Michelle Wolf: The Well (2025)
Director: Eric Abrams
Star: Michelle Wolf
The stand-up special Michelle Wolf: The Well was released on Netflix on Tuesday, October 21, 2025.
Michelle Wolf walks onstage in The Well with that spry, conspiratorial half-grin of hers—the one that says she’s about to say something you’ll regret laughing at. She tells the crowd she had a baby. They cheer. Then: “It died.” The room stutters. She isn’t doing the sweet version of motherhood; she’s doing the unhousebroken one, the one that can’t decide whether to cradle or roast its young.
The act keeps circling that contradiction. Wolf says having a baby made dead-baby jokes harder—because now she “feels.” It’s the most honest thing in the set, and she knows it’s ridiculous. Her theme isn’t family; it’s contamination—how decency keeps getting in the way of comedy, and comedy is how she keeps from turning decent. She calls herself “a piece of shit onstage,” and the crowd cheers as if it’s a patriotic declaration.
The material on gay men and drag queens could sink a lesser comic. Wolf survives it through nerve and rhythm. She delivers the complaint—gay men won, then ditched women—like someone remembering a breakup over too many martinis, then sideswipes the room with the Dahmer line: you don’t just get the good gays, you get the cannibals too. The audience howls, half appalled, which is exactly where she wants them. When she goes after drag queens, the bit turns into a jealous admiration: she isn’t mocking queerness, she’s furious that they out-perform womanhood.
Her politics are cynical but accurate. Republicans, she says, are monsters who plan; Democrats are sentimental idiots who think optimism is policy. That’s not ideology—it’s theater criticism. The abortion material, the “Jurassic Park” comparison, the line about lesbian dinosaurs—it all lands because she treats Washington like another bad sequel: too much backstory, not enough consequences.
Motherhood makes her sharper, not softer. She describes the body after birth as wreckage—bones moved, car frame bent, still expected to clock in and smile at Jerry from accounting. Her jokes about breastfeeding have that queasy intimacy only she can get away with. When she swallows her baby’s vomit and says, “Still not cum,” it’s not shock for its own sake—it’s a final, triumphant dare.
What makes The Well sting is how deliberate it feels. Every punchline carries a small act of treason against what women are supposed to be grateful for. She talks like a woman who’s done pretending the world is fair, and laughs like someone who knows she can still make it funny.
* * *
Michelle Wolf: The Well (2025) | Transcript
[muted upbeat music playing]
[man] Ladies and gentlemen, please make some noise for Michelle Wolf!
[crowd cheers and applauds]
[music plays loudly]
Thank you.
[music stops]
Thank you, guys. It’s great to be here. I, um, actually haven’t done a lot of standup this year. I took the first seven months of the year off because I had a baby.
[crowd cheers and applauds]
It died.
[light laughter]
No, I’m kidding! The baby’s fine! Guys, the baby’s totally fine. But here’s what they don’t tell you about having a baby. A lot harder to tell dead baby jokes…
[laughter]
…after you’ve had a baby. No one warns you about that. They warn you about everything else. They say your body’s going to change. You’re never going to sleep. No one, not a single one of you, pulled me aside and was like, “Hey, you know those dead baby jokes you love?”
[laughter]
“Well, they’re going to be a lot harder when you have an alive baby.”
[laughter]
“Because you’re going to feel.”
[laughter]
“You’re going to have a lot of regular bitch emotions.”
“And you’re going to want to recycle.”
[laughter]
Most of you didn’t even like dead baby jokes to begin with.
They weren’t for you.
[laughter]
[light applause]
Look, the baby, she’s doing great. She’s doing really good. Know who else is doing good? Me, thanks for not asking.
[cheering and applause]
You remember me? I’m the one who’s almost always holding the baby.
[laughter]
And I do. I think one of the reasons I’m doing well is because I try to be the best mom that I can be. I try to be a good example and a nice person and loving and caring. And I really try hard. But then I also still get to be a piece of shit on stage who tells dead baby jokes.
[cheering and applause]
And I genuinely believe that’s the balance every mother needs.
[laughter]
Because you weren’t always a good person. Maybe the whole reason you have a baby is because you weren’t a good person.
