Pretending you’re not a scared parents

Colleen Brennan: I find the hardest thing about parenting other than parenting is like when you have to pretend not to be afraid of the same shit your kids are afraid of. Yeah, because at two o’clock in the morning when my son comes running into my room terrified because he thinks there’s something under his bed, what I wanna say is, oh my God, I think you’re right. Let’s get the hell outta here.

But I can’t say that. That would make me a bad mom, so I have to get really clever and say something like, “Hey babe, it’s okay. Let’s wake up your dad.”

Andrea Marie: We are Moms Unhinged, a nationally touring standup comedy show. Join us in our podcast as we explore everything from motherhood, midlife, crisis, marriage, divorce, online dating, menopause, and other things that irritate us.

Being told early that theatre wasn’t a “real” career

Andrea Marie: Hello everybody and welcome to Moms Unhinged, the podcast. I am here with the amazing Colleen Brennan, one of our Chicago based comedians. Welcome, Colleen. It’s so good to be talking to you.

Colleen Brennan: I am so excited to have this little moment in the middle of a week of craziness, so yay.

Andrea Marie: I know. It is Thanksgiving week, Thanksgiving tomorrow, and we’re recording a podcast. Why not? Because we need a moment to ourselves.

Colleen Brennan: It is almost like therapy. Andrea, I feel like you’re pro. You’re providing me a service that I’m not even paying for.

Andrea Marie: That’s the secret. I did not tell everyone that this is my therapy session.

Colleen Brennan: Yeah. So let’s get into it.

Andrea Marie: So awesome, Colleen. You’ve been touring around with Moms Unhinged and you have done been doing comedy in Chicago for a long time. Tell us how you got into comedy. What was that journey like?

Colleen Brennan: Well, my journey is going to make me sound like I’m borderline insane, but, essentially, thank you.

Yeah, yeah,

Andrea Marie: Which we all are.

Colleen Brennan: I mean, it goes in line with the whole therapy we got going on now. So long story, not too long I. Started as a kid, like acting and singing and doing all that stuff.

But I was told very early on that by my parents that just wasn’t gonna be a career choice. When I told them my major was theater and they were like, we don’t think so.

Andrea Marie: I know, I know. That was my dad too. He is like, I’m not paying for that.

Colleen Brennan: This is not. Well, isn’t that sweet? You know? That’s so cute. That’s what you think you want. So anyway. I didn’t do that, did journalism so I could be in front of a camera. I mean, I have just been begging for attention my whole life. I decided to like, figure out, well, how can I do it on this side?

A scathing mid-life crisis and looking for answers

Colleen Brennan: And so I still kept up with acting. I studied at Second City, I auditioned and got through their conservatory program, which was amazing. And improv was wonderful and it felt really comfortable and great. There was some jerk in my improv classes who would say to me, you’re not really a comedian unless you do stand up.

And I’m like, okay, buddy, get over So, anyway, I was like, that’s insane and I’ll never do that. So then in the middle of a scathing midlife crisis, I went to go see an energy reader because that’s what you do.

Yeah. Well, I’m in Colorado. Listen, we’re just seeing. That’s what we do in line at the grocery stores. working with energy readers.

See this, I knew this was gonna be therapeutic because I’m slightly less crazy feeling right now. Okay? So I was like, so I didn’t tell anybody and I just went to go see this woman and when I sat down with her, she looked at me and she said, yeah, you belong on stage. Everything’s good. You know, this is your calling and you should try standup comedy.

Andrea Marie: Whoa. She said that to you?

Colleen Brennan: And I was like, um, weird. But maybe that’s the second person. The first person was kind of a jerk when he said it, but I mean, you’re all woo woo and fabulous. So I signed up for standup comedy classes.

Andrea Marie: Wow.

Colleen Brennan: And I don’t do anything halfway. I kind of jump in, all in, and then repeat it several times. So I did Second City standup classes and then I did Fem Com here in Chicago, which is run through the Lincoln Lodge.

