Jenny Slate on Finding Peace with Herself through Motherhood

9 to 5ish with theSkimm

Through her twenties and thirties, comedian Jenny Slate couldn’t find peace. By all accounts, she was succeeding. She earned a spot on Saturday Night Live, and became recognizable through her on-screen appearances next to actors like Amy Poehler and Nick Kroll. But she still felt stuck in a cycle of self-criticism and a pressure to always be on. Then she became a mom and it all clicked. Listen as Jenny shares why becoming a mom made her feel less desperate to get jobs, please others, and “perform her tricks”. 

In this episode of 9 to 5ish, Jenny shares: 

  • Why living in Massachusetts instead of Los Angeles is helpful for her creative work
  • What traits her parents were most concerned about in her upbringing
  • How leaving Saturday Night Live led her to a major learning about success 
  • Why perfection isn’t worth aiming at, and how she unlearned doing that  
  • How the unconditional love she feels for her kid helped heal her own inner child
  • A skimm of her new memoir, “Life Form”

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