[laughter]
But you’re a mom now, you’re a mom now. But who you were before is still in there, it’s still in there. And you’ve gotta get it out somewhere, or you’re gonna put it in the baby.
[laughter]
Don’t worry, she’s not even gonna hear these jokes. She’s never gonna hear these jokes because she’s in the bottom of a well.
[laughter]
I don’t know, don’t make them so perfectly baby-sized.
[laughter]
She learned to crawl, she’ll either learn to climb or she won’t.
[laughter]
I do think being a mom has changed my perspective on a lot of things.
Like, any gay men here?
[cheering]
I’ve amassed quite a few gay male fans over the years.
[laughter]
I would like to say to you all, publicly now, we’re through.
[laughter]
Gay men, I’m not sure I like you guys anymore.
I’m mad at you.
I’m mad at you. I’m mad at you.
When you say you’re mad at gay men, gay men are like, “Sure you are, bitch.”
[laughter]
You like it, you love it.
Oh my God, you’re…
[laughter]
You guys were…
They were grasping each other.
Like, it was like, “We do, she hates us.”
[laughter]
This is why I’m mad. Okay, so, gay guys, you wanted your rights. That’s not the part I’m mad about, that’s fair. You wanted rights, we wanted to help fight for your rights. We wanted to help for two reasons. One, because we thought equality was, like, a good thing. And two, you had a great slogan. Your slogan was, “Love is love.” And a lot of us, especially us white women, were like, “Oh my God.”
[laughter and applause]
“Yeah.”
“That’s, like, just what it is.”
[laughter]
You guys revamped “Live, laugh, love,” and we needed that.
[laughter]
[applause]
So you guys wanted your rights, we helped you fight for them, and then you got them.
And gay men, let’s admit it, you guys won, all right?
Charlie, you got the chocolate factory.
[laughter]
You got the chocolate factory, you turned it into a weird sex palace.
[laughter]
The Oompa Loompas have very different jobs now.
[laughter]
They’re not mad about it.
[laughter]
I’m not mad about any of those things. I’m happy all those things happened. What I’m mad about is that women, we started losing our rights, and all you gay guys were like, “Okay, bye.”
[laughter]
“Sorry about all that abortion stuff.”
“Maybe I’ll take the baby.”
[laughter]
“Is it going to be mixed?
I would love if it were mixed.”
[laughter]
I thought… I thought we were on a really good path towards equality.
And then, um, Netflix put that Jeffrey Dahmer documentary out, and they put it under the LGBTQ category.
[laughter]
Which is fair, he was gay, you know.
Not the headline of the story.
That wasn’t the final episode, it wasn’t like, “And can you believe it? Gay!”
[laughter]
So Netflix puts it under the LGBTQ category, and then a lot of people got angry. So Netflix took it out of the LGBTQ category, and that made me really angry, because you don’t just get the good gays.
[laughter]
You gotta take all the gays.
[laughter]
Yeah, sure, sometimes you’re Elton John, and that’s great.
And other times you eat people.
[laughter]
Believe me, I know what I’m talking about.
I’m a white woman.
We don’t just get the good white women.
[laughter]
You know, sometimes we’re Ruth Bader Ginsburg…
[cheering and applause]
…and other times, we’re the rest of the white women.
[laughter and applause]
Honestly, I thought the whole thing should make gay men feel more equal.
It’s like, look at gay guys.
They can lure people back to their homes, murder and eat them too.
[laughter]
They’re just like straight men.
[laughter]
[cheering]
I really… We did…
We lost abortion this year.
I don’t know where it went.
Oh, it’s probably in the alley. Uh…
[gasps and laughter]
Oh.
[applause]
Could be worse, could be in the well. Uh…
[laughter]
And we lost abortion.
They overturned Roe v. Wade.
And my problem with the abortion debate for the last several years actually hasn’t been with Republicans.
Republicans have been very clear about what they’ve wanted, okay?
Republicans, love or hate Republicans, you’ve got to admit, those guys are planners.
They see a problem, and they will chisel away at it until it’s a swastika.