And that was lovely too. And through, I think I took essentially four standup classes to try to build material because I was also a mom and my kids were still young and I was trying to build material, but I didn’t have time.

Andrea Marie: Right. It’s such a common theme that’s been running through our comedians that we’re like, we can’t go to open mics like, at 10:30 at night every night or whatever people are doing. We’re like, we need to get in there, get it done in a pretty structured way because we just don’t have the time to just mess around.

Colleen Brennan: And so I’m paying a babysitter to essentially go babysit because like everybody there. Was I definitely, if not, could have been their unfortunate teenage mother at some point. I was definitely old enough to be their mom. Do you know what I mean?

Andrea Marie: I know, I know. It is very hard to relate to. I’m like, oh my God. We are in just such different worlds and you’re probably not gonna get my material and I’m certainly not gonna get yours.

Colleen Brennan: Well, what an amazing challenge that was, right. So I will say then at the same time, it was awesome because you knew if you could get like half stoned, drunk, 20 something guys laugh 10:30 on a Wednesday night. It could play everywhere maybe.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, yeah. Talk about battling uphill on that audience. Yeah, for sure. That will hone your craft real quick.

Colleen Brennan: So anyway, so it felt good being back on stage and doing it that way. And so I still do whatever I can and I have a day job that allows me to be somewhat flexible.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, that’s great. That’s great. I love that you are here because of an energy healer. You know what? I know. It’s awesome. That is awesome. And I know how fun, how fun.

Is it harder to raise boys or girls?

Andrea Marie: And we were talking be beforehand that you are a boy mom. You have two boys, right? Two.

Two boys. So we are gonna get into, I’m a boy mom as well.

So we are gonna get into that a little bit. How challenging that can be and different. P arenting is challenging no matter what. Really. Here, I’ll ask you this question. Do you think having boys was easier than having girls?

Colleen Brennan: I mean, that is an excellent question. I’m not qualified necessarily to answer it because I haven’t had girls, but I will say that every girl mom I know is pretty much convinced that it’s harder to raise girls than boys. And I have several objections to that.

Andrea Marie: Mm-hmm, interesting. Let’s get into that. What objections do you have to that?

Colleen Brennan: Okay, you’re given a roadmap at the beginning of this, if you’ve got a same gendered child, okay. Meaning you have a girl, I’m a girl. I sort of know what the girl journey is like. I don’t know what the boy journey is like. So I feel you’re at an advantage when you have a child of the same gender.

Andrea Marie: Uh huh, interesting. Yeah, I freaked out when I, I we didn’t find out for either kid, but Me neither. Yeah. so when I had the, when I had my first son, I was like, oh, oh no. Oh God, I had a sister. I don’t know what to do with this. You know? I was kind of freaked out.

Colleen Brennan: Kind of. I mean, it’s a whole separate, it’s a separate set of equipment. There’s a different operating manual, like, I don’t know. And my husband traveled so extensively. I mean, he was gone. You know, I don’t wanna say I was a single parent, ’cause that’s not fair to single parents. But he was gone half the time and a lot of out of the country travel.

And so I was often doing stuff alone because I had to and with two boys and like a time difference between where he was located and I was located. It wasn’t convenient to call him up and be like, Hey, there’s something going on with his equipment. And I’m not sure what that means and I can Google it, but I’m afraid that like porn sites are gonna start finding me.

So I’m just in a bind. Gimme a call. Lemme know. What do I do, I don’t know.

Andrea Marie: Oh, man. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Nancy Norton, one of our headliners talked about. She was a single mom. She talked about she didn’t know on the underwear that didn’t need to go through that little flap. She was like, I was doing a weave. I was weaving it back and forth. She’s like, I didn’t know, and I was the same way.

I was like, what is this flap for? What, why?

I mean, I think they should just sew the flap shut. I can’t say that. Sew the flap shut.

