A very real mom problem

Alyce Chan:  You would like this last week. I got to pee alone. Yeah cause you know, I was just complaining that we never get to pee alone. Right, it was a Thursday morning and I was at aisle nine at Costco when I sneezed.

Hot stream of pee, just ran down my left leg. Felt so good.

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.

Alyce Chan joins the podcast

Andrea Marie: Hello everyone and welcome to Moms Unhinged, the podcast. I’m your host, Andrea, and I am joined by the fantabulous, the amazing Alyce Chan calling in from New York. Oh, I’m so excited to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much, Alyce, for being here.

Alyce Chan: Oh my gosh. Thanks for having me, Andrea. It’s been way too long.

Andrea Marie: I know, I know. Seriously, I’m just excited to talk to you. It has been too long and we’ve had the holidays and we’re already in the new year, and you’ve got shows coming up next week with Moms Unhinged that I’m excited about too.

Alyce Chan: Me too.

Andrea Marie: Yeah yeah. So you guys, if you don’t know, you guys have to go check out Alyce’s Instagram.

She’s got a ton of viral videos. Hilarious little skits she does. I don’t know if that’s minimizing it. It’s just so funny. So many funny takes on the truth of parenting. I love the one where you, are getting robbed and you can’t find you. You’re pulling everything outta your purse. The guy just leaves.

Alyce Chan: Well, I don’t know, like I sometimes will leave the house without my wallet, but I’ll have everything from dog poopy bags. Now that I have a dog, I have an extra child to worry about. I’ve got like toys from birthday parties from like two years ago, and receipts, but not a wallet. So I can’t get, I can’t get robbed. The moms can’t get robbed, that’s my message.

Andrea Marie: It’s like, I have a random bobby pin, even though I never use them, but I don’t.

Alyce Chan: One time. you never know, right? So you keep all these random things because one day you’ll need it. Like one time we were like in the car and like, I think my husband needed a napkin ’cause he spill some coffee. And I was like, you are so lucky. I have these old napkins from my purse.

Andrea Marie: Crumpled up old napkins.

Alyce Chan: They’re from restaurants. Do you know when you go to a restaurant and it’s not used? I pocket those.

Andrea Marie: I do too. I’m like, this is horrible to just throw this away. I’m like, I stuff ’em in my glove compartment. I’ve got a glove compartment full of napkins.

Alyce Chan: Every angle there’s a napkin. I dunno how but there’s a napkin.

Andrea Marie: Well, just last week at a show, it was too funny. Nancy Norton, forgot her belt, and I pull out a big giant cord, a charging cord that she used for her belt.

Alyce Chan: How does she even forget that? That’s next, next level. How do you forget a belt when you’re wearing pants? She was wearing pants, right?

Andrea Marie: I know. yeah, she was.

Alyce Chan: Didn’t notice that until she got to the stage. That is classic, I love that.

Learning that love was shown, not said

Andrea Marie: I know. So good, so good. Well, I wanna talk today about, you know, we were talking a little bit beforehand about, and you’ve got so many great jokes about this, about, kind of the, what it’s like to grow up in intergenerational. You were talking about the trauma that you are trying to put a stop to.

Cause you do have some great sketches on your mom as well that are so funny about how she expresses love.

Alyce Chan: Yeah, yeah. I have yet to mimic my dad, but my mom has never said I love you. And that’s a fact. Like that she, my joke is she couldn’t pronounce it, but she had different styles of, you know, love language and that was just cooking food. But it took me many years to realize that. And all my white friends, I can hear like, I’ll go to their house and I’ll hear, I love you, I love you.

I’m like, why? Why don’t I get that? My dad never said it. He just gave me money all the time. So I became really rich and I’m like, I don’t need anyone to say I love you. I got a down payment on a car. But it took me a while to learn that different people have different ways to say love. Especially immigrant parents who really had to survive to come here to America.

And it’s like a scarcity mindset. They don’t have time to say love.

Andrea Marie: Yeah. They’re busy, they’re working.