[laughter]
[applause and cheering]
They’ve been trying to overturn Roe v. Wade since it became a thing. They’ve been playing the short game, the long game, and they finally got it done. Now Democrats, Democrats also had a strategy to make sure Roe v. Wade wouldn’t be overturned. And Democrats’ strategy was, “Don’t worry, it’s not going to happen.”
[laughter]
Democrats’ strategy is the same reason you need an abortion.
[laughter]
[cheering and applause]
“Don’t worry, baby, it’s not going to happen.”
Democrats are very frustrating, because they’re the least effective group of people I’ve ever met.
[laughter]
It’s like everyone else is running a regular race, and Democrats are like, “Let’s go three-legged.”
[laughter]
And everyone’s like, “No, we’ll just run regular.”
And they’re like, “Well, we’re in this together, so…”
[laughter]
It’s frustrating because they have a lot of good ideas. They talk about a lot of things that sound really good, they just can’t get anything done. They can’t… They don’t plan for any obstacles or problems. They just… And they can’t get anything done.
Know what Democrats remind me of? Democrats remind me of that old guy who started Jurassic Park.
[laughter]
Because I think we can all agree, a dinosaur park is a fantastic idea.
[laughter]
We would all love a dinosaur park.
We would love that.
But this guy didn’t plan for anything.
He wasn’t like, “What if there’s a storm…
[laughter]
…on my dinosaur island in the middle of the ocean?”
I’m not saying I would necessarily ever vote Republican. But I would definitely pick one to run Jurassic Park.
[laughter]
They would have kept the dinosaurs very separated.
[laughter]
And, if you remember this, one of the fatal flaws was all the dinosaurs were supposed to be female. They weren’t supposed to be able to have babies. But then somehow, they ended up having babies. Republicans wouldn’t let this happen.
[laughter]
They’d be like, “These lesbian dinosaurs can’t have kids.”
[laughter]
Isn’t Jurassic Park so much more terrifying when you think of it as a lesbian dinosaur island?
[laughter]
You’re like, “I wanna go, I just feel like there’s going to be a lot of rules.”
[laughter]
Republicans, also very good, they’re very good at naming things.
They got “prolife.”
I think we can all agree, “prolife” is great. That’s fantastic.
“Prochoice…” “Prochoice” is so dumb.
It just sounds bad.
You just sound like an annoying girl who can’t decide what to order.
You’re like, “What are you gonna get? Mmm.”
Prolife is great. Prolife is good.
And we can all agree, we’re all prolife most of the day.
[laughter] All of us like life most of the day.
There’s a solid 95% of the day.
There’s 5% of the day where we’re like, “I don’t know about life. This is…”
But we also know that Republicans are only, like, prolife technically.
You know? Like, not in practice.
If they were actually prolife, they’d care about things like, you know, healthcare and education and gun safety, and…
[cheering and applause]
You know, they’d care about things like trees. [chuckles]
[laughter]
They wouldn’t be like, “Who needs clean water? You can just drink oil.”
[laughter]
I don’t have oil either.
So they’re technically prolife, you know?
It’s kind of like if a pedophile called themselves “pro-child”.
[laughter]
It is technically true.
Super pro-child.
I’m going to let you guys sit in that.
[laughter]
Is there anything more mom than drinking a warm beverage that’s cold?
[laughter]
[person] Whoo!
So now we’re living in a world where we have to have all the babies, right?
We have to have all the babies.
So you’d hope they’d create some sort of infrastructure for us.
Because it’s not just one person having a baby.
It’s like we’re collectively having the future, and we should care about that, because, you know, I don’t think right now is going too great.
So maybe we should just, with the future, I don’t know, try something different.
You know? And you’d hope there’d be some infrastructure.
Things like healthcare and education.
But also like, you know, caring about moms.
You know, remember them?
Uh…
[cheering and applause] Yeah, not everyone’s even clapping.
That’s great.
Uh…
[laughter] Feels fair. You’re probably like, “I’m annoyed at my mom.”
Uh…
[laughter] “I don’t care that she made me, she called three times today about her password.”