I know, I have no idea. Where did that from? Yeah. So that is definitely a challenge. So that’s definitely objective to, or an objection to it’s easier. I do think, I don’t know how you felt about this, but I do think, I sometimes was struggling with like, understanding how they were really feeling, you know. They just wouldn’t always share, you know, not as much.

Teaching kids to communicate too well

Andrea Marie: Maybe it’s too much sharing with girls, but it’s definitely swings way, way to no sharing with the boys. A lot of one word answers to things. I don’t know if you had the same thing.

Colleen Brennan: No, it was completely the opposite. They shared too much.

Andrea Marie: Oh.

Colleen Brennan: I didn’t want to. No, no, no.

Nope. There were a few things. I was like, you know what? It’s okay if I don’t know that. It would be better to hold that inside. Okay, I’m gonna encourage you. So in my day job.

I’m a pediatric speech language pathologist, so communication has always been very important to me, and I’m passionate about it. So I think I taught my kids to express themselves freely and openly to me. And it was definitely a little healthier for them, but maybe not as healthy for me.

So I would say that was not my experience. I’m like, is there something you’d rather? Maybe you should talk to your dad about that. And they’re like, no, I wanna. Like, I was telling, okay, so one day, this is interesting. So one day I was sitting. In the living room watching television with my older son.

And there was like a commercial on where it was clear that characters who were friends were gonna get together in that way.

And so he was probably like 10 and he looked over at me with like behind. And with eyes and questioning face. And I looked back at him and I thought I’d like run it off at the pass, right?

Like just head it off. Direct him properly for whatever questions he might be experiencing in his brain at that moment. And so I said, Hey babe, looks like you have a question. Is there something you wanna talk about with your dad? And he looked at me and he goes, no, mom, I think I wanna talk to you. I was like.

Andrea Marie: No.

Colleen Brennan: I was like, ah. So I said, okay, kiddo. That’s great. Let’s hold onto this. You find me later and we’ll sit down and have a talk. ‘Cause I thought he’d forget.

Right? Like, whatever we’re in.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Colleen Brennan: I like hid for the rest of the day. I think he wouldn’t find me. And then he did, which was unfortunate.

So he comes in and he is like, Hey mom, what is sex? I And so I was like, okay, this wasn’t supposed to be part of my conversation with my kids. I was raised Catholic, so I was like Catholic, and I’m like, okay, so I did the man who loves a woman thing, yada, yada, yada.

And I started explaining the stuff that happens and all of a sudden he looks at me. And he starts screaming, oh my God, I’m never doing that. I’m never doing that. Ah, ah. And then I realize that I have just ruined my son’s sex life before he is even had a chance to ruin it himself. Like, what am I doing?

Andrea Marie: Oh my gosh.

Colleen Brennan: Then I start like overcompensating. I’m like, no, no, babe. It’s wonderful. It’s great. You’re gonna love it. You’re gonna wanna do it all the time.

Andrea Marie: You’re gonna wanna do it all the time. He’s horrified.

Colleen Brennan: Horrified. Horrified. I’m horrified, I’m turning red. I don’t even know if you can see it you can see it. There’s a reason it’s been a journey.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, yeah. That is so funny. And that’s hilarious. The birds and the bees talk gone wrong.

Colleen Brennan: Hardcore hardcore. He’s leaving. I’m like, okay, I couldn’t even say good talk. It was

Andrea Marie: bad talk.

Good talk, bad talk.

Colleen Brennan: Here’s a card for my therapist.

Andrea Marie: That’s so funny. And then, so his dad, was your husband was out of town at that point?

Colleen Brennan: No, no, no. He was in town. My son chose to share that with me.

Andrea Marie: Oh my goodness. Oh, that is tough. So that was your oldest. Did you do anything different for your youngest? Is that, I mean, that’s sometimes what happens. We try and lesson learned, but it still doesn’t go right.

