with a credit card anymore. So we're all
01:11:09.180 the Petersons and the full waters. We're all taking it to the next level. And, um, yeah,
01:11:14.680 I always try to make my show something you can bring anyone like my comedy is good,
01:11:19.400 But I keep it clean enough that you're not your neighbor is not going to be horrified by anything I say.
01:11:24.240 I'm not doing politics and stuff like that because women need community.
01:11:28.240 And I want my shows to be something where everyone feels welcome so that we can start building community by having a chance to just get dressed up, have a night out, have a dinner.
01:11:38.340 So I really encourage people to come out, even if they're just discovering me for the first time.
01:11:43.400 Thank you very much for coming on.
01:11:44.960 That was great.
01:11:45.520 What a joy.
01:11:45.960 This is amazing.