And…
[laughter] We should… We should, you know? Like…
Hopefully we get to a place where we can, like, you know, give like… have things like maternity care, and lactation support, and paid leave, and…
[cheering and applause] You know, pretend to give a fuck about women just, like, a little bit.
Just like, uh… one or two centimeters dilated amount.
[laughter]
And hopefully that all does happen.
But unfortunately, all those things are long-term goals. I do think there’s something we can do in the short term, something we can do for women right now that will almost immediately change things for the better. And that is, you can make us clothes that have some fucking pockets.
[cheering and applause]
I don’t know who told you we don’t want pockets, but she’s a lying bitch.
[laughter]
We want pockets.
I bought a blazer the other day.
I thought it had pockets.
It looked like it had pockets.
They were false pockets. I was furious.
It’s decorative fruit all over again.
[laughter]
Don’t put grapes in front of me that I can’t eat.
[laughter]
And men, you’re riddled with pockets. You’re lousy with pockets. You’ve got them everywhere. Your pants are looser, so your pockets are bigger. You got pockets in your shirts. You got pockets all over your jackets. You’ve got… You have so many pockets, you have a pocket for decorative fabric.
[laughter]
And you have big hands. Men, you have objectively larger hands. And you’re only carrying one thing. We asked you to get two things, but you couldn’t find the second thing.
[laughter]
Even though it’s exactly where we said it was. And then meanwhile, us women, we have very few pockets. And we have these little hands. We have small, little hands that you like, because it makes your penis look bigger. We have…
[laughter]
…these tiny little hands, and we’re carrying so many things. We have our keys and the coffee and a phone and the emotions of the entire family.
[laughter]
I know what you’re thinking.
“What about your purse?”
Okay, first of all, our purse is full.
[laughter]
Second, we’re not allowed to take our purse everywhere anymore because all you men were bringing guns places.
[cheering and applause]
And for some reason that means we’re not allowed to bring our purse everywhere, which is crazy, because we weren’t hiding your stupid gun in our purse.
[laughter]
If we were, a lot of those shootings never would have happened.
[cheering and applause]
We would have been like, “Okay, hold on. I’m looking.”
[laughing]
“Here, you want this?
It’s an unwrapped tampon.”
[laughter]
“Well, I don’t know.
You think they’re very scary.”
[laughter]
“How about a snack?”
“You might not want to shoot so many people after you’ve had a snack.”
[laughter]
[cheering and applause]
There’s a lot. There’s so much for women to take care of and do. There’s just… And I also worry. I worry because I don’t think there’s a lot of good female role models.
I have a daughter, and I want her to have female role models. I’m not going to be one. Uh…
[laughter]
And there’s not a lot of women to look up to because we don’t highlight women who accomplish things, you know?
I said this joke the other day, and some guy was like, “What about Eleanor Roosevelt?”
And I was like, “She’s so dead.”
[laughter]
Like, she’s been so dead.
[laughter]
And also, you know, what did she really do?
[laughter]
You know, couldn’t even say she was a lesbian.
Uh…
[laughter] There’s not a lot of female role models.
I personally love Martha Stewart. Martha Stewart is 81 years old. And she’s…
[cheering and applause]
She’s 81 years old, and she’s a billionaire businesswoman. And then also recently, she was on the cover of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition.
[cheering]
Yeah, and see, this is the entire problem. I said she was an 81-year-old billionaire businesswoman, and none of you clapped. And then I said she posed in a swimsuit, and everyone got very excited.
[laughter]
She’s an 81-year-old billionaire businesswoman.
[cheering]
No no! No no no! You’ve lost your wooing privileges.
[laughter]
As soon as she’s on the cover of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit, everyone’s like, “Is 81 the new 21?” And it’s like, first of all, God, I hope not.
[laughter]
But also, that’s not the significant thing. The significant thing is that she’s an incredible, talented businesswoman. But no one cares until she puts on a swimsuit and lays down on a couch, which… Anyone can look good in a still photo in a swimsuit. You know what, I need that cover to be a live photo. I’m going to need to be able to press on the cover of that photo and see you get up from that couch.
[laughter]
But I think this is what happened. I think people saw an old woman who does crafts on the cover of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit, and they were like, “Oh, maybe that means me, a younger woman who also does crafts, could someday be on the cover of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit.”
