Parenting is a Joke

Lizzie and Wendy Molyneux, the sister writing team behind Bob's Burgers and The Great North, join Ophira to compare growing up in a large family with raising seven kids of their own while balancing television writing, showrunning, and creative work. They swap stories about "feral" childhoods that somehow still included dinner together, debate what actually counts as being a strict parent, and expl...

Best -selling author and podcaster Jo Piazza joins Ophira Eisenberg for a sharp, funny conversation about raising three kids while writing bestselling thrillers, hosting a hit podcast, and investigating the increasingly bizarre world of mom influencers. Piazza explains how her novel Everyone Is Lying to You grew out of years spent reporting on influencer culture, from attending lavish creator conf...

In this second conversation between our host Ophira Eisenberg and writer, performer, and donor dad comedian and writer Mike Albo, the focus shifts from how his unconventional family was created to how it has evolved over the last twelve years. Albo reflects on the surprising way a child instantly turned a collection of unrelated adults into a family unit, from annual birthday parties elaborate eno...

Writer, comedian, actor Mike Albo joins host Ophira Eisenberg on Parenting is a Joke for a conversation about becoming a sperm donor for two close friends and finding himself in a version of parenthood he never expected. Albo traces the decision back to a deeper question—whether, as a gay man who came of age during the AIDS crisis, he believed he deserved the kind of full family life that once fel...

Jenny Hagel returns to Parenting Is a Joke to talk about the strange moral gray zones of raising decent kids while also living in the real world, from teaching a 12-year-old when swearing is funny versus when it turns aggressive, to bribing a five-year-old with 23 M&Ms to say “gracias” in Puerto Rico. Jenny explains how growing up in a strict etiquette-focused household shaped the way she now pare...

Jenny Hagel joins Ophira Eisenberg to talk about parenting through big feelings, awkward questions, creative careers, and the strange emotional math of raising boys while working in comedy. Jenny shares how her now-12-year-old son transformed from a tiny Brooklyn tornado she once carried out of donut shops “like a sack of potatoes” into a “fun, chill roommate,” and explains how one preschool meltd...

When comedian and writer Megan Gailey joins Parenting Is a Joke, she and Ophira compare notes on raising kids while working as touring stand-ups, including the strange reality that dad comics are always available for podcasts while moms are constantly juggling childcare. Megan talks about performing stand-up deep into her pregnancy and loving the instant tension her giant belly created onstage, es...

In this episode of Parenting Is a Joke, Ophira Eisenberg talks with Christine Walters—comedian, former TV development executive, and creator of Three Day Champion—about building a creative life that moves between producing, performing, and parenting a now 17-year-old son on the brink of college, while still feeling the daily pull of waiting up for him at night and resisting the urge to track his e...

In this episode of Parenting Is a Joke, Ophira Eisenberg opens with a very real parenting milestone—her 10-year-old son requesting “the talk”, leading to a blunt, anatomy-first explanation that immediately kills the mystique of sex. That mix of parenting improvisation and comic timing carries into her conversation with Christine Walters, a comedian, writer, and former development executive whose c...

On this episode of Parenting Is a Joke, Corey Ryan Forrester talks about recalibrating a 22-year stand-up career around raising his almost three-year-old son, after years of touring 45 weeks a year led to panic attacks, canceled shows, and a long-overdue start in therapy before becoming a parent. He explains how COVID-era podcasting, Substack writing, and an unexpected book deal from HarperCollins...

On this episode of Parenting Is a Joke, Ophira Eisenberg talks with comedian and podcaster Corey Ryan Forrester about raising a three-year-old in Chickamauga, Georgia while maintaining a demanding creative life built on touring, writing, and multiple podcasts. Corey explains how compressing four podcast recordings into a single day is the only way he can fully celebrate his son's birthday—complete...

In this follow-up Parenting Is a Joke episode, Ophira Eisenberg and comedian Ahri Findling zero in on the strange overlap between parenting, comedy, and creative identity, starting with Findling’s Instagram bits that splice mundane parenting tasks—like folding laundry—with explosive movie quotes that suddenly feel accurate once you have kids. Their conversation moves through watching childhood fil...

Ophira Eisenberg opens this Parenting Is a Joke episode with a vivid, slightly unhinged comparison between riding Hagrid’s Motorbike Adventure at Universal and the physical intensity of having her membranes stripped hours before going into labor, setting the tone for a conversation with comedian Ahri Findling that toggles between bodily reality, parenting anxiety, and the strange logic of creative...

