Ali Wong doesn’t shy away from getting real about parenthood.
The comedian has spoken openly about her experiences with pregnancy and parenting in her Netflix specials, “Baby Cobra” and “Hard Knock Wife.” Wong has two daughters with her husband, Justin Hakuta.
In honor of her birthday, here are 15 funny quotes about motherhood from Wong.
On Childbirth
“A lot of women tried to freak me out. They tried to freak me out about childbirth by saying, ‘Ali, did you know that you’re gonna poop on the table?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I look forward to it.’ I’m all backed up from holding in my shit at work. I can’t wait to cleanse. It makes sense, like, that you ― that that happens because when you’re in labor, you push, you push, you push, and your husband will be asked to assist in the labor by lifting up your leg, which subsequently turns into a soft serve lever. You just shit on the floor in front of the love of your life. And just when you think that’s enough to make him finally leave you, boom, a baby comes out, and he gotta stay. That’s the real miracle of life, right there.”
On Double Standards For Moms And Dads
“I can already see how there’s, like, this crazy double standard in our society of how it takes so little to be considered a great dad. And it also takes so little to be considered a shitty mom. People praise my husband for coming to all of my doctor’s appointments with me. ‘Oh, my God. I can’t believe he comes to all your doctor’s appointments. He is so supportive.’ Guess who else has to go to those doctor appointments: Me! I’m the star of the show. There’s nothing for the camera to see if I’m not there. But he’s the hero for playing Candy Crush while I get my blood drawn.”
On Mom Groups
“I joined a new mom group in Los Angeles. I don’t find any of these bitches particularly interesting or fun, but when you’re a new mom on maternity leave it’s like ’The Walking Dead,’ you’ve just gotta hook up with a crew to survive. I used to hate on other moms for the clothes that they wore, you know, all the cheesy-ass animal print and loud metallic shiny shoes, and now I see something that’s bedazzled in rhinestones and I’m like ‘oh that looks nice, I think I’m gonna get that,’ because when you’re a mom you need sparkle to compensate for the light inside of you that has died.”
On Postpartum
“Nobody told me about all the crazy shit that comes out of your pussy after you give birth. You know what happens after the baby comes out? You know what else exits? Her house. Her living room, her pillows… the Bob Marley poster … All the food that went bad in her refrigerator … for months! So then you have to wear this cartoonishly large pad. That’s like the size of a toddler mattress, and it’s only held up by the strength of this mesh fishnet underwear that’s exclusively available at the hospital. You can’t get that shit on Amazon or anything, so you gotta snatch that shit every day. It’s made out of the same material that they package fancy Korean pears in. It’s very Dac Biet, OK? Number one extra large Dac Biet hospital underwear. For three months, I was walking around my house with a top knot, giant diaper, nipples bleeding. Like a defeated sumo wrestler.”
On Breastfeeding Struggles
“Giving birth ain’t nothing compared to breastfeeding! Breastfeeding is brutal. It is chronic physical torture. I thought it was supposed to be this beautiful bonding ceremony, where I would feel like I was sitting on a lily pad in a meadow and bunnies would gather at my feet while the fat Hawaiian man version of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ would play. No! It’s not like that at all! Breastfeeding is this savage ritual that just reminds you that your body is a cafeteria now! It don’t belong to you no more. When my baby girl would get hungry, she’d yank my nipple back and forth like that bear fucking up Leonardo DiCaprio in ‘The Revenant.’ It’s frightening. I saw that movie, and my nipples were like, ‘I feel you, Leo!’ I didn’t take any classes on breastfeeding because I just assumed it was going to be this very easy intuitive thing where the baby sucks on your nipple like a straw. ... But apparently, you have to get the baby to latch on at a very specific angle. You gotta tilt their head and do geometry to get them on properly. And it’s very stressful because when they’re hungry and they’re crying it makes your hormones spray milk all over their face and their neck, which then becomes very slippery and hard to grip, and then you gotta slam them on at just the right time, and every time I would do it, it was like parallel parking. I don’t know how I did it! It’s a mystery. I was never properly trained, but I just did it.”
On Balance
“A lot of people like to ask me, ‘Ali, how on earth do you balance family and career?’ Men never get asked that question. Because they don’t ... but the standards for dads are so low that they get so much praise for doing so little. My husband occasionally changes diapers, and when people hear that, ‘Oh my God.’ Confetti everywhere! ‘I cannot believe that your husband changes diapers! What a doting modern father. Lucky you!’ When my baby girl was first born, I would do skin-on-skin contact every day to bond with her. She shit on my chest. Where’s my confetti at?”
On Nannies
“I’ll tell you how I balance family and career. Real talk? I have a nanny. That’s it. That’s the answer. Yes, it’s very unlikable and unpopular to broadcast that because not everybody can afford a nanny, it’s super-expensive. Both me and my husband have to hustle. We have to work very hard to not take care of our child ourselves. ... Our nanny is 62 years old. I would never accept anything younger than 62 years old. If you are hiring a 25-year-old pretty young thing to be your nanny, you a dumbass. Do you not read People magazine?”
On Bodily Changes
“People don’t tell you about all this shit that goes down with your body when you get pregnant, you know? Your nipples get huge and dark. I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that they get dark so that the baby can see, like, a bull’s-eye. So that the baby can find it easier. And then, you know, they get big ― they get big, like fingers. Like, ‘You, you. You owe me money, you.’ My nipples look like Whoppers now, and naked, I look like a Minion. But I’m not gonna be one of those crazy pregnant ladies who tries to get all back in shape right after they get pregnant. No. Hopefully, if you see me in a year, I will have the kind of body where, if I do a nude scene on television, people will commend me for being courageous. For doing it.”