And here’s the thing you must remember. Martha Stewart is extraordinary. You aren’t.
[laughter]
Martha Stewart is an incredible, talented, hardworking woman. She started her career as a model. She started as a model. But she’s very smart. She knew that wasn’t gonna last forever. And she was like, “Okay, well, everyone eats and has a house.”
“So…
[laughter]
…I’m going to get into the eating-and-having-a-house business.”
And she did, and she made millions of dollars. And then she went to jail for a little bit of time.
[laughter]
And then she got out and she made hundreds of millions more.
And now she’s just dipping her toe back in the modeling world.
She’s incredible, she’s talented, she’s hardworking.
You have a little bit of a mustache.
[laughter]
But this is the thing, I think. People, I think, undersell talent and hard work these days. We undersell it because we see everybody doing everything on social media. And I say “we” because I do it too.
We scroll through it all day, and people are being kind of shitty at everything. You know, like doing stupid lip syncs, or those dumb TikTok dances.
You know, the ones that are like… [humming] Then you see that dance and you think, “Oh my gosh, I think I can do that dance.”
Yeah, of course you can. It’s a bad dance.
[laughter]
It’s a bad dance that doesn’t take any skill.
All those people that do TikTok dances, they look like they’re not good at sex.
[laughter]
They all look like people who give up in the middle of a blowjob.
[laughter]
Know what Martha Stewart looks like?
Martha Stewart looks like she decides when you come.
[laughter]
[cheering]
I’m sure Martha Stewart hasn’t finished blowjobs, but not because she couldn’t, it’s because you weren’t ready.
[laughter]
The other reason I think people got excited when they saw Martha Stewart on the cover of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit is because she’s an older woman.
And it goes back to all this body positivity stuff, where they’re like, “See, look, old women can wear swimsuits too.”
And it’s like, “Uh… First of all, you didn’t know that?”
[laughter]
“Have you not been to the gym in the morning?”
[laughter]
If you’ve been to the gym in the morning, you know old women can wear swimsuits, and they can also definitely not wear swimsuits.
[laughter]
Just right in front of you too.
You can just be like, “Hey, can I help you?”
She’ll be like, “No, I’m doing good.”
I’m like, “Okay, because we’re just the only two people in the locker room.”
“Uh…”
[laughter] “There’s just so many other benches.”
[laughter]
Like…
I can’t smell chlorine and not picture a naked old lady.
[laughter]
People got excited about Martha Stewart being on the cover of Sports Illustrated because it’s all this body positivity stuff.
And I personally have always hated the body positivity movement.
Yeah, I hate it. I don’t believe you guys.
I don’t believe you guys at all.
You’re always like, “No, no, I love my thighs and my cellulite and the way my legs fit into my foot with no real ankle.”
[laughter]
Know what you sound like?
You sound like a closeted gay guy trying to convince people he likes vaginas.
[laughter]
Like, “No, I love a vulva and a labia and the way if you turn your head to the side and squeeze the lips together, it’s like you’re having a little conversation.”
[laughter]
[in masculine voice] “Hey, how are you?”
“I’m good.”
[laughter]
“Maybe tonight we just talk.”
[laughter]
“We can share some secrets.”
[laughter]
Is it just me or the more I do that, the more it looks like it might feel good?
I don’t know. Guys…
[laughter]
That’s for a different show.
I’m a mom now.
[light laughter]
So there was the… there was the body positivity movement, and then another movement that came after it.
It didn’t last very long because it was so dumb.
It was even worse.
It was called body neutrality.
This movement was, some people came over from body positivity and they were like, “Okay, you’re right, I don’t love my body.”
“But I do appreciate that it works.”
[light laughter]
And I’m like, “All right, guys, um…”
“We’re working too hard here, okay?”
Do you want to know the secret?
Here’s the secret.
Just hate your body.
Hate your body and be free!
[laughter]
I don’t care if you’re fat, skinny, in shape, out of shape.
Just hate your body because it’s gross.
We’re all gross.
We’re all animals who don’t have fur.
It’s weird.