Colleen Brennan: No, I think that with my youngest. You know, I feel like my kids were, are three, three and a half years apart, three years apart, three years apart. I can’t even remember anymore. And so he kind of like, I think he was always trying to prove that he knew things, you know? Oh, yeah, I got

Andrea Marie: it.

I’m cool, I’m cool. I got it. I know, and I do feel like the older siblings sometimes, you know, likes to share the knowledge a little bit, and they’re like, whoa. Yeah.

Colleen Brennan: Yeah, I remember that I was in the position where I had to have the conversation.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, okay.

Colleen Brennan: Because he also wanted to talk to me, not his father.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Colleen Brennan: By the way. Their dad is a great dad. He’s a wonderful dad.

Yeah. They have good relationships. They just don’t wanna talk about feelings with him or anything. So yeah, we had the talk. It was truncated. I definitely channeled different responses from whatever previous experience I had before. I was trying to do the opposite. I think I succeeded. Nevertheless, it was awkward.

Marriage, Catholic school, and raising boys in the Church

Andrea Marie: Yeah, yeah. Oh man, that’s so harsh. And now you’ve been married to your husband? 31 years. 31 years, that’s awesome. That’s so great. And you were talking a little bit about you both met in Catholic, was it Catholic High school?

Colleen Brennan: Mm-hmm, yeah.

Andrea Marie: Oh, that’s so cool. And then did your boys go to Catholic high school?

Colleen Brennan: So yeah. We met in high school. We didn’t start dating until. College. We were very, very close friends all through high school and college. And then I told him to, I had a huge crush on him. Told him to get a real date, and at that point he realized that he liked me too. But it took like seven or eight years.

Anyway, we raised the boys in Catholic grade school because I wanted them just so both of our families were Catholic. My mom was a nun. Okay, for a little while. It was very short-lived. She realized. Yeah, I have an inappropriate joke that I could say, but I’m not gonna say it unless you wanna edit it out.

But she was a nun until she knew what nun meant anyway.

Andrea Marie: It’s a big commitment.

Colleen Brennan: Yeah, it’s a big commitment. So and then my husband’s family was really Catholic. He’s the youngest of eight.

Andrea Marie: Mm.

Colleen Brennan: And so it was really important to our mothers. That the kids be raised Catholic. We didn’t even baptize our babies for like the first year.

You can’t break a promise to a priest

Colleen Brennan: My mom asked a priest to come over to the house when my son was about 11 months old because she was like, oh my god. This kid’s soul is not gonna make, it’s not gonna make it happen. My daughter is dragging her feet on this whole baptism thing. So we meet with the priest, we have the whole conversation.

I tell him exactly how I want the baptism to be, what I want it to look like. I don’t want it. Can we just? and he was like, yeah, yeah, I’ll do whatever you wanna do. And I was like, okay, great. And he’s like, you just have to promise to send them to Catholic school and join a parish.

Andrea Marie: Oh my gosh, wow.

Colleen Brennan: So you can’t like make a promise to a priest.

Andrea Marie: Right.

Colleen Brennan: And not follow through.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, that’s heavy. That is quite the exchange there.

Colleen Brennan: Right? And so then he leaned over and he put his thumb on my son and said, and I baptize you in the name of the father, son and the Holy Spirit. So he’s fine. We’ll have the ceremony whenever you guys choose to do it. And I was like, we just got baptism ambushed. Like that was.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Colleen Brennan: That was not what I was expecting. So anyway, we sent ’em to Catholic grade school, but that was it. I wanted to have like all the sacraments not have to go. It was mostly ’cause I was lazy, I didn’t wanna take ’em to Sunday school. So they did all that. But then for high school, they got to decide what they wanted to do.

Andrea Marie: Okay, and they chose public school. Is that? Yeah, public high school is an interesting experience. So, I mean, I don’t know. I never went to a private school or anything like that, so I can’t speak to it, but, you know, I think it’s good to get a range of experiences.

