So my son, when he was 10. I go into his room to get his laundry right, and he’s sitting in the corner.

He is, got a blanket over his lap. He’s got his hands under the blanket. I go, I go, Jake, what are you doing? He goes, I’m playing with myself. Real calm. Real calm. I dropped the laundry and I left.

And the next day I knocked. And there he is. He’s sitting in the same corner with his hands under the blanket.

Before I could say anything, he moves the blanket. I covered my eyes, but it was too late. I saw his game boy.

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.

[00:00:57]  Meet comedian Merit Kahn

Hello and welcome to Mom’s Unhinged. I always like to start, I just crack myself up. I’m your host, Andrea, and I am joined by the amazing, the fantabulous Merit Kahn. Welcome Merit.

Hello, Andrea.

Now, this is super exciting because Merit was on the very first Moms Unhinged show that we had in Louisville, back in, when did we start? 2017, I think it was.

I was gonna say like 1893.

I know back in the late, late 19th century. That’s how long, that’s how comedy ages us.

More than motherhood.

Oh, I know, I know. Yeah, it’s the combo. The combo is just a killer. So that’s super exciting and it’s just been so fun having you along the journey. And you did our very first travel show that we did in Las Vegas, which was a mixed bag, but did open up the possibility to future travel So it was really very fun. And Merrit also has her own show, which is very fun, and you just recently named that.

Yeah, the very first version of it was called Book of Merit, when I thought I was gonna do it one time and it was like a big 50th birthday celebration. And then I realized, yeah, this is not about me. It’s really about everybody’s life journey.

So I call it Optimistic Personality Disorder, which came from a joke that I do on stage at Moms Unhinged shows.

Right, right. I love that joke because you say, I definitely feel like I’ve got that too. I’m always like, yeah, it’s all gonna work out. Let’s do it. Sure, it’ll work.

Yeah, I wrote that joke when I was journaling about my really frustrating marriage and divorce, and I thought, yeah, my marriage was frustrating, but I just know this divorce is gonna go smooth and it’s like, I looked at the sentence on the paper and I thought, “I think I’m insane.” Why would I think that? Like, I think I’m the one with the problem. So yeah.

It’s me. That is hilarious. This divorce is gonna go smooth. Says easy peasy. ’cause you had to get lawyers involved and all kinds of, you had court cases. I remember that journey.

We didn’t communicate well when we were in love, so I’m pretty sure now that we’re getting divorced, we got this.

We’ll just share our feelings.

We’ll listen from our full heart, well compromise. Compromise. The staple of our marriage.

That’s how this divorce is gonna go filled with empathy and support.

yes. Yes. Mm.

Oh, that is hilarious. Oh my gosh. So, yes. So you’re, you are touring both with moms unhinged and now you’re taking your show, your own show on the road, which is exciting.

Yes. Very exciting. And now I share all the joys of producing that you do.

do

Yeah. Woo.

You know, we don’t have to talk about that. You just wanna see the prestige persona, don’t you?

Yeah. Let’s talk about the fun parts. Just like, just like we do. Well, no, we don’t do that with our kids either. Oh my goodness. So, I wanna hear a little bit about how you got started in comedy. You’ve been doing it a while now. So when did you actually start?

I took a standup comedy class with someone we have in common. Our common coach Christina Hall, that was 2014.

Yeah, wow.

And I did it because as a keynote speaker, I wanted to be more deliberately funny in the programs. I was being paid handsomely to do for conferences and association meetings, which I still enjoyed doing.

And you know, a funny thing happened on the way to learning how to do comedy better for your real job. Like I was like, oh, well actually this, I really love that. You know, it was seven minutes of original comedy and I had never felt so good in my life. And I felt so good that I didn’t do anything with that for at least another two years.

Just rode that high, just kind of.

Yeah. Just like, wow. That was great., That was great.

Put that in a bottle.

[00:05:57] How divorce inspired her comedy

But in 2016 when my marriage was failing, I started to write a lot more about the things that were frustrating me.

And the beautiful thing about studying comedy was that I learned that the things that were hard to process in my real life. I could process through comedy, and that just changed everything. And I started writing jokes about the things that were, you know, frustrating me in my marriage. I don’t remember what the joke is. I really wish I could, but I remember saying to Christina, who was coaching us at the time, I said so I had all these jokes.

