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Ophira Eisenberg

You know when you talk to your friends about your childhood and end it by saying, "But look at us, we're fine!" Here's my question: Are we fine? Because we're sitting here doused in CBD oil under a weighted blanket recording a podcast called Parenting is a Joke. Each week, host and standup Ophira Eisenberg talks to a different comedian about their career and their kids. Conversations tackle the tooth fairy, eating sticks, summer camp anxiety, the hidden horrors of childbirth, and the obvious horrors of our own childhoods. We celebrate the absurdity of shuffling a career with raising a kid, and highlight less traditional parenthood journeys, all while relishing in the fact that no one knows what they're doing, but we're all trying! Sometimes even our best. New episodes every Tuesday. New Season October 1st.

Parenting is a Joke

In this New Year’s episode of Parenting Is a Joke, Ophira Eisenberg talks with mystic, Reiki practitioner, and parent Jennifer Wai about raising kids while trusting intuition in a culture obsessed with rules, experts, and productivity. Jennifer explains what it actually means to be a mystic—describing herself as a human antenna fine-tuning static—and traces that sensitivity back to a childhood marked by literal thinking, bullying, and parents who didn’t quite know what to do with a kid who felt everything. They compare notes on parenting highly perceptive children, including how Jennifer’s early ability to anticipate her kids’ needs sometimes backfired by discouraging them from speaking up, and how her own children have been “socialized out” of mystical thinking, even as they casually tolerate card pulls and energy talk. The conversation moves easily from Reiki as “gentle jumper cables” for the nervous system to the emotional labor of rejecting people-pleasing while doing psychic readings, before landing on practical parenting ideas for the year ahead—like offering kids a “third option” instead of a hard no, or sitting through Fortnite matches just to stay connected. The episode closes on Jennifer’s big theme of grace—grace around self-care that looks like binge-watching, grace around messiness, and grace delivered with a laugh as Ophira admits she’s now calling “grace” her personal Pantone color.

📍January Shows are in Las Vegas, NV, Beacon, NY and New York, NY

Follow Jennifer Wai: https://www.instagram.com/thejenniferwai/

See Ophira LIVE: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/events/

SUBSCRIBE so you never miss O thing: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/sign-up

Follow PIAJ: 

https://www.instagram.com/parentingisajoke/

https://parentingisajoke.substack.com/

 

Follow Ophira:

https://www.instagram.com/ophirae/

https://www.facebook.com/OphiraEisenberg/

https://www.tiktok.com/@ophiranyc

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Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jennifer Wai Connects Reiki, Fortnite, and Staying Close to Your Kid

Comedian Carole Montgomery joins Parenting Is a Joke to talk with Ophira Eisenberg about raising a kid while building a stand-up career that never paused, even when everyone told her it should. Carole traces her path from starting comedy at 21 in male-dominated Brooklyn clubs to touring relentlessly as a new mom, pumping breast milk backstage and leaving her six-month-old with a six-foot-five tattooed bouncer who didn’t know how to remove a baby from a car seat. She reflects on the blunt warning from a manager who said pregnancy would ruin her career—followed almost immediately by a Showtime taping—and the practical choices that shaped her parenting, like stopping road trips only when her son needed his own airline seat. The conversation moves through her years hosting a topless revue in Vegas while serving as PTA vice president, her zero-nonsense style as team mom who swore at line-cutting kids, and the strange mix of guilt, stamina, and pride that comes from doing school drop-offs after midnight shows. Throughout, Carole and Ophira trade observations about creative work, class differences in parenting, and how kids remember presence more than perfection, circling back to the image of a tiny Lane being rocked by a nervous nightclub bouncer—an early sign he’d grow up completely at home backstage.

📍Remaining December Shows are in New York, NY

Follow Carole Montgomery: https://www.instagram.com/carolemontgomerycomic/

See Ophira LIVE: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/events/

SUBSCRIBE so you never miss O thing: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/sign-up

Follow PIAJ: 

https://www.instagram.com/parentingisajoke/

https://parentingisajoke.substack.com/

 

Follow Ophira:

https://www.instagram.com/ophirae/

https://www.facebook.com/OphiraEisenberg/

https://www.tiktok.com/@ophiranyc

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Carole Montgomery Raises A Kid In A Green Room

