Parenting is a Joke

Ophira Eisenberg
  • 4.9 (211)
  • Comedy Interviews
  • Updated Weekly

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.

  1. 22h ago

    A Bit of Magic with Carlos Greaves

    Carlos Greaves returns to the podcast for a closer look at the surprisingly authoritarian role of parenting, beginning with his 18-month-old daughter’s new favorite activity: climbing things that are clearly designed for five-year-olds and launching herself toward a seven-foot drop. With essentially no childcare experience before becoming a dad—he had never even changed a diaper until the nurse handed him his daughter in the hospital—Greaves describes figuring out parenting through research, YouTube, books, and an engineer’s instinct to identify what he doesn’t know, while remaining skeptical of advice that seems to reverse itself every five years. He and Ophira Eisenberg wrestle with the line between letting kids make mistakes and protecting them from hurting themselves or other people, with Greaves admitting that he currently operates at “dad reflex distance,” close enough to catch his daughter but far enough away that she learns to solve problems herself. That tension leads naturally into the mythology of childhood: Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the little stories parents tell to make life easier. Greaves remembers his father initially refusing to participate in Santa because he considered it lying, then eventually sitting his eight- or nine-year-old son down to explain the truth—only to be hit with the immediate existential question, “If Santa Claus isn’t real, does that mean God isn’t real?” Greaves now sees those childhood myths differently, remembering the pleasure of watching younger siblings discover Christmas magic and deciding that if you are going to lie to your kids, it should be for their benefit rather than simply to make your own life easier. The conversation also takes aim at the impossible standards of modern parenting, from organic cotton and wooden toys to BPA-free bottles and the endless question of what, exactly, has replaced the thing labeled “BPA free,” before Greaves offers his own survival tactic for parenting’s tiny dictators: eat your snacks in secret before they become smart enough to notice. When Ophira asks what he would tell a child who eventually wants to become either a comedian or a politician, Greaves’s answer is revealingly consistent with his satirical worldview: he can live with either, as long as they do not become an asshole—and preferably, she becomes an electrical engineer. 📍August Shows are in Las Vegas NV, Los Angeles CA, NYC Follow Carlos Greaves: https://www.instagram.com/shadesofgreaves Check out his new book Obey In Advance: How To Survive (And Thrive) Under Authoritarianism: https://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/obey-in-advance-how-to-survive-and-thrive-under-authoritarianism See Ophira LIVE: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/events/ Check out my NEW Comedy Special “I Used to Be Nicer” as an ALBUM is available now https://open.spotify.com/album/1rHqPoBYc78gzMnCrCFoZy 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

  2. Aug 18

    Carlos Greaves Refuses to Obey

    Carlos Greaves joins Ophira Eisenberg to talk about the strange math of building a creative career while raising an 18-month-old daughter, especially when your “job” is a shifting collection of satire writing, freelance work, teaching, and comedy. Greaves describes leaving electrical engineering after a film class convinced him he had chosen the wrong life, spending 12 years writing before opportunities at McSweeney’s, The New Yorker, and elsewhere made comedy feel possible, and then discovering that the creative life he wanted came with plenty of regrets—and very little stability. As a stay-at-home dad in suburban Charlotte, he is constantly negotiating what it even means to be a working parent when his work happens at night and on weekends, while his wife’s nine-to-five schedule means their respective “breaks” are essentially childcare traded for work; meanwhile, Ophira admits that 96% of her conversations with her husband are scheduling logistics. Their conversation turns to Greaves’s book Obey in Advance: How to Survive and Thrive Under Authoritarianism, co-written with Ginny Hogan, and the challenge of writing political satire when reality moves faster than a joke and social media can claim a premise before a book ever reaches publication. Greaves explains why the book targets the atmosphere and institutions surrounding authoritarianism rather than relying on familiar impressions, using forms like Mad Libs, word searches, and fake editorial templates to make frighteningly repetitive political patterns visible—and argues that preserving joy can itself be a form of resistance. That idea becomes especially complicated as a parent: Greaves admits that bringing a child into a world facing climate change and multiple other existential threats requires optimism, even as he feels the terror of having “a piece of your soul outside your body” that eventually has to go out into the world. The episode also connects his instinct for satire to his childhood as an intensely rule-following, oldest-child, parent-pleaser who quietly found ways around the rules, including telling his parents he was sleeping at one friend’s house when he was actually somewhere else. The conversation ends just as Ophira starts asking about the unavoidable dictator hiding inside every parent of a toddler—and Greaves’s Ferris Bueller-adjacent teenage rule-skimming is the last thing left hanging before they pick up the story in part two. 📍August Shows are in Las Vegas NV, Los Angeles CA, NYC Follow Carlos Greaves: https://www.instagram.com/shadesofgreaves Check out his new book Obey In Advance: How To Survive (And Thrive) Under Authoritarianism: https://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/obey-in-advance-how-to-survive-and-thrive-under-authoritarianism See Ophira LIVE: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/events/ Check out my NEW Comedy Special “I Used to Be Nicer” as an ALBUM is available now https://open.spotify.com/album/1rHqPoBYc78gzMnCrCFoZy 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. Aug 11

