Being a Mom

and an improvisor

A student asked me to write about being a mom and an improvisor. She’s looking at a near future of wanting to have kids and keep improvising and wanted to know how it could work.

Finishing my class notes 12 days before the little dude was born.

One thing I’ve learned as a mom is that every family figures out a different way to do it. Big things like feeding the baby, childcare, work, living near (or far) from family have long rippling effects. So, I can write about how we’re doing it and hopefully, this’ll be helpful, validating, and/or interesting to others.

A bit of background, I moved to New York to perform. After a couple years of focusing on theatre, I found my creative home at UCB. A couple years later I got on a team and started coaching, then teaching. I met my husband at UCB. He moved here to be a filmmaker.

When I got pregnant, I had been on a house team and teaching improv for years. I didn’t have 3 hour mandatory practices anymore. I had 3-months of partial paid leave, and the ability to return to my shows and teaching after 3 months. Tom is a freelancer, and a bit after our kiddo was born, got a gig out of the house a couple days a week.

When I started teaching again, I was able to go back one day a week for two back-to-back classes. I pumped in between classes. My husband stayed with our baby for 9 hours straight (not the accomplishment), the kid refusing to drink bottled milk for 8 1/2 of those hours (calmly handling the screaming of a hungry infant who is also refusing to eat is the accomplishment). When I could, I would do my two weekly shows.

After two months of pumping and a tongue tie procedure and figuring it out, I nursed my kid. Unless I was improvising, I was home with him. On one hand, nursing makes things easy because you can feed your baby anytime, anywhere. On the other hand, it means that you and your baby are incredibly physically linked. If your body is the source of his food and his comfort, it makes it difficult for anyone who’s not you to take care of him.

Then the pandemic hit. UCB permanently shut down. From 15 months to about 3 years, my husband worked full time remotely and I was home with our kid. We were living with family in Chicago. I had no choice but to not perform and be home with my kid for that year and a half. I also had help from my family.

Then we moved back to the city, miraculously UCB came back, and gradually I got back to teaching and performing. I’m really hoping that global pandemic part won’t be part of anyone’s future parenting journey.

There are 5 reasons that I am able to continue to improvise as a mom:

1. It’s important to me and I love doing it.

2. It’s my job. I make money teaching and some of my shows pay. That makes it even easier to be a priority.

3. It’s important to my husband. Tom loves improv. We talk about it a lot. Creativity is a shared value. We both moved to New York to make art (goofball comedy) and both still feel compelled to make it.

4. I improvise instead of doing other things. I work, improvise, and spend time with my family. I don’t do much socially. Improv is largely how I socialize. Tom and I go on about 2 dates a year. I don’t sleep enough. Sad to say, exercise is not a priority. While we do save for the future, we’re not in nearly the same financial situation as a couple with two full time salaries.

5. I have a healthy kid.

Here are things that surprised me as a mom. Each is profoundly obvious and also a profound personal realization:

1. Long days and short years. Every day home alone with a baby feels like 43 hours. In the baby phase, I would have weekly existential crises, not knowing how I could keep up this level of caretaking forever, but it’s not forever. The baby part is 1 year. The toddler part is 2 years. The preschooler part is 2 years. Then they’re in kindergarten. 5 years is a long time, but also not.

2. Dumbest of all realizations: Someone always has to be with the kid. When you are child-free, you can come and go as you please. If you have a partner, same goes for them. You can go places together or separately. You could both be away from home and in different places and that’s no problem at all. When you have a kid, someone’s got to be with them at all times for more than a DECADE. My kid is 7 and it still catches me off guard that if I want to do something, I have to make sure my husband is available. We’re both freelancers. That means if we have offers of work at the same time one of us needs to turn down that work or we need to find childcare. The school day is 8:05 to 2:20. Scheduling is it’s own part-time job.

3. The first year you send kids to school they get sick a lot. That means that you are paying for childcare and counting on that available time, and suddenly changing your plans to stay home with your child while still paying for childcare.

4. Creating a child and feeding it with your body takes a massive toll on your body. And if you want to go see a doctor or a dentist, someone’s got to take the baby.

So there you have it. My general experience of being an improvisor and a mom. Like all things pertaining to women’s health, we don’t talk about it enough. If we run into each other feel free to chat me up about any and all of it.

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Upcoming Shows:

Asssscat! at UCB Saturday, March 14 at 8:30 Livestream

Montana Dan at Hartford Improv Festival Friday, March 27th at 8:00

Upcoming Classes and Workshops:

UCB Improv 101 starting Monday, March 30 7-10pm

UCB Improv 301 starting Saturday, April 11 11am-2pm