Comedian Mike Feeney joins Ophira Eisenberg in the thick of brand-new fatherhood, talking through life with his 15-month-old son Leo while juggling touring, illness roulette from daycare, and a self-imposed creative gauntlet that included shooting, directing, and editing a high-concept Comedy Cellar special when his baby was just ten weeks old. Feeney gets specific about the early months—the shock of sleep deprivation, the grim honesty of telling each other “we made a terrible mistake,” and the strange relief when sleep training worked so fast it felt suspicious, complete with his mom stepping in while he and his wife hid out at a nearby hotel. The conversation moves through IVF logistics, postpartum preeclampsia that sent his wife back to the hospital days after delivery, and the whiplash of supporting a partner’s health while hopping on the subway to make stage time. Feeney’s comic brain shines in granular parenting moments: the deep-crib back pain of sliding an arm out from under a sleeping baby, screen-recording bedtime attempts like wildlife footage, and the quiet dread of being turned away from daycare because of “a little gunk” that turned out to be pink eye. He reflects on how parenting has narrowed his creative window in a way that sharpened his writing, forced clearer priorities, and made him ruthless about which projects survive, all while admitting that FaceTiming from the road thrills Leo for ten minutes before it completely backfires. The episode lands on a perfectly lived-in note with Feeney describing that heart-stopping morning scream when his bedroom door opens and Leo charges in “like a bat out of hell,” a wake-up call that’s both terrifying and somehow the best part of the day.

📍Remaining December Shows are in New York, NY

Follow Mike Feeney: https://www.instagram.com/iammikefeeney/

See Ophira LIVE: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/events/

SUBSCRIBE so you never miss O thing: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/sign-up

Follow PIAJ: 

https://www.instagram.com/parentingisajoke/

https://parentingisajoke.substack.com/

 

Follow Ophira:

https://www.instagram.com/ophirae/

https://www.facebook.com/OphiraEisenberg/

https://www.tiktok.com/@ophiranycLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mike Feeney Shoots a Comedy Special on No Sleep

In this episode of Parenting Is a Joke, comedian Emily Walsh talks to Ophira Eisenberg about becoming a parent later in life and being labeled “advanced maternal age” by New York doctors while taking “nightly little baby aspirin” she was told “sometimes works” for reasons no one could explain. She describes meeting her tiny five-pound newborn who arrived a month early with “newborn fuzz” on her ears and back and a full head of hair that proved her pregnancy heartburn was accurate karma for marrying a very “hairy man.” Parenting for the first time at 40 means learning everything on the fly — sometimes quoting TikToks as if they were books — while hoarding three different “booger-sucking robots,” including a hospital-grade model she gleefully uses every morning. She shares postpartum rage (“Don’t kill your husband” turned out to be wise advice), frustration with breastfeeding (“barbaric,” she says), and the absurdity of pumping in Times Square between comedy sets because the manager can’t comprehend her need to schedule pumping. A broken ankle took away her baby-calming outdoor walks, she hasn’t made a “mom friend” yet, and her social circle is still figuring out she’s “not dead,” even as she continues podcasting, stand-up, and raising a baby who dressed as Jeff Goldblum from Jurassic Park with her bassinet converted into the Jeep and her husband in an inflatable T-Rex suit.

📍December Shows are in Boulder, CO, Westchester, NY, and good ol’ New York, NY

Follow Emily Walsh: https://www.instagram.com/thefunnywalsh/

See Ophira LIVE: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/events/

SUBSCRIBE so you never miss O thing: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/sign-up

Follow PIAJ: 

https://www.instagram.com/parentingisajoke/

https://parentingisajoke.substack.com/

 

Follow Ophira:

https://www.instagram.com/ophirae/

https://www.facebook.com/OphiraEisenberg/

https://www.tiktok.com/@ophiranyc

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Advancing the "Advanced Maternal Age” With Emily Walsh

In this episode, Ophira talks with comic and new mom and comedian Emily Walsh, who shares how she spent her twenties and thirties convinced she didn’t want kids, only to find herself writing an Edinburgh show about that exact ambivalence and then trying to conceive between gigs in Atlantic City. Emily describes entering stand-up at 30 after years painting sets for Blue Bloods—so many beige walls she started an Instagram called “Beige Bloods”—and navigating a scene of young men who only acknowledged her existence after she did well onstage. She and her husband weighed whether comedy’s unpredictable grind should dictate their future, eventually trying minor-science fertility help because their work schedules kept missing the 18-hour ovulation window. Emily recounts giving birth a month early with the flu, spending twelve hours in a triage room where nurses kept losing the baby’s heart rate, avoiding a balloon induction only because she was already three centimeters dilated, and delivering after an emergency episiotomy followed by the infamous “puppet moment” when a surgeon had to reach in by hand to remove her placenta—much to her husband’s horror when he asked if she’d please double-check with an ultrasound.