Alyce Chan: They’re busy. They just do it by action. And it’s a survival. You need two things, money and food. And that’s what I got. And I’m here today and I survived. So well done Mom and Dad. But so opposite from them. I say it so much to my kids that it’s annoying now.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, yeah.

Alyce Chan: They’re like, stop, stop. And I’m like, but I love you so much. It’s like almost creepy.

Andrea Marie: It’s swinging the other way. They’re gonna never, now, they’re gonna never tell their kids I love you. ’cause they’re like, my mom said it too much.

Alyce Chan: Right. This generation. That’s fine, that’s my aim.

Growing up with Chinese immigrant parents

Andrea Marie: Yeah. Now, are your parents first, first generation immigrants?

Alyce Chan: They are both, they were both from China, my dad’s specifically in Hong Kong. But they spoke Cantonese. And so in our household we only spoke Cantonese and I was very ashamed of my language and I would try to mimic English. And my sister and I, she’s 18 months older than I, and we would just be like, like just trying to mimic English because we were so ashamed speaking Chinese.

And now like I am telling my kids, you have to learn Chinese. And so they’re learning Mandarin on the computer once a week. They give me shit for it, but I’m like, no, you’re gonna want this one day when, you know, China rules the world. It’s always good to have multiple languages like your brain just responds.

differently. Right, right. For sure. And it can really lead to just different opportunities. You have the, you know, it could be in business, it could be in all kinds of things as we become more global nations. So it just, I mean, world, whatever it feels like, it’s just all of good skill.

It is. Like my little one and I, we can speak Cantonese. He understands it fully because the way I taught him was different from my first son and so now we can talk behind their backs. Like I can talk about my husband in at the dinner table in front of him and they won’t even know, like just like conversing in Cantonese is great.

So it’s a great way to like talk behind people’s back, you know.

Parenting older kids and realizing everything changes

Andrea Marie: Yeah, yeah. That’s hilarious. That’s so funny. Now your boys are, how old are, what ages?

now?

Alyce Chan: They are nine and the 11 year old’s turning 12 next week. And I’m very it’s so, it’s scary and like, you know, we wanna keep them small. And I’m like, how do you stop time? You can’t stop time. But I can’t believe he’s 12.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, yeah. It is a scary time. ’cause I think you just know what’s coming for him. You know? You know how hard middle school is.

Alyce Chan: Yes, puberty. The girls, the heartbreaks, and then the pressure and the sports and the friend groups. There’s so much more pressure and it’s kind of like you, you know, you’re not really kid anymore. I saw something on Instagram about like how boys or girls, how they learn to play sports and at every age is different.

For them, their perspective changes. At eight years old, it’s fun. And at 10, they start looking at their parents’ reactions. Am I making a mistake? Do they want more from me? This is too much pressure. It’s totally a different, like no pun intended, ball game from eight to 12.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Alyce Chan: So

Andrea Marie: There’s so much more editing and like worry about shame and you know, just trying to fit in and all that stuff.

Alyce Chan: Yeah. And it’s also as a parent, like, I know how to parent when you’re three or four, you play with them, you know, when you give them naps and nourishing food and now 12. I’m like, you have to know how to talk to them. And I don’t know if I’m gonna say something wrong, or like I don’t wanna shame them. You like it’s hard to unpack what my trauma is.

Andrea Marie: I know.

Alyce Chan: And be a good role model and also be a healthy parent.

Andrea Marie: Right. I know I always, I have a joke about, I’m worried I’m gonna get blamed for something I didn’t even know I was doing wrong ’cause our parents didn’t know either. You know? They didn’t know that they just weren’t raised in ab area that said, I love you as much.

You know, and that’s what they did.

Alyce Chan: Did your parents say, I love you?

Andrea Marie: They didn’t a lot. It was definitely, we got hugs, we got a lot of support so that, you know, for sure. I felt the love I felt the support. They didn’t come to, you know, events or anything like that. Like they didn’t watch us.

But no one did. I was always like, Heather, what is your mom doing here? That’s so weird. You know?