This episode of Parenting Is a Joke revisits Ophira Eisenberg’s conversation with comedian Laurie Kilmartin who recently wrote for the Academy Awards. They talk about  the realities of parenting a teenage son, sustaining a comedy career, and processing grief in real time. Kilmartin talks about raising her 16-year-old largely on her own while maintaining a relentless stand-up schedule—flying red-ey...

In this episode of Parenting Is a Joke, Ophira Eisenberg revisits a favorite conversation with actor and comedian Ashley Austin Morris recorded while Morris was four months pregnant and still adjusting to the surreal reality of becoming a parent after never planning to be one. The two comics swap very specific pregnancy experiences from the perspective of performers who work nights, including the...

On this episode of Parenting Is a Joke, Ophira Eisenberg talks with author and humor writer Johanna Gohmann about her new book, All Toddlers Are Scorpios, an astrological guide that reframes toddler behavior—revenge plotting, emotional volatility, public nudity-adjacent costume choices—as pure Scorpio energy. Johanna shares how the idea struck while she was standing in the humor section at Barnes...

On this episode of Parenting Is a Joke, Ophira Eisenberg sits down with humor writer Johanna Gohmann to talk about raising a teenage son while building a comedy writing career that includes pieces in The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, and The Wall Street Journal—and the release of her new parenting book, All Toddlers Are Scorpios (out April 7). Gohmann, a self-described astrology skeptic, explains how s...

On this episode of Parenting Is a Joke, writer and podcaster Gideon Evans joins Ophira Eisenberg to talk about raising subway-riding kids in New York while building a creative life that has required real-time pivots from television to podcasting. He explains the surprisingly durable concept behind his history podcast Bad Elizabeth—born out of a pilot recorded with a former Daily Show colleague and...

On this episode of Parenting Is a Joke, Ophira Eisenberg talks with writer and producer Gideon Evans about raising two teenagers while building a career in comedy that’s ricocheted from scrappy theater internships to six years at The Daily Show. Gideon shares the surreal early days of hustling in Manhattan—once driving Frank Langella around in his parents’ station wagon to pick up a giant painted...

On this episode of Parenting Is a Joke, Ophira Eisenberg continues her conversation with Annabelle Gurwitch, focusing on community, money, anxiety, and what parenting looks like when your child is grown and the ground keeps shifting. Gurwitch talks about creating stability through “Stammtisch”–style standing lunches and Sunday meetups, describing how scheduled friendships became a lifeline after C...

On this episode of Parenting Is a Joke, Ophira Eisenberg talks with writer, performer, and memoirist Annabelle Gurwitch about parenting an adult child while still actively shaping a creative life that refuses to behave. Gurwitch reflects on writing The End of My Life Is Killing Me while navigating stage-four lung cancer treatment, explaining why she frames the book as a “second life” rather than a...

In this second conversation with Jon Fisch, Ophira Eisenberg and Jon settle into the daily mechanics of parenting two young kids while maintaining a working stand-up career, from navigating December birthdays, redshirting anxiety, and Malcolm Gladwell math, to the quiet shock of realizing your kid suddenly wants to walk to school alone. Fisch talks through the practical negotiations of comedy life...

In this episode of Parenting Is a Joke, Ophira Eisenberg sits down with longtime friend and comedian Jon Fisch to talk about becoming the parent he always knew he wanted to be—just not in the order he expected—starting with the moment he learned his girlfriend was pregnant while sitting across from his mother at a Cheesecake Factory in the Natick Mall. They trade stories about raising young kids d...

In this episode, Ophira Eisenberg reconnects with author, dad, and tattoo artist Phuc Tran for a conversation that zigzags from Star Wars as a childhood lifeline to parenting philosophies shaped by motorcycles, rotary phones, and letting kids touch the metaphorical hot pipe. Tran talks about growing up Vietnamese in a town where missing one TV network meant missing cultural shorthand, and how Star...

Ophira Eisenberg sits down with author, tattoo artist, and Maine-based dad Phuc Tran for a wide-ranging, grounded conversation that moves from frantic school drop-offs and topping off windshield wiper fluid before a storm to the deeper anxieties of becoming a parent after trauma, bullying, and immigration. Tran talks candidly about growing up as a Vietnamese refugee in small-town America, finding...