My very first joke on stage was. Something like, ” My husband is great and he thinks so too.” And then it got to a point where I was so frustrated with my marriage that my jokes started getting really mean. And there was a joke and she literally looked at me and she said, “I forbid you to tell that joke on stage.” And I’m like, “Why? It’s hilarious.”

And she’s like “nope, you will alienate your audience. You’ve crossed the line.” And so it was just an interesting. You know, when you study comedy, you realize like, hmm, it’s really to serve the audience. It’s not therapy on stage.

Right, for sure. Yeah, that’s so interesting. Yeah, I wish I could hear that joke too.

I know it was a good joke.

Intriguing.

Sure it’s in a note somewhere.

But it is true. It’s kind of like you can’t go up and, you point out, you know, things that are wrong in marriages or even with your kids, but it has to come from a place of like, you being kind of through that trauma or through that frustration. And out on the other side. Yeah, we can’t go up and just be like, “I hate men.”

Or kids.

Or kids, you know? Right. It is interesting that balance of like what we talk about on stage and how it can land and what people are going, even through some of the, you know, I do think that it is interesting to process some of the harder things.

I know we’ve had cancer survivors and people who’ve been through really rough situations who are talking about their, you know, some of our comedians who are talking about that. You know, it’s just like you don’t know where the audience is at and you wanna make sure that you’re not creating a situation where they’re re-traumatized by some of this stuff.

Well, you know, I think what I love about listening to the other Moms Unhinged comedians is I can see some of my own frustrations or things that have I found funny in my motherhood and they make me laugh about it. And that’s when i’m like, oh, okay. Yeah, it does. It takes the charge out of it.

Yeah, for sure.

Life a little bit more fun, I think. You know, I mean, that’s kind of the premise of all of my sets for mom’s unhinged and for my one woman show is this idea of, you know, we’ve all heard like tragedy plus time equals comedy, but my point is nobody said it had to take a long time. Right.

Yeah.

What if you didn’t have to suffer and you could just find the funny a little faster?

How could that change your outlook and then you can kind of be in action and create new possibilities? And that’s what I love about comedy is like it, you know, it just diffuses everything. And that’s just fun.

just, Yeah, it’s just a fun way to live. .

Right. For sure, for sure. We have to laugh sometimes ’cause it just, you know, it just helps. It helps.

It’s like wine, laughter.

Laughter plus wine. Boom, gold.

[00:09:50] Growing up with a gay dad in the 80s

Oh man. One of the things I love in your set is you talk about having a gay dad and I mean, ’cause you had, you know, you got your parents and they had you and then. And then.

How does that work exactly? With a gay dad?

And then your dad came out of the closet. When that exactly? When did that kind of, when did he let you know?

He let me know, it was the eighties. I don’t remember exactly the year, but you know, the eighties, not exactly the time you wanna come out. That was the height of the AIDS epidemic. And it was scary. You know, it was like very hush hush. It’s not like it is today.

You know, here we are, 2025. If you don’t have a gay relative, you don’t know very much about your relatives.

There’s someone in the family is playing for the other team, and it’s totally like we all just, we everybody knows somebody who’s gay, lesbian, you know, somewhere in the alphabet soup.

So it’s very, it’s common, it’s known. And there’s not that stigma. But think back to the eighties. Now I’m in high school where everything like the world revolves around you and it’s like very significant that you’re like part of the mainstream and not some outlier. So it was like very hush hush and I didn’t tell anybody.

In fact, the first time I ever said anything about that in public was my comedy set in 2014.

That was the big reveal. And my dad and I had like, I called him when I was in this workshop and I was started writing these jokes and I said, you know, I don’t like I’m outing you. Are you okay? And he’s like, what’s gonna happen to me now?

Like I’m in my seventies, like whatever. You know, I mean, he had already come out to his family and things. But it was, I had never said any, like nobody, my philosophy is if my parents like some kinky fetish thing in their bedroom, that’s none my business as their child.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

None of my business.

Yeah, so that’s so interesting. But he was, now, had he had partners, was he kind of living a kind of publicly gay life or was it pretty quiet. Wow.

No, I don’t think my dad is like he doesn’t give off the, you know, the stereotypical, you know, hairdresser type vibe. At that time when I was growing up, you know, I don’t, I think he wanted to kind of fight it, right? He wanted to live in society. He loves being a dad, always has. He commuted into the city from the suburbs with his little briefcase.

Mm-hmm.