Alyce Chan: Oh my gosh, because I, my dad and mom never came to my events. But I saw a lot of parents at the, I mean, the whole room was parents. But I was like, oh, my mom and dad aren’t here, but they’re working.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Alyce Chan: B ut I remember, I did feel a little hurt as a child.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, yeah, for sure. It is like, it is if you see, if everyone’s mom is there and you know, dad is there, whatever. That is like, kind of like you notice the absence, you know?

Alyce Chan: Then you notice.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, yeah. For sure. And now so your mom and dad live near you?

Alyce Chan: So my dad passed in 2022, late 2022. And my mom is in Vancouver, Canada.

So she’s like a five and a half hour flight from here and a three hour time zone. So there’s like time zone difference at international borders. So it’s quite a trek like when I plan to visit her, it has to be really planned out.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, that’s hard.

Alyce Chan: And I didn’t know, you know, when you become a parent, you actually need your mom and your dad.

Andrea Marie: Oh, for sure, for sure.

Alyce Chan: Help, I need advice. I just need like some like comfortable support group that knows what they’re doing.

Andrea Marie: Yeah. Sometimes you just need to vent and like, get it out and have someone listen and you know.

Alyce Chan: Yeah.

How Alyce got into standup comedy

Andrea Marie: That knows your history and your background and everything, and knows your yeah, it’s hard. I know, for sure. Well, I wanna also ask like, when did you start standup comedy?

How did you get into it? I love to ask our comedians that, because it feels like so many journeys are different in that, and now you’re out there, you’re doing so much comedy, you’re traveling around. Tell us about how you got started.

Alyce Chan: I started in improv ’cause I wanted to be an actor at first. And then I was like, when I was in New York, I was like, in my late twenties, I’m like, ah, no one’s gonna hire a late twenties Asian girl. There’s no roles for us. So I was like, eh what’s next? People say I’m funny. Okay, I’ll do improv. I did improv.

I didn’t really like it because I felt like I realized I was such an introvert and I had to really think before I could say something on stage, and there were so many actors on stage that were ready to take the spotlight, and I couldn’t compete with that energy. So then someone told me try standup.

I took a couple. I took courses at Caroline’s when it was still at Times Square. I took another course at Comedy Cellar. And then after my first couple grad shows, I think I felt like, wow. Like I felt empowered because I was able to turn some of the painful moments as a child into jokes that then made people laugh.

And that felt like so empowering to me because I felt heard and I think that’s what I wanted. Like I wanted to feel that control. And I realized, oh my gosh, this is like free therapy. You know, I’m Chinese, I’m cheap, I’m never gonna pay for therapy. So then I started doing more, you know, I would go do open mics and then I stopped when I was pregnant.

I felt different too when I was pregnant doing open mics in front of the guys that were like, in their twenties, they would give me looks like, that’s not funny. I don’t wanna hear.

Andrea Marie: I don’t get it. Oh.

Alyce Chan: Like, we talk about like nuts and ball sack. And so I stopped doing it and I was like, maybe comedy’s not for me.

And I started just really focusing on motherhood and I’m like, I’m just gonna be, I’m gonna try to be the perfect mom to my baby. To baby yoga. And it wasn’t until 2016, my second was born and I felt I was feeling a void for a while and I was kind of like in and out of depression, but I didn’t know why and I figured it was that I wasn’t fulfilled.

And I was trying to do all these things like photography, anything in the creative field. But nothing would fulfill this void until 2016. I had my second baby and I went to, I dropped in an all women’s standup comedy show by Kendra Cunningham, and I went up to her after the show and I was like, hi. I used to do comedy.

And I was like, oh my God, that’s so stupid. And she’s like, great, when would you like to come on the show? And I couldn’t believe that she would put me on her show.

And I did. After two months, she put me on a show, I bombed. And also I was talking about things that didn’t really exist in my life anymore.

I was talking about dating in New York City, living with a cat, living with mice in a New York apartment. That wasn’t my life anymore. And then I was like, I gotta change my content. And so then I started talking about motherhood, but also I thought, like, who wants to hear about motherhood? That’s so boring.

