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Parenting is a Joke: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Ophira Eisenberg
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- Today31 min
Telling Great Stories with Christine Walters
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 every move. Walters explains how Three Day Champion grew out of watching Jeopardy! with her family and becoming obsessed with contestants’ awkward personal anecdotes, leading her to design a live storytelling format where comedians must deliver three distinct personal stories under pressure, revealing not just their material but their personality arc, all judged by rotating celebrity guests with their own criteria. She shares how her background developing shows for networks like Comedy Central and Nickelodeon shaped her instinct for structure, including her earlier parenting sketch series Other Mothered, which exaggerated the quiet competitiveness and judgment between moms—like escalating a child’s science fair project from cotton-ball clouds to nuclear fusion—while also reflecting her own experiences being called out by strangers, including a Park Slope drive-by critique of her baby’s exposed legs in a carrier that sent her into a spiral of self-doubt. 📍May Shows are in The Netherlands: The Hague, Nijmegen, Boston, Martha’s Vineyard, Scarsdale, NY Follow Christine Walters / Thee Day Champion: https://www.instagram.com/threedaychampion See Ophira LIVE: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/events/ And stay tuned to see her NEW Comedy Special “I Used to Be Nicer” coming out exclusively on Veeps on May 15th! 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
- 1 weeks ago46 min
Christine Walters is an Everyday Champion Mom
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 career spans shows like Full Frontal with Samantha Bee and The Chris Gethard Show, and who now runs the live storytelling competition podcast Three Day Champion. Walters talks about building a creative life from both sides of the industry—pitching shows, shaping other people’s stories, and then stepping back onstage herself—while balancing the logistical and emotional demands of parenting. The two get specific about what it means to produce creative work under time constraints, how live storytelling changes when your brain is split between childcare and deadlines, and why Walters structured Three Day Champion as a recurring, competitive format that forces comedians to sharpen personal stories into tight, high-stakes sets. 📍May Shows are in The Netherlands: The Hague, Nijmegen, Boston, Martha’s Vineyard, Scarsdale, NY Follow Christine Walters / Thee Day Champion: https://www.instagram.com/threedaychampion See Ophira LIVE: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/events/ And stay tuned to see her NEW Comedy Special “I Used to Be Nicer” coming out exclusively on Veeps on May 15th! 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
- 2 weeks ago28 min
Taking Care of Mama with Corey Ryan Forrester
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 created a financial cushion that let him stay home for his son’s first year, and why he still resists returning to full-time road work despite loving stand-up, calling live shows “the result of the work” and travel the real cost. The conversation moves through the physical and emotional crash that follows weekends on stage, the strange relief of having a kid who will lie beside him for hours watching all four Toy Story films in a row when he’s depleted, and the way parenting heightens everything from crying at commercials to worrying about how your choices look to other parents. Forrester also reflects on being raised by a deeply private father who never showed emotion—yet shaped his values around loyalty and caring for family—and shares how that legacy now shows up in small, repeated rituals with his own child, like reminding him to thank his mom and modeling daily check-ins with his own mother. The episode weaves together comedy, storytelling, and the logistics of creative work with a young kid, landing on a vivid origin story of how hearing a Tim Wilson CD make his grieving father laugh nonstop on a long drive to Florida clarified, once and for all, what comedy could do. 📍May Shows are in The Netherlands: The Hague, Nijmegen, Boston, Martha’s Vineyard, Scarsdale, NY Follow Corey Ryan Forrester: https://www.instagram.com/coreyrforrester See Ophira LIVE: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/events/ And stay tuned to see her NEW Comedy Special “I Used to Be Nicer” coming out exclusively on Veeps on May 15th! 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
- 3 weeks ago41 min
Corey Ryan Forrester Solves It All With Build-A-Bear
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 with a carefully planned Build-A-Bear outing inspired by a deeply personal story about recording a message for his special-needs niece, who replayed it so often she wore the button out. The conversation moves between parenting logistics and bigger questions about values, as Corey reflects on choosing to raise his child in the same conservative Southern town where he grew up, resisting pressure to leave and arguing that becoming a parent actually intensified his progressive views rather than softening them. He shares the five-year fertility struggle he and his wife went through, his firm decision to be “one and done” at 38 after years on the road doing stand-up, and the physical reality of trying to keep up with a toddler while maintaining a comedy career. Throughout, the two compare notes on only-child dynamics, chosen family, and the subtle calculations creative parents make about what parts of their public voice might eventually affect their kids socially. The episode balances storytelling about career, community, and parenting identity, landing on the small, vivid details that define daily life—like a three-year-old’s birthday plan built around Build-A-Bear, cousins two doors down, and a dad trying to schedule his entire workweek around one cold March day. 📍April Shows are in The Netherlands: Amsterdam, Amstelveen, The Hague, Gronigen, and Nijmegen Follow Corey Ryan Forrester: https://www.instagram.com/coreyrforrester See Ophira LIVE: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/events/ And stay tuned to see her NEW Comedy Special “I Used to Be Nicer” coming out exclusively on Veeps on May 15th! 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
- 4 weeks ago35 min
The Parent Trap with Ahri Findling