Did all the things and I think it was just trying to be like, ignore that part of your life. Whereas today, we don’t have to do that. We are whole beings and we can embrace and, you know, be individuals and that’s just not how it was back then.

So now it’s kinda like, yeah, whatever. You know, it’s okay, I’m this, I’m that. It’s like nobody really cares.

But it It makes for some good comedy. Growing up with a gay dad, I will say that, you know.

Yeah.

Because they say a girl marries a guy just like her dad. Trouble is all the guys I met just like my dad. Were also looking for a guy just like my dad.

I love when you talk about the signs that you might have missed, like singing show tunes.

Yeah. I mean, in fact, fun fact last night my dad and I went to see Moulin Rouge, the musical.

Yeah. I love that you do a lot of those things together. I actually ran into you when you were on your way to the theater with your dad.

[00:13:38] Performing in front of her son

Oh, that’s right. That was another time. And it’s funny ’cause I have a son, he’s my only child and so he’s 21 now. And I once had said, you know, “Hey Jake, come to the theater with me.” And he goes, “mom, I am not a theater guy.” And I’m like, “yeah, but what happens one day when you fall in love and your wife wants to go to the theater?”

He doesn’t miss a beat. He goes, “She can go with my mom.”

No way. That is hilarious. Jake is definitely no nonsense.

He is very funny. He’s a sports guy.

Yeah.

A sports guy.

Yeah. He does not bend for any, you know, any pressure it seems like.

[00:14:29] The vibrator jokes he told her to keep

My favorite Moms Unhinged set that I have ever done to date is the show I did on Mother’s Day up in Fort Collins where he goes to school and you know, I’m doing my regular set and there’s some racy stuff in there, and so I was like, oh, I kinda stopped mid joke right before I got to the vibrator joke with my son in the audience, and I’m like, “oh, I probably shouldn’t tell this joke today.”

You started, you’ve already.

I started it and then the audience was like, no, tell it. Tell it. And I’m like, “can I tell this joke. He’s like, “tell it mom.” So I do vibrator joke number one, and then I go, there’s another one. Are you good? He’s like, sure. But the best part was after the show was such a great set and after the show, this woman comes up to my son hands her, hands, him her business card, and it says off campus counseling. It’s just like, yeah, yeah, he’s gonna need that.

You are gonna need some therapy after this. We know.

Yeah.

That is hilarious. I know, it is funny. Now, was that the first time he had seen you do your comedy?

I mean, so I had been doing comedy like let’s say from 2016 to 2025. And that was the first time this past Mother’s Day a few months ago.

Yeah, he likes to tell me, you know, I’m not the funny one. Gosh mom, you’re not funny. And I’m like, well, I don’t know ’cause people are paying me. So I’m just saying one of us is a professional comedian.

I haven’t seen your type five.

Yeah, yeah, whatever. Although he could perform at any time. ’cause I built a comedy club in my basement, you know?

Yeah. That’s right, I know that’s right. That’s the kind of amazing thing. You love comedy so much and performing so much, you built a full comedy cellar in your basement and it’s so cool. It’s got like the brick wall kind of vibe. It’s got like seating with all the little candles.

I mean, you can fit 50, what is it? 50 people in there.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh. That’s so cool.

Professional sound. So as we kind of travel and I meet other comedians, I just lure them to my basement.

In the white van. Come in, come with me.

Yes, I do. I have a little white van here. I have a little white

van

Oh.

It says, follow me to the basement. Lots of laughs.

That’s hilarious. That’s so funny. Yeah and I’ve actually performed there twice, so that, I think twice. I don’t even know how many times, but yeah.

Three times, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Super, super fun. So, that is, I love that. And so did Jake, so after seeing you perform, how did he feel? Did he say, okay, mom, you’re pretty funny?

Yes, yes. I got the seal of approval for my son and he brought one of his buddies with him who had never been to a comedy show before.

What? Oh my God.

Yes, that was really exciting. I like to tell his mom I stole your son’s comedy virginity.

You know, tell him I was your first. But yeah, he enjoyed it. He definitely enjoyed it. You know, I think it’s a very different thing when as a child you can see your parents like actually having a life. ’cause I don’t know, when I was a kid, I imagined, you know, I go off to school, I have my life, and they’re just waiting at home for me to arrive. Can we get you something, honey?

yeah, yeah.

They don’t do anything else. Just, just wait for me.