On How Parenthood Changes Comedy
“It’s very rare and unusual to see a female comic perform pregnant, because female comics … don’t get pregnant. Just try to think of one. I dare you. There’s ― none of them. Once they do get pregnant, they generally disappear. That’s not the case with male comics. Once they have a baby, they’ll get up on stage a week afterwards and they’ll be like, ‘Guys, I just had this fucking baby. That baby’s a little piece of shit. It’s so annoying and boring.’ And all these other shitty dads in the audience are, like, ‘That’s hilarious. I identify.’ And their fame just swells because they become this relatable family funny man all of a sudden. Meanwhile, the mom is at home, chapping her nipples, feeding the fucking baby, and wearing a frozen diaper ’cause her pussy needs to heal from the baby’s head shredding it up. She’s busy.”
On Conceiving
“I don’t know what kind of mother I’m gonna be. I’m 33, and I did have to get a little bit of science involved when trying to get pregnant. And a lot of that … is most likely my fault. Because, when I was in my 20s, I ate Plan B like skittles. So, my uterus probably looked like a smoker’s lung. And I found out that my progesterone levels were alarmingly low. So, then I had to take these hormone pills that were suppositories, and Push Pop them up myself every single night.”
On Staying At Home
“I tried being a stay-at-home mom, for eight weeks. I like the stay-at-home part. Not too crazy about the mom aspect, that shit is relentless. I was stupid and naive, and I thought that being a stay-at-home mom was about chillaxing, getting to shit in your own home, watch Wendy Williams and go out to brunch with your sassy girlfriends. I did not understand that the whole price you have to pay for staying at home is that you’ve gotta be a mom. Oh, and that’s a job. It’s a wack-ass job. You get no 401(k), no co-workers. You’re just in solitary confinement all day long with this human Tamagotchi ... That don’t got no reset button, so the stakes are extremely high.”
On Miscarriage
“I’m very grateful to be pregnant and to be this far along, to be seven and a half months pregnant, because, last year, I had a miscarriage, which is very common. And a lot of women who are in their 20s flip out when they hear that. They’re like, ‘Oh, my God. That’s so dark and terrible. I can’t believe that.’ I’m 33. Girl, when you’re 33, you’ll know plenty of women who have had a miscarriage. It’s super-common, and I wish more women would talk about it so they wouldn’t feel so bad when they go through it. When I told my mom ― she’s from a third-world country, and when I told her I had one, she was like, ‘Uh, yeah. Where I’m from, that’s like losing a pair of shoes. It’s whatevs, OK?’ And everything happens for a reason. I found out at my six-week sonogram, which is very early. And the doctor says to me, ‘Oh, my God, I see two sacks, which means you’re having twins.’ And I was like, ‘No!’ And then she said, ‘But what I don’t see is a heartbeat.’ And I was like, ‘Yes! The Lord is mysterious!’ Don’t feel bad, OK? They were the size of poppy seeds. I’ve picked boogers larger than the twins that I lost. And most women won’t let their husbands watch when they’re going through a miscarriage. I sat my husband down in front of me while I sat on the toilet, and I was like, ‘You look. You watch the whole thing.’ And he felt so bad for me. And I used it as leverage and held that shit over his head for a month and got him to do whatever the fuck I wanted him to do for 30 days.”
On Maternity Leave
“In every other first-world country ― Canada, France, Germany ― women get up to three years of paid maternity leave. In the U.S. we get jack shit. There is zero federal policy for maternity leave. Maternity leave is not just to bond with the baby, fuck the baby. Maternity leave is for new moms to hide and heal their demolished-ass bodies. I couldn’t go back to work topless beating my wet titty trying to establish dominance over my co-workers.”
On Stopping Nursing
“I had to stop breastfeeding after eight and a half months. I could not take it anymore. By the end, I felt like ‘The Giving Tree.’ I used to not understand what that depressing-ass book was about. And now I know it’s about breastfeeding! It’s about a mom who used to have all of these beautiful branches and apples, and then this little freeloader comes into her life, takes all of her shit, and then she just becomes a sad-ass tree stump with deflated titties! People kept on asking me, ‘Ali, how did you get so skinny after the baby?’ She sucked the life outta me! As it turns out, breastfeeding is not free because you have to buy all of these pillows and pumps to support your breastfeeding, and then you might get a clogged duct. That’s when you get like a traffic jam kidney stone in your titty, and then you have to call a lactation consultant. A lactation consultant is a white NPR listener with dreadlocks, named Indigo, that you have to pay $200 to rush over to your house and Roto-Rooter your titty. Indigo had me do pushups, dipping my titty in and out of a bowl of scalding hot water, and then beat my titty like this in the interim.”
On Poop
“A toy Tamagotchi is more communicative than a human baby, OK? Because the toy will at least tell you when it poos. With a human baby, you just have to guess and check your intuition by sniffing its ass … 26 times a day. And you can’t phone it in and sniff it from afar. You really gotta flip the baby over, plant your face in the baby’s ass and give it a good yoga inhale with your mouth and everything because the inside of your nose has been singed from all the poo-poo smelling.”