[laughter]
[cheering and applause]
You’ve seen hairless cats.
That’s who we are.
We’re all just hairless cats walking around on our hind legs, pretending that’s okay.
[laughter]
Just hate your body and be free.
And if you want to look nice… If you want to look nice, you should look nice.
You should try, you know?
Like, you should get dressed up.
But look in the mirror before you leave.
Look in the mirror and still find at least one thing that makes you go…
[mimics groans]
[laughter]
And then leave anyway!
Leave anyway and go have a good time with your friends who also hate their bodies.
[cheering and applause]
And we all know if any of your friends don’t hate their bodies, if your friends like their bodies, they’re not your real friends because they have a terrible personality.
[laughter]
Like, do you think I leave the house every day and think my hair looks great?
Listen, my hair’s doing the best it can.
My hair is the same as, like, a stupid kid, you know?
Like, you ask the mom, you’re like, “How’s Max doing in math?”
And you’re like, “The best he can.”
[laughter]
I just hate, I hate all the body positivities.
I hate all of it because we try so hard.
Women are always trying so hard to look good, and it’s such a fucking waste of time.
And then drag queens, you come along, you’re not helping us out at all.
[laughter]
[applause and cheering]
You’re putting in so much effort, it’s crazy.
Like, I see drag queens where I’m like, “How did you make those eyelashes?”
They’re like, “Oh, I weaved three together.”
And I’m like, “You gotta stop, that’s crazy.”
You can’t give us more work to do.
This is crazy.
[laughter]
I’m mad at drag queens. I’m also mad at drag queens. This is why I’m mad.
You guys, you guys get all dressed up, and everyone’s like, “Ooh, she’s fierce and fabulous.”
Then women, we get all dressed up, and everyone’s like, “Ooh, she’s difficult.”
[laughter]
[cheering]
Yeah. Feels like there’s a bunch of double standards.
Like, a couple years ago at the Met Gala, which is like Vogue’s big fashion event, all these celebrities come, they dress up in gowns.
And this one year, Blake Lively was wearing this really beautiful gown, and she ascended the stairs to the Met Gala, and then a bunch of men surrounded her and unfurled her dress, and it splayed down the stairs and it changed colors, and it was this big, like, wow moment.
And it did, it looked very, very cool.
And then I saw online, all these people were like, “Um, drag queens have been doing that move for years.”
[laughter]
“She stole this from them.”
It’s like, “All right, you wanna point fingers, buddy?”
“You stole the whole dress thing from us.”
[laughter]
“Where you wanna start?”
[laughter]
It’s like if they found diamonds in the Congo and Belgium was like, “Hey, that’s our thing!”
[laughter]
Yeah, I thought I’d lighten up a drag queen joke with a joke about colonization.
[laughter]
[applause and cheering]
Back the real problem… drag queens!
[laughter]
[person claps]
Like, this year for Pride Month, uh…
Target, they made these swimsuits, they were for women, and they had a place to tuck your penis.
And I’m not mad that that swimsuit exists. I’m just wondering, can we use that as a pocket?
[laughter]
[applauding and cheering]
Maybe we can have a place to tuck our penis, like, right here?
[laughter]
And I don’t know if you know this, a lot of our penises are the same size and shape as a phone, so…
[laughter]
And you never know if we’ll have a right or left penis, so you might as well just put two pockets.
[laughter]
[applause and cheering]
I guess a lot of people are mad at drag queens because, um, they’re reading to children.
I wanna be very clear, that’s not why I’m mad at drag queens. Um…
I’m not mad about that, and I also just don’t believe it’s happening, because I don’t think those two people are awake at the same times.
That’s like seeing a vampire and a rooster together.
Oddly enough, in this example, vampire are children, and roosters are drag queens, because cocks… You get it.
[laughter]
I don’t need to explain that to you.
You’re very smart.
[laughter]
But, you know, like now, I just think a bit differently about a lot of things now that I have a baby.
And I’m a little bit of an older mom.
I found out I was pregnant when I was 37, so I’m like an old mom.
I’m a young dad, but I’m an old mom.