📍December Shows are in Boulder, CO, Westchester, NY, and good ol’ New York, NY

Follow Emily Walsh: https://www.instagram.com/thefunnywalsh/

See Ophira LIVE: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/events/

SUBSCRIBE so you never miss O thing: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/sign-up

Follow PIAJ: 

https://www.instagram.com/parentingisajoke/

https://parentingisajoke.substack.com/

 

Follow Ophira:

https://www.instagram.com/ophirae/

https://www.facebook.com/OphiraEisenberg/

https://www.tiktok.com/@ophiranyc

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Emily Walsh Redefines What “Ready" Means

In this Snack episode, Ophira catches up with author and storyteller Katy Strange, who talks about the very specific chaos of raising two tweens while publishing her debut novel The Manly Man of God. Katy explains how her book’s bold, saint-like cover—complete with a mysteriously floating eggplant—has sparked confusion among some readers, including a man at her book launch who sincerely asked if the story involved a farmers’ market subplot. She and Ophira dig into the megachurch culture that inspired the book, including the time a stranger on a Vancouver bus tried to flirt with Katy only to pivot into trying to convert her, not realizing she understood church history well enough to corner him with questions about communal living. Katy also shares how writing the novel began during nap-time marathons, how a women’s business incubator with drop-in childcare became her creative lifeline, and how her family’s “Yes Day” tradition has evolved from toddlers eating crackers on the couch to tweens burning through budgets on Shake Shack, fancy haircuts, and sneaker hunts. And at the end, Katy describes how her 13-year-old now treats Warhammer figurines as a non-negotiable expense, as well as expensive haircuts from the mall salon that is covered in ring lights.

📍December Shows are in Boulder, CO, Westchester, NY, and good ol’ New York, NY

Follow Katy Strange: https://www.instagram.com/realstrangekaty/

See Ophira LIVE: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/events/

SUBSCRIBE so you never miss O thing: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/sign-up

Follow PIAJ: 

https://www.instagram.com/parentingisajoke/

https://parentingisajoke.substack.com/

 

Follow Ophira:

https://www.instagram.com/ophirae/

https://www.facebook.com/OphiraEisenberg/

https://www.tiktok.com/@ophiranyc

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yes Day with Tweens: A Sticker Chart Success Story with Katy Strange

In this episode, Ophira talks with author and storyteller Katy (Katharine) Strange about the tangled realities of raising tweens while untangling a past shaped by evangelical culture. Katy shares how moving 17 times as a kid primed her for reading a room—and for assuming friendships were optional until she realized she wasn’t relocating again. She talks about letting her 13-year-old navigate Seattle’s public transit with “mixed results,” including surprise solo detours through the city, and about trying to teach her kids religion only to have her son declare he’s an existentialist who’d rather stay home and play Halo. Katy also opens up about stepping away from the church, wrestling with belief through therapy, and finding her way back to spiritual curiosity while writing her debut novel Manly Man of God, which pulls from her upbringing in Christian fundamentalism—with zero Cologne-drenched megachurch teenagers harmed in the process. And in the final moments, Ophira asks Katy about her son’s readiness for confirmation, prompting Katy to admit that he took one look at her lesson plan and said, “I don’t believe in any of this—I’m an atheist,” before returning to his video game.

📍November Shows are in Philadelphia, PA, Boston, MA, Westchester, NY, Guadalajara, Mexico!

Follow Katy Strange: https://www.instagram.com/realstrangekaty/

See Ophira LIVE: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/events/

SUBSCRIBE so you never miss O thing: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/sign-up

Follow PIAJ: 

https://www.instagram.com/parentingisajoke/

https://parentingisajoke.substack.com/

 

Follow Ophira:

https://www.instagram.com/ophirae/

https://www.facebook.com/OphiraEisenberg/

https://www.tiktok.com/@ophiranyc

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Katy Strange is Raising and Existentialist

In this snack-sized conversation, Ophira Eisenberg talks with author and newly certified parenting coach Kerri Smith-Maher about how years of teaching writing, her daughter’s struggles, her own sobriety journey, and a crash course in perimenopause all pushed her toward parent coaching. Kerri explains how a psychologist friend steered her away from graduate school and toward certification at the Jai Institute, where she dove into nervous system science, attachment theory, and the iceberg model of behavior. She shares why Dr. Becky Kennedy’s Good Inside is her go-to recommendation, how a family DBT course helped them decode behavior “under the surface,” and why the real breakthrough in her house came when she learned to regulate herself instead of rushing to fix her daughter’s reactions. Kerri also describes how Tara Brach’s Radical Acceptance finally taught her to “pause” by practicing it during calm moments—helped along by an iPhone alarm labeled “pause” three times a day. The episode ends with Kerri revealing that her best creative work happens only after caffeine, dog-walking, and a strict morning writing window, a habit she built during her daughter’s three-morning-a-week nursery school era.