Colleen Brennan: Oh, it was a range. I’ve heard about the range because again, we overshare in our family.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Colleen Brennan: They went from a small Catholic school in like the Lincoln Park neighborhood in Chicago to the biggest high school in the city of Chicago.

Andrea Marie: Oh wow.

Colleen Brennan: And they were like, wow, mom. And then they would, and then I was asking them questions.

I’m like, what did you see in the hallway? What happened today? And they tell me a story and I was like, wow. Wow.

Andrea Marie: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. School is so different when, and I grew up in a pretty sheltered grade school. I remember like, there was nothing really happening. And then I went to a middle school where there was some fast kids. They had already like, made out with boys and stuff.

It was like, whoa.

Catholic guilt and learning about sin

Colleen Brennan: I think as Catholics grew up faster than our non-Catholic friends, I just, I think there was so much talk of sin that it just got us excited. Like they would outline the sins and like the levels of sinning and when they started talking about mortal sins and some of the things they were describing, I was like, it sounds pretty good. Confession, they’re gonna forgive us anyway. A few rosaries and that kiss is gone, so.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, that’s so funny. Oh, man. That is awesome. One thing I also like to ask guests is for an unhinged moment that happened, could be either your kids or for when you were a child, what’s an unhinged moment? So we can all feel a little more normal in our own lives and realize that, hey, it’s just we’re all barely holding it all together, you know?

The Wednesday-before-Thanksgiving traffic incident

Colleen Brennan: All right. There’s so many unhinged moments from my childhood that experienced with my parents, so I’m not gonna get into those, but it would be hard to choose. But one of ’em actually happened the day before Thanksgiving.

Andrea Marie: Oh, so here we are.

Colleen Brennan: For me, yeah. I had taken my kids, the David Bowie exhibit was downtown it was so cool.

If you’re into David Bowie, it was pretty fabulous, but it was at the, one of the art museums downtown, and so my kids were like, I don’t know, James was probably like, my youngest was probably like nine or 10. My oldest was 13 and I was like, do you wanna go see the Bowie exhibit? They’re like, yeah, we’re in.

Great. So it’s the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and traffic in Chicago is generally pretty terrible, but the Wednesday before Thanksgiving is a different circle of hell. It’s like right in the middle. So I was like, we’ll be fine. We’ll go early enough. We’ll come home early enough, it’ll be great.

So we’re in the car coming home. It was a good day. And the traffic was, it was like, you’re on just a side street with stop signs and stoplight and I’m trying to take all the alternate routes and there’s not, I mean, it was. It probably took us an hour to get home for a 15 minute drive. Okay.

Andrea Marie: Oh my gosh, yeah.

Colleen Brennan: And we live in the city. This is just going from downtown to like our north side neighborhood. Anyway, we also get a little passionate when we’re driving sometimes. And there was somebody trying to creep up around the right side to like cut me off and I could see her, I could see her inching up and inching up.

Now my kid is in the front seat and I got one kid in the back seat and this woman’s coming up on my right hand side. So she’s along the passenger side and I did an aggressive driving thing that I probably shouldn’t have done. Definitely not with the kids in the car where I just kind of block, I kind of like veered a little bit and just blocked her to make sure that she couldn’t cut me off because come on, you’re going up one car length, the head, there’s no room.

We’re bumper to bumper. And as I was doing this, she was right next to me window, but my kid’s in the passenger seat and I rolled down my window and I screamed across my son. That’s right, that’s right. Don’t blank with me on the day before Thanksgiving. Then I rolled up my window and my kids just look at me. They’re like, are you okay?

I am like, no. Clearly that was a bad decision. Don’t ever do that. You should not roll down windows and yell things profanities at other drivers when you’re blocking them off on. So that’s my unhinged moment.