This is sitting in your perfectly preserved room, just looking at all the things. That’s all they do all day.

All day, all day. Yeah. Well now my son knows differently ’cause now he’s heard two vibrator jokes.

Yeah, right. I have literally rented my kids’ rooms out.

Oh, okay. Talk me about that.

No, it is not, not all the time, but sometimes I’ve had people stay where they’re like, you know, paying me some rent. So I’m like, Hey, you know, you gotta let me know when you’re coming home because you may not have a room.

We agreed early when he went off to college, ’cause he’s at school about an hour and a half from, from where we we live. And I just said you’re far enough away and close enough. Let’s agree, we’re not doing the unannounced pop in.

‘Cause if you do the unannounced pop in, I’m doing the unannounced pop in.

I think you’re gonna like that. He violated that. When one night I’m literally in bed, tucked in, I’m texting with my boyfriend and I hear something in the house and I’m like do I need to like, what do I? What’s happening right now? And then he comes up and he’s ” Hey mom, I just decided to,” and I was like. Okay that could have gone horribly, horribly wrong.

Yeah that’s not cool. There’s so many ways that is not cool.

Yeah, we’re not doing that anymore, so yeah.

Yeah, kids can’t do that. Especially at your house. I know some things.

Is that this podcast or is that a different podcast, Andrea?

Right. We won’t go too deep, but you do have a hot boyfriend. Navy Seal, hot boyfriend.

A hot boyfriend? Yeah.

Yeah, so that’s great. So we got through the divorce, got the Navy Seal boyfriend along the way.

That’s a major upgrade.

[00:20:15] The “Paperclip Incident” parenting meltdown

Oh my gosh. So, I wanna hear a little bit, one of the things I like to always ask too is do you have a story about when you just got a little unhinged or maybe. You know, something just went really wrong.

Yeah.

You lost your mind a little bit.

In fact, I was so unhinged that we, I have named this story. It’s called the Paperclip Incident. It was right after my ex had moved out. So my son was, I don’t know, 12ish, something like that. And I was coming back from a business trip. I was tired, but on the plane I had gotten an upgrade.

It was a beautiful sunset out the window, and I took that moment to grab my Facebook account and type how wonderful my life was and how grateful I was to be going home to my amazing son. Unfortunately, didn’t send yet, because then we had to turn off our phone. So I get home, I pick him up from his dad’s, we pull into the garage and his.

Jake’s favorite song comes on the radio and he goes, mom, can we just stay in the car and listen to the song? And I’m like, you know, dude, I’m like so tired. Let’s just go in the house. I just wanna get inside.

I get out of the car, by the time I have gotten my suitcase from the back, I hear uh oh. And I’m like, Ugh, that’s just never good. So he had jammed a paperclip into the ignition of the car and you know, he just wanted to keep the car on to hear his song like, so innocent. Right, and now we can’t get it out.

Oh my gosh.

I was unhinged. I start yelling at him, I am like, how could you do the blah, blah, blah? I’m like, not my finest, smothering moment. And then all of a sudden and he’s like, please don’t tell daddy. Please don’t tell Daddy ’cause like he would’ve gotten in major trouble. And even if he didn’t live there anymore.

And so I was just like, all of a sudden I just started laughing. And I hand him my phone and I go look at my recent Facebook post. And he looks at it and he goes, my amazing son. Ha ha ha. You know? now he’s like confused. Why is my mother like laughing? She was just yelling at me a second ago and I realized I don’t have to parent like this anymore.

This is not the end of the world. The paperclips gonna come outta ignition. You didn’t break the car. Let’s just keep this in perspective. And so I get back on Facebook and I go um, edit. Anyone have any ideas how you get a paperclip out of the ignition? And we guess we get all these like funny things. It’s like, try a big magnet and all this stuff. PS we called AAA, they come over, it’s fixed in five minutes.

It doesn’t cost anything like end of story. But I kept the paperclip. I framed the paperclip and I said, and it says judgment coming soon to a teenager near you. And every day it’s like on the kitchen, like right by the refrigerator. And I look at it and I, I just remember who I am. That I can mother the way that I want to mother. Nothing is the end of the world. It’s really not that deep, like just chill.

Yeah. It’s so true because it is so, especially when we’re tired, you know, been through, you know, traveling kind of wears you out and everything like that, and then, yeah, like a big, expensive car. Like immediately your brain goes too. It’s broken, you know, or whatever.