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 films with a new lens, as Ophira revisits E.T. and can only see the overwhelmed single mom feeding her kids junk and leaving a four-year-old home alone, while Findling reinterprets The Parent Trap as a borderline criminal act of separating twins. From there, Findling articulates his comedic approach—mining the small, uncomfortable truths of marriage and parenting, like imagining himself at his wife’s casket both professing love and quietly panicking about not knowing where anything is—and connects it to a broader philosophy that nothing in family life is unique, which becomes oddly comforting for parents juggling creative careers. They get specific about the logistics of stand-up life with young kids, including missing bedtimes, reframing gigs as “work” (a tip from Chris Gethard), and the guilt of being physically absent but creatively dependent on those experiences, alongside moments like Findling’s daughter hiding his shoes to stop him from leaving for a show. The episode also captures the granular negotiations of parenting style—whether to allow swearing at home, how to handle kids absorbing language from Brooklyn streets or Mormon neighbors upstairs, and the constant resetting required when a child abruptly rejects their favorite food or rewrites the rules overnight. Throughout, both comics return to the idea that parenting is improvisational and deeply humbling, whether you’re observing your kid from afar at the park realizing they’re becoming their own person or trying to stay consistent in a job that requires leaving the house at bedtime, all while remembering Findling’s rule that some days the best strategy is simply to think like a goldfish when your kid suddenly insists they’ve never liked chicken nuggets in their life. Follow Ahri Findling: https://www.instagram.com/theycallmeahri See Ophira LIVE: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/events/ And stay tuned to see her NEW Comedy Special “I Used to Be Nicer” coming out exclusively on Veeps on May 15th! 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
- Apr 14, 202645 min
Ahri Findling is An Emotional Support Dad
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 life. Findling, a dad of a six-year-old and a toddler, gets specific about the social ecosystem of elementary school fundraisers—where comics donate their time while quietly wondering why parents don’t just hand over $100 and skip the two-drink minimum—and the unexpected hierarchy created by a fellow parent behind Baked by Melissa. The conversation sharpens around parenting as emotional inheritance: Findling traces his instinct to be an “empath dad” back to his own father while also confronting how that sensitivity collides with raising a daughter who mirrors his anxious tendencies, including a painful playground moment where she interprets two friends arriving together as exclusion. Both comics compare notes on bullying—Findling’s experience being severe enough that a hospital visit during his mother’s ovarian cancer treatment became the perspective shift that helped him disengage—and how that history now complicates decisions about when to step in versus let kids build resilience. They land on the uneasy truth that many parenting “truths” (like recognizing your baby in a crowd) feel more like propaganda, while also admitting to their own quiet judgments of other parents, especially the late-night subway kids who “should be in bed.” Threaded throughout is the tension of raising kids while pursuing comedy careers that still get mistaken for hobbies, and the low-grade panic of wondering if your child’s social milestones—or lack of sleepovers—mean something larger, until Findling reframes it with a kind of reluctant zen: maybe your kid just isn’t ready yet, a thought that lingers alongside the image of Ophira gripping those roller coaster handlebars, trying to convince herself to let go. Follow Ahri Findling: https://www.instagram.com/theycallmeahri See Ophira LIVE: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/events/ And stay tuned to see her NEW Comedy Special “I Used to Be Nicer” coming out exclusively on Veeps on May 15th! 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
- Apr 7, 202641 min
Laurie Kilmartin Parents From the Green Room
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-eyes from Los Angeles to New York to stack multiple sets in a single night—and how that work ethic shaped both her career and her parenting, from bringing her infant son into casino green rooms to relying on a hotel babysitting service while she performed. She explains her decision to keep her son’s identity private despite building material around him, even as he creates his own anime-inspired webcomic universe, and reflects on how growing up with a comedian parent gives him a creative “second base” advantage. The conversation moves between sharp bits—like ranking comedy clubs based on their food because her son only cares about burgers and pretzel bites—and heavier territory, including Kilmartin’s choice to live-tweet jokes during both her father’s hospice care and her mother’s COVID hospitalization, describing the surreal isolation of saying goodbye through iPads and gloves and how writing in real time helped her process events that didn’t feel real. Along the way, she shares her long-game parenting philosophy (minimal interference, maximum observation), her lack of initial desire to become a mother, and her very specific future plan to leave the U.S. and spend a year doing open mics across Europe once her son graduates, using a hard-won Luxembourg passport. The episode lands on the strange, funny, and practical intersections of comedy, caregiving, and creative survival, ending with Kilmartin half-jokingly pitching an expat comedy club chain while asking to be booked anywhere in Europe. Follow Laurie Kilmartin: https://www.instagram.com/anylaurie16 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
- Mar 31, 202648 min
Good Mom, Bad Puppy with Ashley Austin Morris
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 strange logistics of building a comedy career while anticipating sleep deprivation and childcare. Morris talks openly about miscarriages, including the emotional whiplash of feeling relief after one pregnancy ended because severe hormonal changes had left her sobbing on the floor and convinced she couldn’t care for the baby. She explains how an unexpected catalyst—a chaotic rescue puppy whose needs sparked a new instinct to nurture—suddenly rewired her thinking about motherhood. The conversation also gets into the uncomfortable realities of pregnancy culture: genetic testing debates with an OB-GYN, the anxiety-producing medical environment of New York prenatal care, body changes that hit faster than expected, and the strange intimacy of discussing weight and cravings with strangers. Morris reflects on recovering from a long struggle with an eating disorder, including a surprising pandemic-era scholarship that allowed her to spend 80 days in a treatment program and ultimately find a different path to recovery. Throughout the conversation, the two comedians bring their storytelling instincts to the everyday details of pregnancy life—from Morris eating jars of pasta sauce with a spoon to Eisenberg’s prenatal yoga class where everyone shared their cravings. 📍March Shows are in Bozeman and Helena, Montana, New York Follow Ashley Austin Morris: https://www.instagram.com/ashaustinmorris/ Buy her new book All Toddlers are Scorpios here: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/all-toddlers-are-scorpios-johanna-gohmann/1147952953 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
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About Parenting is a Joke
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.
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