[laughter]
[cheering and applauding]
And 37 is too old to decide if you wanna have a baby, you know, because you know how good life can be.
[laughter]
I think everyone should decide…
Everyone should decide or have a baby in their young twenties.
Like in your young twenties, before you have any money, you don’t know who you are, you’re still trying to figure stuff out, every day’s a struggle, and then you see that little baby smile, and it just gets you through.
[light laughter]
I was 37 and successful.
[laughter]
Like, I’ve been on private jets.
[laughter]
There’s no baby smile that’s better than skipping the TSA.
[laughter]
[cheering and applause]
[laughter]
And I wasn’t sure, you know, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to have a baby.
I think there’s, like, um… There’s like a bunch of different types of women.
I don’t know if you know that. Uh, there’s…
[laughter]
There’s not just one kind. Uh…
And like, there’s, um, there’s women who know they definitely wanna have babies, and there’s women who know they definitely don’t want to have babies. And there’s…
[cheering]
And then there’s women who would love to have babies, but who are struggling.
And then there’s this other group that I found myself in, that’s like the women who are like, “I don’t know.”
[laughter]
And that’s when you don’t know.
Uh…
And you either decide to have a baby, or you run out the clock.
[laughter]
And so I decided to have a baby.
I was like, “Let’s roll the dice on this.”
And a baby’s a wild thing to roll the dice on.
[laughter]
You know, it’s like, “I don’t know, maybe I can ruin both of our lives.”
[laughter]
“Maybe I can start some generational trauma.”
[laughter]
[light applause]
“Give you something to pass on to your daughter.”
[laughter]
And once I decided to have a baby, it’s not like that went away, you know?
It’s not like all of a sudden I decided, “I’m gonna have a baby,” and then I was always like, “I’m excited, let’s do all the things.”
I was still like, “I don’t know.”
[laughter]
I just kept getting more and more pregnant and being like…
[laughter]
And, uh…
And, like, I had a little bit of a hard time with it, because I also, like…
I have older friends who have older kids.
Those aren’t people you should ask their opinions about if you should have a baby or not.
You need to ask other people who also have babies, because they’ll be like, “No, you have a baby too, and we’ll be in it together,” you know?
“In the good times and the bad, but we’ll raise our kids together.”
I have older friends who have older kids, and you ask them about having kids, they’ll be like, “Oh my gosh, I love my family more than anything.”
“Also, today I was on the way to Target, and I was just thinking about never going home.”
[laughter]
[applause]
No, I love those guys. I love them.
[laughter]
They got me this necklace with all their birthstones on it.
[laughter]
Feels a little bit like an electric fence collar.
[laughter]
Turns out this is a job, I’m the boss and all of the employees, so…
[laughter]
But it’s so fun.
[laughter]
Part of the reason that I think moms think like that is because moms love their kids like a crazy amount.
That’s the other reason I wasn’t sure if I wanted kids, because I was scared of that amount of love.
It’s a lot of love.
Even if you don’t have kids, you have a mom, and you know your mom loves you an annoying amount.
You’re just like, “Get over it, lady.”
[laughter]
And, like, I was scared about that amount of love.
But then I also realized it’s the exact amount you need to love kids to make sure that they survive.
You know, I think if moms loved kids any less, a lot of us probably wouldn’t be here.
[laughter]
I think a lot of moms would’ve been like, “This one’s broken, we’ll throw it back.”
[laughter]
I think a lot of moms would’ve taken that long minivan ride into a lake, you know?
[gasps and laughter]
Like, “No, have as many snacks as you want.”
[laughter]
[light applause]
“You can have screen time for the rest of your life.”
[laughter]
♪ I can hear it calling
In the air tonight ♪
[laughter]
♪ Hold on ♪
[light laughter]
But that amount of love, it seemed like it’s a scary amount of love.
And I was also worried because, like, I love my job.
I love what I do.
I mean, logically, I knew it was gonna be possible to keep doing, but, like, logistically, I knew it was gonna be really difficult.
You know? Like, I travel all the time.
That means I’ll have to bring people to help me with the baby.
And that’s extra, you know, hotel rooms and flights.
Then I gotta think about, do I wanna travel that much with a baby?