Creating a “Bring Your Own Baby” comedy show for new parents

Alyce Chan: And I couldn’t get on any shows, believe it or not. No. Like, no one would put me on their show. So I decided, you know, Andrea. You know how to, obviously you’re a queen of production. You can produce anything you want, right? So I was like, I’m gonna produce a show for our parents and I am going to do it at 10:30 in the morning.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Alyce Chan: And so I called it a B-Y-O-B, Bring Your Own Baby. And that was for moms and dads who were on maternity and paternity leave, who could bring their newborns in a safe space. Watch pro comics. What are pro comics doing at 10:30 AM anyway?

Andrea Marie: You are right. That’s so perfect.

Alyce Chan: So I got all the great comics.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, parents can’t stay out. Parents are dead at 7:30 or 8 pm. They’re like, no, we’re not going out. They need have a sitter.

Alyce Chan: Exactly. They have to pay for a sitter, they have to go out, they need to sleep, and they’re not even going to sleep. So it was such a perfect concoction because the parents were happy to get adult time and the newborns didn’t understand what we were saying. So we could like swear and tell dirty jokes.

I was talking like shit about my husband while I was wearing my baby. It great. And 45 minutes of kids were like babies were tired. It was nap time. And the community started building. I started that in Greenpoint and I know some of the moms that used to go there and we’ve reconnected and now our kids are like grown.

But that’s how it started. And then I just, you know, pandemic happened. Then I went on social media and then from there it just grew. I mean, social media is such a, it’s a free advertisement. You put everything out there and you just hope to get exposed.

Andrea Marie: Right, right. But I love that so much that you like thought outside the box. You saw a hole and a need and you fulfilled it with a show and just what a perfect like blend of everything. Serving the comedian, serving the mom, serving, just our need for community at the stage of our lives where God, it’s so isolating having a newborn.

You’re like, you’re stuck in your house. You can’t do anything.

Alyce Chan: You’re not talking to anybody and you’re just like, all you’re doing is like baby stuff, baby language, baby shows. But also like that’s why I love when I found out about Moms Unhinged. That’s why I loved your show so much. I’m like, finally something for women, for moms. No matter what stage you’re at, you can talk about anything that mothers go through and there’s so much.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, yeah.

Alyce Chan: And there’s such a draw, like women flock to your shows. And I love that. I love women going to groups with their friends or like even date night.

Andrea Marie: I know.

Alyce Chan: So I mean, you’re doing such an amazing job with Moms Unhinged and it’s always such a fun show. You always have different lineups and everyone’s such different stories. It’s so much fun.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, that’s what I love too, is that I really feel like there’s something for everyone in these shows, you know? ‘Cause we’re talking about all the different stages and just remembering when it just felt like you were insane. You know? You’re like, am I crazy? What is happening here?

Alyce Chan: Yeah.

Why so many comedians are introverts

Andrea Marie: So yeah. So, so good. I wanna just circle back to a couple things you mentioned. First of all, I just, I love that you put that show together and get that going. But I think it’s so interesting you mentioned a while ago about being an introvert with doing the improv.

And I think that is such an interesting thing about standup comics that people don’t even understand is that a lot of standup comics are introverted. You know it. People think, oh, you are so extroverted getting up there, you’re so brave getting up there. But it is really about being heard and like telling your story and you know.

Yeah. I mean, have you like people always ask, were you like super nervous getting up, doing standup the first? Yeah.

Alyce Chan: Oh, every single show. I’m nervous.

Andrea Marie: I know. Me too. Me too. People ask, how do you get over it? I’m like, I don’t.

Alyce Chan: No. Oh my gosh, have to like pee six times. I need to know where the restroom is. I can’t drink water right before a show. I can’t eat before a show and like I’m always so relieved after a show. I like, why am I doing this again? Why am I? Why do I put myself through this? I’m like in a state of panic and like I’m nerves are just like all over and I’m lucky I haven’t even thrown up. Like that’s why I don’t eat.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Alyce Chan: There’s no chance I’m gonna get sick and throw up right before I go. But I keep doing it. I don’t know why I feel like one day I’m gonna be tired of it, but until then I’m like, I’m gonna keep doing it.