    Dating Like A Man With Sabrina Bendory

    Sabrina Bendory returns to talk about the origin story of her very first book, 10 Things Every Woman Needs to Know About Men — a title that started with her getting ghosted, then accidentally called back by the same guy who meant to dial his new hookup, and being sat down that same night by her male roommate and his friend for a blunt, point-by-point translation of everything men actually mean when they say things like "I've never liked a girl this much." She and Ophira dig into how that same decoding work now applies to men who come to her for coaching too — something she didn't expect until requests started arriving after Detached, including from tattooed, tough-looking guys admitting, unprompted, that they have "mother issues" they want to work through. The conversation turns sharper when Bendory revisits Nick, the ex from her book who told her he'd never "breed" with someone like her, and she names exactly what that relationship taught her: mistaking anxiety for chemistry, and hope for intuition. From there she and Ophira spend real time dismantling Sex and the City — Bendory explains how she rewatched the whole series during a COVID quarantine with three sick kids and no childcare, posted one TikTok tearing apart Carrie and Big, and woke up to it having gone viral days later — arguing that Big spends six seasons explicitly telling Carrie he doesn't want her (down to failing to say "you're the one" in season one) and gets rewarded with a Paris rooftop ending anyway. The episode closes on Bendory's clearest parenting-adjacent line yet: that picking a stable, undramatic partner isn't boring, it's strategic, because life, kids, aging parents, money, loss is already hard enough without a relationship that requires managing someone else's chaos on top of it. 📍August Shows are in Las Vegas NV, Los Angeles CA, NYC Follow Sabrina Bendory: https://www.instagram.com/sabrinabendory Check out her new book The Feminine Code: https://www.instagram.com/sabrinabendory Check out the kids album you'll love, Magnificent by Lachi: https://platoon.lnk.to/magnificent See Ophira LIVE: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/events/ Check out my NEW Comedy Special “I Used to Be Nicer” as an ALBUM is available now https://open.spotify.com/album/1rHqPoBYc78gzMnCrCFoZy 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. Aug 4

    Sabrina Bendory Names the Mother Wound

    Author and Coach Sabrina Bendory brings her work as a relationship coach and author of The Feminine Code into the everyday reality of raising four young children, connecting the emotional patterns that shape adult relationships to the way parents respond to their kids in real time. She and Ophira Eisenberg talks openly about the bittersweet end of a decade spent pregnant, breastfeeding, and raising babies while remembering the postpartum anxiety that followed her youngest son's birth, when COVID, weeks of illness, and relentless handwashing left her coaching clients while quietly fighting panic. Ophira and Sabrina compare notes on sleep schedules, summer camp logistics, sibling dynamics, body image, and the impossible standard mothers are held to, while Sabrina explains why children need emotional attunement more than perfect parenting and why telling a child, "That was my fault, not yours," after losing your temper can interrupt generational patterns. Their conversation moves from Sabrina's painful memory of a boyfriend telling her he would "never breed" with her to a larger discussion about the "mother wound," people-pleasing, confidence, and teaching children that mistakes don't define them. Along the way, they laugh about children who think parents know everything, daughters agonizing over red-white-and-blue camp outfits, the myth that moms should do it all without help, and Ophira's son getting criticized for preferring vegetables over kid food, before landing on one surprisingly effective family tradition: everyone gathering around a giant puzzle with oversized and tiny pieces spread across the kitchen table. 📍August Shows are in Las Vegas NV, Los Angeles CA, NYC Follow Sabrina Bendory: https://www.instagram.com/sabrinabendory Check out her new book The Feminine Code: https://www.instagram.com/sabrinabendory Check out the kids album you'll love, Magnificent by Lachi: https://platoon.lnk.to/magnificent See Ophira LIVE: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/events/ Check out my NEW Comedy Special “I Used to Be Nicer” as an ALBUM is available now https://open.spotify.com/album/1rHqPoBYc78gzMnCrCFoZy 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