Andrea Marie: That is so funny. It’s so wild how that traffic can get you so worked up. I mean, clearly that’s why there’s so many like crazy road rage situations. But it’s so weird to me, I’m like, where do you think you’re going? You know, one car? One car up? No. No one’s going anywhere. Just zipper.

Colleen Brennan: The reason why nobody’s going anywhere. And you’re the reason why we’re all mad. That nobody’s going anywhere.

Andrea Marie: My gosh, that’s hilarious.

Colleen Brennan: They tell this story to their friends. They tell this story. We’re at family parties, and they tell this story. They’re like, do you remember? Do you remember that day?

Andrea Marie: I know. Yeah, you gotta.

Colleen Brennan: She had her hand across you? Yeah.

Andrea Marie: The day before a day of gratitude. A day of thanks, I know.

Colleen Brennan: Right.

Andrea Marie: I know. The holidays can really get us going, you know? Right. It’s supposed to be some, yeah. You had this idea of like a magical family outing.

Colleen Brennan: They got a good story out of it. That’s all I can say. More fodder for the therapist.

Growing up in northwest Indiana

Andrea Marie: Right. Exactly. Exactly. And they get to see that, hey, we sometimes lose it too. So now you’re, are you from Indiana? You’re from Indiana.

Colleen Brennan: I grew up in northwest Indiana on Lake Michigan, so we were considered part of the Chicago metropolitan area.

Andrea Marie: Right, right. And you have a podcast called Defending Indiana.

Colleen Brennan: Defending Indiana.

Yes. Which I started with a comedian friend who is also from the same area of Indiana called the region.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Yeah.

Colleen Brennan: yeah.

Do

Andrea Marie: Yeah, I used to work in Hammond, Indiana. I know.

Colleen Brennan: I didn’t know that!

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Colleen Brennan: What did you do in Hammond?

Andrea Marie: I was an engineer, so that was what I went to school for. So that was my dad said, no, you’re not gonna do, you’re not gonna do drama, theater, whatever. So I’m like, okay, so I guess I’ll be an engineer instead.

Like, that’s pretty close, you know? So, yeah, I was an engineer. Engineer in Indiana. So I had a crazy long commute from the suburbs of Chicago. So yeah, that was wild.

Colleen Brennan: Wow. I never, Andrea, I didn’t know that.

Andrea Marie: That’s so funny.

Colleen Brennan: How long did you work in Hammond?

Andrea Marie: I worked there for about a year and then I found it. It was a weird job. It was really weird. And I was glad to get outta there.

So then I found a closer job to, where I lived in the suburbs, western suburbs. So that was a better fit. ’cause that commute was brutal. And I would, I mean, you talk about bumper to bumper traffic, I literally would bring a book to my commute and I would read my book while I’m sitting in traffic.

Colleen Brennan: Yeah. And I wanna just, for anybody who’s young listening to this, what Andrea has done with her hands is she’s literally opened a book. Okay?

She has signed opening a physical book. This was not an audio tape, this was not, Andrea is reading text on her commute.

Andrea Marie: Paper kids used to, books, used to come on paper.

Colleen Brennan: She’d turn a page put on her clicker. I love that. That’s fabulous.

Andrea Marie: Oh my goodness.

Colleen Brennan: Indiana.

Andrea Marie: And now your sons are older. Are they Are they married or are they, what are they doing?

Colleen Brennan: No, I’ve got one. My oldest son just turned 25, so actually lives near us downtown, in the city. My youngest son is a senior in college, so he is finishing his last year. And then, I don’t know, we’ll see what happens with both of them.

Andrea Marie: Yeah. I know, I know. And it’s weird that, you know, it’s what I didn’t know about parenting is that you, I did not know the level of worry you are gonna have for the rest of your life. You know? It’s like oh God, I hope they, I hope they can get a job. I hope they can.

Yeah, I thought we were done. I thought we just at 18 send them off and be like, good luck kids. I’ll see you at Christmas. No, still worrying about them.