I don’t know what’s possessing me to keep going on stage, but I love it for now.

Andrea Marie: Yeah. And I love that you are able to bring that voice of the immigrant parents. The way you grew up, because I think so many of us assume that everyone had supportive parents or had, you know, or whatever. You know, it’s just we can all relate to some of those things where we just got hurt or all the struggles.

Kind

Alyce Chan: I’m surprised too, like I didn’t think some of my immigrant parents stuff would land. And a lot of people even like, you know, the white folks, like you resonate and some like Latino, the Latino community or like, although it was like my mom, that was my dad or Italians or like, that’s how we say love, it’s about food or Indian culture.

A lot of overlap, a lot of similarities, and it’s really nice because I’m like, oh wow, it’s not just the Chinese.

The parenting moment Alyce still isn’t proud of

Andrea Marie: Yeah, that’s so great. Well, tell us about, the other thing I like to always ask is tell us about kind of an unhinged moment that you had either, I mean, there’s so many, right? As a parent or with your parents. What crazy story comes to mind that we can all probably relate to in some way or another?

Alyce Chan: Okay. I don’t know if you can relate to this, but I am the most unproud of this moment. We lived in Brooklyn and I was picking up my three and a half year old from pre-K and I had the infant or my second one in the stroller, and we were coming back from school. I said, did you eat all your lunch?

And my three and a half year old was like, mm, no. I’m like, what? You didn’t eat your lunch? And I remember I had a banana packed in there and it was all bruised and I was so upset because now the banana’s bruised. No one’s going to eat it. It’s like what a waste. That’s my Chinese scarcity.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Alyce Chan: And I pack, like I woke up an extra 15 minutes early to pack your lunch and none of it was eaten. So I was so mad. I took the lunchbox and I threw it on the ground next to the playground, so everybody saw and I was like, oh my God. Like I was, I don’t know what I was doing, but I was enraged. And then I looked at my kid.

I am not proud of this, Andrea. And I’m going to tell you this because I have apologized to my son as well, disclaimer. I look at him and I go pick it up. Oh my God. And I’m like, as I was saying, I was like, what the fuck am I doing? And I just said it because I was so mad. And then he goes and he picks up the banana and the lunchbox, and I’m just, I’m still fuming.

Now I’m mad because I got so mad. I let myself get so mad.

Scarcity mindset, mom rage, and apologizing to your kids

Alyce Chan: And then, it’s so funny because last week we actually went back to Greenpoint to do a little reminiscing. We walked along the same park and my 11 year old’s like, how come this park looks so much smaller now? I’m like, oh, ’cause you got so much bigger.

And I was like, do you remember this part where I threw your lunchbox on the ground? And he goes, yes. I was like, you know, mommy is really sorry about that, right? And he goes, yeah, I know you’ve said it many times. I’m like, I’m so sorry. He remembers, but I think most importantly he remembers that mommy feels like shitbag for that, and that I have apologized.

Andrea Marie: I know. Isn’t it so funny how the rage? Like I just remember like I could literally see red. I never understood that saying until I had kids and I was like, oh my God, I thought I was a calm person. But I am seeing red right now. That is just, that is hilarious. The banana is bruised and bananas are 10 cents. It’s so funny. We just don’t.

Alyce Chan: Are they? Are they 10 cents? 35 cents in large amount. Back then? Yeah, they’re 10 cents.

Andrea Marie: It’s so so funny how we react to that. And it is probably like years of that scarcity that we were brought up with. Like you’ve gotta eat your food, don’t waste food, you know. And it is, it’s funny sometimes.

Alyce Chan: Yeah,

Andrea Marie: love that.

Alyce Chan: But it also made me understand my mom’s rage because she used to hit us with a dust, like a bamboo stick. It was like a dust feather butt. She used to stick and she would hit our butts and she would make us kneel. And I remember she was so angry. I don’t know what we were doing, but she would yell at us.

And I always thought she was like psychotic when I was little. And now I’m like, I get it.