  5. Jul 28

    Jo Piazza Thinks Moms Can Pull Off A Heist

    Author, podcaster, influencer! Jo Piazza returns to Parenting Is a Joke in the middle of a whirlwind tour for The Parisian Heist, discovering that the greatest luxury of author life isn't glamorous hotels but eating alone at Cracker Barrel, ordering room-service ice cream in a robe, and having nobody ask for a snack or an iPad charger. As Ophira Eisenberg and Jo compare life with a 10-year-old versus a nine-, six-, and three-year-old, they swap stories about a preschooler refusing to wear clothes to a fancy family dinner, settling for "parenting at 60%," and why every ambitious parent needs to stop whispering about having help and start saying it out loud. Their conversation moves easily from raising creative kids—who remake Jurassic Park, shoot stop-motion LEGO dinosaur films, and critique outdated '80s movie jokes—to Jo's meticulous writing process, explaining how she drafts dual timelines straight through before separating and rebuilding them, researches museums across Paris and Amsterdam, and even listens to Gwyneth Paltrow read her manuscript aloud. Along the way they explore the overlooked brilliance of Jo van Gogh, the real mechanics of art heists, why moms might make the best thieves because heists require planning and patience more than action-movie stunts, and how Jo's marriage began with spotting a promising "project" on a reporting trip to the Galápagos. The episode circles back to the small freedoms working parents crave, ending on Jo's perfect solo-tour ritual: eating a chocolate sundae in a hotel robe while watching The Silence of the Lambs instead of discussing tomorrow's family schedule. 📍July Shows are in NYC, Montreal for Just for Laughs Festival Follow Jo Piazza: https://www.instagram.com/jopiazzaauthor Check out her new book The Parisian Heist: https://www.jopiazza.com/#about-section See Ophira LIVE: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/events/ Check out my NEW Comedy Special “I Used to Be Nicer” streaming right now exclusively on Veeps https://veeps.com/ophiraeisenberg or listen to the album https://open.spotify.com/album/1rHqPoBYc78gzMnCrCFoZy 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

  6. Jul 21

    Blended Religions with Holly Rizzuto-Palker

    In this Parenting Is a Joke Snack, Holly Rizzuto-Palker and Ophira Eisenberg trade deeply personal stories about building an interfaith family without reducing either tradition to a compromise. Holly reflects on growing up Italian Catholic, marrying a New York Jewish lawyer who initially assumed she was Jewish, and how surviving September 11 fundamentally changed the way she thought about faith, convincing her that her children needed a single spiritual foundation rather than two parallel traditions. She explains why she chose to raise her three children Jewish while fiercely protecting Christmas, Easter baskets, a twelve-foot Christmas tree, and her legendary Italian Christmas Eve celebration complete with karaoke, creating what she jokingly describes as a negotiated "contract" that satisfied everyone from Jewish in-laws to Santa Claus. The conversation moves easily between religion, identity, parenting, and comedy as Holly recalls her daughter's last-minute declaration that she didn't believe in God just days before her bat mitzvah, the secret baptism no one in her husband's family knew about, and the challenge of raising thoughtful kids without insisting they share every belief. Along the way, both comedians wrestle with how much influence parents really have, whether children inevitably become their own people, and the bittersweet reality that Holly's household somehow produced three athletes instead of a single performer. The episode ends with Holly laughing that after years of dreaming about school plays, she still had to skip Beauty and the Beast because Rookie of the Year had another softball game. ✨ Subscribe, rate, and review! Follow us on socials @ParentingAsAJoke and @OphiraE (or @OphiraNYC on TikTok). Check out upcoming live performances at OphiraEisenberg.com. 📍 July tour stops: Atlantic City, NJ, Montreal at the Just For Laughs Festival, New York Follow Holly Rizzuto-Palker: https://www.instagram.com/hollyrizzutopal 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 Eisenberg: 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