Colleen Brennan: U worry about them and I worry about them coming home. Like I worry about what they’re bringing home. I worry about how much space it’s gonna take in my house. I worry about everything. Absolutely everything. Girlfriends, jobs.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Colleen Brennan: Did they make it home okay? Are they gonna take an Uber?

Did they ride the red line at an hour when I think it’s appropriate? That’s a train in Chicago. Right now I’m acutely worried about how much stuff they’re bringing over when they come to spend the night with us tonight, because we downsized.

Andrea Marie: Uhhuh.

Colleen Brennan: They exhale when they get here. It’s like this stuff is everywhere.

I don’t know what like for you. And it’s guys, I feel like guys have more stuff than girls or girls are better at containing their stuff than guys. I don’t know.

Andrea Marie: I think they’re better at picking up. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but like, you know, it’s definitely everywhere. It definitely just explodes. I t’s a challenge. And I have, so I am in the process of downsizing, so we still have space here, so it is, you can shut the door.

Colleen Brennan: We are lucky that we have that kind of space, but I get things like, you know, mom’s so picky. She doesn’t want us to leave our stuff on the kitchen counter.

Andrea Marie: I know.

Colleen Brennan: Like you’re gaslighting me right now. You’re telling me that it’s that I’m not normal because I want you to pick up the cereal boxes that are empty and sitting next to the trash.

Okay, right.

Andrea Marie: I know. And there is some level of trying to train them. Well for their future life. You’re like, okay. Let’s not be a total pig, you know?

Colleen Brennan: That’s one of my biggest worries. What are they like when they go to other people’s houses?

Andrea Marie: I know, I know for sure. And it’s funny ’cause I’m like, well, it, it is weird how. It does feel like our kids reflect on us. Like, I’m like, I hope they’re not, like, what?

What was wrong with her mom? She didn’t have that dialed in, but they’re their own kids. You know? Their own people, you know?

Colleen Brennan: Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. I just want them to pick up the dishes. Like if they’re sitting at dinner with their girlfriend’s family, Oof. but I’m trying not to tell them ’cause I’m trying to like let them. Like Mel Robbins tells us, oh, we gotta just let them.

So I’m letting them, I’m doing a lot of work on myself to just let them, but still at the same time, I’m like, oh, isn’t it wonderful?

Just one thing, I know you didn’t ask for any advice, but I’m gonna tell you, if you could just pick up your dish from the table when you’re with? Do you do that when you’re another, because you don’t do it here? So I don’t know, but do you know that that’s a good thing to do there?

Then I get the eye rolls and I’m like, of course mom.

Andrea Marie: I know, I know. It’s so hard biting our tongues and yet also still trying to parent. Oh, Yeah. well this has been so fun. Why don’t you tell people where they can find you, how they can listen to your podcast? Give us your information. We’ll have the links in the comments or in the show notes, but let us know where people can find you.

Colleen Brennan: Absolutely. Okay, so first of all, I hope you’re regularly checking the Moms Unhinged website.

Andrea Marie: Mm-hmm.

Colleen Brennan: to sign up for buying tickets to any of our shows. And I’ll be in several of those. So you can find me on that website. You can also find me at colleenisfunny.com. I try to update it. It’s been a little tricky lately for updating.

You can also find me on Instagram at Colleen Brennan comedy and definitely please check out our podcast, Defending Indiana, which is not what you think it is. Basically what it is, is two comedians who grew up in Indiana who hear a lot of jokes about Indiana and we try to dispel the myths and like offer people nuance.

It’s not just about Indiana, it’s about our country and being able to have conversations and understanding that we’re more alike than different. And we have amazing guests, we’ve had celebrity guests, a lot of politicians and authors and movie makers, and it’s been great.

Andrea Marie: That’s awesome. I love that so much. Yeah, awesome. Well check that out everybody, and thank you so much, Colleen, for joining us.

Colleen Brennan: Oh, it’s been so fun, Andrea. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Andrea Marie: You too.

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