Andrea Marie: I know.

Alyce Chan: I know why. She had trouble in her marriage. She had to work. She was stressed. I had to make dinner.

My sister and I were fighting. Of course. She was like, I totally get it.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, yeah. The fighting definitely would always get to me too. And it’s funny, one time I was in the zoo parking lot and my son was two and he was having a tantrum and there was a line of cars waiting for my spot ’cause it was really crowded at the zoo.

And he was arching his back doing one of those things, you couldn’t get him in the car seat. He’s two. And I like slapped him across the face. I was like, what? What? What did I just do? And he was so stunned that he just stopped screaming and I was able to buckle. But then I have just felt terrible ever since. I was like, oh my god.

Alyce Chan: Oh, Andrea, that’s worse than my banana story. Thank you.

Andrea Marie: I know, I know. We do these things. We’re rational people, we are rational, well educated. Like we’ve gone through therapy some, you know, whatever or standup It just is so crazy.

Alyce Chan: It’s a indicator that we have too much on our plate because we are not programmed to take on so much.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, there’s so much.

Alyce Chan: When moms react like that, it’s not because of that banana or because your kid didn’t wanna go in the seat, it’s too much on our plate. And we have to take some off.

Andrea Marie: Yeah. And you’ve got, you’re juggling so much. You’re waking up, you’re thinking wait three steps ahead to wake up early so that you can pack the lunch so that you can get there on time so that you know all of that stuff. And then, yeah sometimes you just snap.

Alyce Chan: Yeah. And that, that’s like a big sign, like slow down. We’re not programmed to take on this much. Motherhood back then wasn’t a single person’s job.

Andrea Marie: No, and it wasn’t like, we’ve gotta do all the things. Like I went to the, we went to the zoo. I remember gonna the zoo like three times, ever. You know? Now we’re like taking the kids to the zoo every month or whatever. You know?

Alyce Chan: The memberships, like how often are you going to the zoo? You don’t need to go to the zoo.

Like, you can just like go look at a raccoon and birds are all over the sky. Look up.

Andrea Marie: I know. Oh my gosh. Ugh, so crazy. So your boys are a little bit younger and what, like then, well obviously my boys, what do they do? They understand what you do? How do they feel? I mean, obviously they’re in your skits sometimes, so how do they feel about what you do?

Alyce Chan: Oh, they just say it’s cringe. That’s all.

Andrea Marie: It’s cringe.

Alyce Chan: Yeah, like they don’t think, they don’t get it. Like when they see something, they’re like, I don’t understand why people like this. It’s not funny. There’s no fart sounds. I’m like, I’m not adding, you are not my demographic. I’m not trying to target 11 year olds.

Andrea Marie: You’re not my demographic.

Alyce Chan: Well, like, just listen to us and you’ll get more followers. I’m like, I don’t need 11-year-old boys following me.

Andrea Marie: Oh my gosh. That is so funny.

Alyce Chan: And I’m like, I guess that’s the way it is. Right, we thought our parents were like, uncool. They think I’m uncool. That’s fine. I’m not trying to like have 11 year olds come to my comedy show.

You guys have no money.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Alyce Chan: I’m targeting the moms who have money, okay.

Andrea Marie: Oh, that’s so good. I love that so much. So this is, I can’t believe that half an hour goes by so quickly. So this has just been so much fun. Why don’t you let our audience know where they can find you, where they can follow you. We’ll have these links in the show notes too, but let us know.

Alyce Chan: Thank you. Yeah, you can, I’m always on Instagram, so @momcomnyc I am doing some tours. I’m going to Chicago, LA, Seattle, this year. Just have to plan out some dates and of course, Moms Unhinged.

Andrea Marie: Yes. So fun, we’ve got your clips there too, so definitely just follow Alyce. She’s hysterical. Unless you’re an 11-year-old boy. Thank you so much, Alyce.

Alyce Chan: Thank you, Andrea. Thanks for having me.

Andrea Marie: Thanks for listening and make sure you subscribe, share, and follow us on the socials to get more comedy clips