  7. Jul 14

    Holly Rizzuto-Palker Went for Gymboree to Comedy

    Holly Rizzuto Palker joins host Ophira Eisenberg for a conversation about building a creative career while raising three kids, and why modern parenting can feel like an unpaid administrative job with impossible software. From comparing overflowing inboxes, Schoology confusion, and the endless stream of school newsletters to reminiscing about Holly’s childhood helping her mother run Brooklyn Gymboree locations, they connect the invisible labor of parenting with the work of performing, writing, and creating community through comedy. Holly reflects on leaving Los Angeles acting behind to start a family, following her husband’s legal career to London, and eventually realizing that motherhood and performance were never mutually exclusive. The conversation wanders through raising children in England, returning to New Jersey only to discover that "proper" school clothes had been replaced by Justice sparkles and sweatpants, surviving Singapore Math by drawing spiders instead of solving equations, and questioning whether iPads, AI, and the Common App have made childhood and education unnecessarily complicated. Throughout, Holly’s unmistakable Staten Island voice and Ophira’s own stories about fifth-grade graduation, lemon-whitened teeth, and notebook obsessions create a thoughtful portrait of parents trying to stay creative while navigating systems that seem designed to generate more work than wisdom. The episode closes with both of them wistfully agreeing that maybe the real innovation would be putting the notebooks back in kids' hands—and continuing the search for the mythical "magic notebook." ✨ Subscribe, rate, and review! Follow us on socials @ParentingAsAJoke and @OphiraE (or @OphiraNYC on TikTok). Check out upcoming live performances at OphiraEisenberg.com. 📍 July tour stops: Atlantic City, NJ, Montreal at the Just For Laughs Festival, New York Follow Holly Rizzuto-Palker: https://www.instagram.com/hollyrizzutopal 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 Eisenberg: 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

  8. Jul 7

    Lizzie and Wendy Molyneux Trust Weird Kids

    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 explain why weekday iPad bans, family meals without devices, and simply convincing kids to shower can feel like the biggest parenting victories. The conversation turns to children's entertainment from the perspective of people who make it, touching on why professionally produced kids' shows feel safer than the unpredictable corners of YouTube, why parents inevitably ruin Bluey by recommending it too enthusiastically, and how video games sometimes function more like social time than screen time. They also embrace the strange reality that every generation of kids finds its own wonderfully bizarre obsession, leading to an unexpectedly thoughtful discussion about Skibidi Toilet, why children are naturally drawn to weirdness no matter how carefully adults curate their world, and why fighting every phase is usually a losing battle. The episode ends with everyone laughing over the fact that Ophira bought Skibidi Toilet mystery packs at Target hoping for a toilet-headed character and instead wound up with two cameramen. ✨ Subscribe, rate, and review! Follow us on socials @ParentingAsAJoke and @OphiraE (or @OphiraNYC on TikTok). Check out upcoming live performances at OphiraEisenberg.com. 📍 July tour stops: Atlantic City, NJ, Montreal at the Just For Laughs Festival, New York Follow Wendy Molyneux: https://www.instagram.com/thegreatnorthwendy Follow Lizzie Molyneux-Logelin: https://x.com/lizziemolyneux?s=21&t=jSf8B0HmwnlXV5P5Erva-A 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 Eisenberg: 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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4.9
out of 5
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About

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.

Information

  • Creator
    Ophira Eisenberg
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    253
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    2024 © Any use of this intellectual property for text and data mining or computational analysis including as training material for artificial intelligence systems is strictly prohibited without express written consent
  • Show Website
    Parenting is a Joke

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