What?

So yeah, that is a great story, and it’s really interesting how we can make that choice on how we parent, because maybe, I mean, I don’t know. I think your ex was kind of quick to anger. Is that?

Uh, yeah. He was very very critical. And in our therapy sessions, the therapist said he had unrelenting standards, and as soon as she said that, I was like, ah. Oh, that’s what that was. Like it was everywhere.

And it’s just really challenging and it’s hard to be light and playful. But I always tried as best I could to kind of balance things out for Jake ’cause you know, it’s one thing, like I as an adult could handle some unrelenting standards, but a child doesn’t know how to process that.

And a child is making up all kinds of things about what does this mean and who am I? And that becomes really difficult. And he’ll unravel it as we all do in therapy of our own someday.

[00:24:58] Finding humor in motherhood

But I don’t know that I was always the best because I would get unhinged too. I think the best thing that I learned through comedy was to shorten that timeframe from being unhinged to noticing like, ah. That’s not me. That’s not how I wanna do this.

And then just switching it up and finding the funny. There was another unhinged moment when he was painting his room. He wanted to change the decor in his room. And I’m like, great. I think everyone should learn how to paint a room and tape off the molding and dah, dah, dah. He’s fantastic. I love this kid so much. He invites his friends over to help, and then I kind of peek in and I’m like, how’s everything going in here?

He’s got all of his friends painting, he’s sitting there managing the whole thing. I’m like, what is happening? He is like, I don’t know, they didn’t like how I was doing this, so they just took over. And I’m like, God, you’re brilliant. I’m so proud of you.

Like a Tom Sawyer moment. Isn’t that? He got that, he painted the fence. He his friends, you know.

Yeah. So they finished the whole project. The room is perfect. Everything worked great. We’re staging all of the paint and the supplies by the stairs to go downstairs. And I’m not kidding you, Andrea, I hear, I’m in my office and I hear, uh oh. Like that same, and I’m like, oh, here we go again. Now what happened?

So I guess he was trying to bring so many all of the supplies down at once. That an entire gallon of paint spilled on the brand new carpet in the hallway. And I’m like, yeah.

Oh.

Okay, keep it together. So I’m like, I don’t know. I haven’t framed the picture of the entire paint can sitting on the carpet yet. I don’t know what to title that. But judgment still not here? I don’t know. I’m hoping for 25.

In patience.

Yeah. When does that executive function kick in again? When’s that? I think that’s, they say that’s 25. So Jake is, he’ll be 22 in two weeks. How is that possible? Because I look amazing.

You do, you do. There are no questions.

But yeah, so that’s, I got three more years of like uh oh moments and then.

Wow. Wow. Yeah. I’m sure they don’t quite end. I’ve had some moments myself. So then what happened with the paint? Did you get the paint

I got the paint out, like we had to like squeegee as much of it like off the surface of the carpet. And then it was just like water soaking it. And then I thought I might have created too much moisture in the carpet. That could be a bigger problem.

So after I cleaned it all up, I was like, I hired a professional cleanup company and the whole bit.

Yeah, yeah.

It looks good. You can’t tell.

Yeah, I know, right? And even if, the thing is like, I really look at things like, you know we had. You know, my son crashed the car into the back of the garage and like the frame of these shelves in the garage, were all bent and stuff like that.

And I look at those as you know what, these are moments of forgiveness shown. These are a life well lived. It’s just all lessons. It’s all just stuff. Who cares? It’s just stuff, you know.

It’s the stories. The stories you’ll tell later in life and laugh over.

That’s right. That’s why I feel like there should be more mom comedians because I’m like, guys, there is so much material. Let’s mine it. Let’s.

The moms that could be comedians are busy , trying to get the paint out of their carpet, so it’s just a little hard.

It is so many things to juggle, right? It is. It’s just, it is crazy. So well, this has been just so much fun. Thank you so much Merrit. Love, love getting the chance to chat and talk about the crazy moments of our lives. And why don’t you let people know where they can connect with you, where they can find you online?

Well, the favorite thing place to send people now is opdshow.com. optoptimisticpersonalitydisorder.comou can all, we’ll also spell it out. Or I made it simple. Opd show.com and then it’s where you can find out all about the show and tour dates and you can connect with me there. There’s always a Let’s Talk button and I actually like talking to people, so know, call me. Call me.

Awesome. Alright, thanks again and thank you everyone for tuning in.

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