📍November Shows are in Philadelphia, PA, Boston, MA, Westchester, NY, Guadalajara, Mexico!

Follow Kerri Maheri: https://www.instagram.com/kerrimaherwriter/

To learn more about her coaching: https://www.instagram.com/thewellresourcedparent/

See Ophira LIVE: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/events/

SUBSCRIBE so you never miss O thing: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/sign-up

Follow PIAJ: 

https://www.instagram.com/parentingisajoke/

https://parentingisajoke.substack.com/

 

Follow Ophira:

https://www.instagram.com/ophirae/

https://www.facebook.com/OphiraEisenberg/

https://www.tiktok.com/@ophiranyc

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Turning Perimenopause Into a Professional Pivot with Kerri Maher

In this episode, Ophira Eisenberg talks with author and parent coach Kerri Maher (aka. Kerri Smith–Maher and also Kerri Majors) about the many names she has published under, the publishing-industry lunch where her team rejected both “Smith” and “Pasqualetti” for SEO reasons, and why she ultimately adopted her grandmother’s maiden name as her pen name. Kerri recalls handwriting her first unfinished novel on her dad’s yellow legal pads—an early story about a girl and her blind best friend—before sharing how childhood surgeries and months of immobility pushed her toward reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and imagining her way into writing. She and Ophira compare their kids’ school experiences, including Kerri’s daughter moving to an all-girls high school after a discussion about the “confidence gap,” and they trade notes on raising book-loving but highly specific readers. Kerri also explains how she discovered the Jane Collective through an NPR segment, pitched “the Jane novel” long before Dobbs, and watched the publishing world suddenly accelerate its enthusiasm for a feminist protest story. The conversation wraps with Kerri admitting her daughter refuses to read her novels and Ophira celebrating that Kerri’s kid once described Spirit Airlines as an airline that “steals your spirit.”

📍November Shows are in Philadelphia, PA, Boston, MA, Westchester, NY, Guadalajara, Mexico!

Follow Kerri Maher: https://www.instagram.com/kerrimaherwriter/

To learn more about her coaching: https://www.instagram.com/thewellresourcedparent/

See Ophira LIVE: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/events/

SUBSCRIBE so you never miss O thing: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/sign-up

Follow PIAJ: 

https://www.instagram.com/parentingisajoke/

https://parentingisajoke.substack.com/

 

Follow Ophira:

https://www.instagram.com/ophirae/

https://www.facebook.com/OphiraEisenberg/

https://www.tiktok.com/@ophiranycLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kerri Maher Finds Books Teens Will Actually Read

Comedian Julia Scotti joins Ophira Eisenberg to talk about the long, winding path that brought her back to stand-up after transitioning and a decade away from comedy. Julia reflects on raising three children amid multiple marriages and constant touring, her fear of repeating her own fractured childhood, and the painful 14-year estrangement from her kids after she came out as transgender. She recalls coming out mid-set at a blue-collar Pennsylvania club and later to 13 million people on America’s Got Talent, joking that she wanted to be judged “on the act, not the anatomy.” Julia also describes how teaching special education students during that period filled the hole left by her kids’ absence—including a harrowing day during 9/11 when she nearly took her own life. The conversation touches on old stand-up footage where she mocked trans people before understanding her identity, her love of Louis Prima singalongs with her son, and the two corny jokes she first told him from his crib. The episode ends on a warm note as Julia admits she “unleashed the Kraken” by raising another comedy lover.

📍November Shows are in Philadelphia, PA, Boston, MA, Westchester, NY and November 9th new Standup Special Taping at The Comedy Cellar in NY!

Details at https://www.ophiraeisenberg.comCome to the Taping at the Comedy Cellar on Sun Nov 9th! 5pm: https://www.comedycellar.com/reservations-newyork/?showid=1762725600 7pm: https://www.comedycellar.com/reservations-newyork/?showid=1762732860

Follow Julia Scotti : https://www.instagram.com/juliasscotticomedy

See Ophira LIVE: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/events/

SUBSCRIBE so you never miss O thing: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/sign-up

Follow PIAJ: 

https://www.instagram.com/parentingisajoke/

https://parentingisajoke.substack.com/

 

Follow Ophira:

https://www.instagram.com/ophirae/

https://www.facebook.com/OphiraEisenberg/

https://www.tiktok.com/@ophiranyc

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

https://www.instagram.com/marylynnrajskub/?hl=en
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jennifer Wai Connects Reiki, Fortnite, and Staying Close to Your Kid

Lyt når som helst, hvor som helst

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