Is that fair to the baby to be going from hotel to hotel and airports all the time?
And it’s like, where are we gonna put the well? And…
[laughter]
It’s just a lot of moving pieces, you know?
And I also realized that I’m really lucky, you know?
Like, I got to decide how much time I wanted to take off work and then how much I work now.
You know? I got to take seven months off.
Seven months is like… feels like a luxurious amount of time, you know?
In Sweden, they would call that, “Five months too early, you idiot.”
[laughter]
But in America, they say, “It’s six months too long, you whore.”
Uh…
[laughter]
[applause and cheering]
And… And I also got to go back to a job that I love.
A lot of women don’t get to get that much time, or any time off at all, and they have to go back to a job that they don’t even like.
Which is… You have to go back to work, your body’s like a car accident.
Literally the frame of the car is your body.
Did you know… Did you know your bones move when you have a baby?
Your bones are in a different position.
You have to go back to work with bones in different places.
You’re just walking around like it’s normal, and you’re back there, and there’s some shitty guy named Jerry who’s like, “Hey, Jill, where’s the data?”
And you’re like, “This isn’t a heist movie, Jerry.”
Uh…
[laughter] “But I emailed you the spreadsheets a couple hours ago.”
And of course you did. Of course you emailed Jerry the spreadsheets, but Jerry didn’t see them because Jerry’s an idiot. Jerry’s…
Jerry’s always been an idiot.
But here’s the thing, Jerry didn’t leave to have a baby.
So he might not be smart, but he’s there.
[laughter]
And he’s not, like, officially ahead of you, But he’s, like…
He’s a little ahead of you.
And Jerry knows. It’s the only thing Jerry knows, but Jerry knows.
So he’s very condescending now.
And you’re back at work and you don’t like your job, and you might not want to be there, or maybe you’re grateful to be there, and also that makes you feel guilty about not wanting to be with your baby.
You thought, “I could breastfeed here, but the closet they gave me is too small, and I think there’s someone watching.”
And…
[laughter] There’s just, like, a lot of emotions going on and a lot of things happening in your head.
And I just say all this to say, I’m surprised that more women don’t shoot the office.
[laughter]
[applause and cheering]
They probably…
They probably would, but they’re just like, “I can’t find my…”
[laughter]
“Where is it?”
“Oh, you know what, I put it in my penis pocket.”
[laughter]
[cheering]
“I put it in my penis pocket because the cold steel felt good on my stitches.”
[laughter]
Don’t get grossed out about that.
Don’t you dare get grossed out about that.
That’s how you got here.
You got here because your mother tore her vagina.
You don’t say, “Ew,” you say, “Thank you, Mommy.”
[laughter]
[applause and cheering]
This is the thing…
This is the thing I will never understand.
Men, at some point you have to explain this to me, because, you guys, I know.
Periods are gross. Birth is gross.
I understand that.
But you like gross things.
Why don’t you like this?
This is right up your alley.
It’s literally up your alley.
[laughter]
I mean, you like, you like movies where people are, like, shot and there’s, like, blood in the water, and you love when people are, like, blown to pieces, or you love Mortal Kombat.
Every finishing move in Mortal Kombat is the grossest thing I’ve ever seen.
Meanwhile, some woman’s like, “I need a tampon,” and you’re like, “Ew, that’s so yucky.”
[laughter]
You know what, actually, that’s not a bad finishing move in Mortal Kombat, taking out a tampon.
[laughter]
[applause and cheering]
Your… Your own, not your opponent’s.
[laughter]
Like, “Finish him.”
[laughter]
“Ew, ew, ew.”
[laughter]
“Fatality.”
[laughter] [person] Whooo!
So I was worried.
I was worried about having a baby, uh…
Because also it’s like, one of the reasons I think I was successful in comedy is because I didn’t have a baby.
This is a lot easier to do without a baby.
I know a lot of male comics, they have families and then they’re like, “I miss my family so much when I’m on the road.”
I’m like, “You should try taking them.”
Uh…
[laughter] “You’re not going to miss them at all.”
“And they’re there all the time.”
And I…
And you know, they talk a lot about, in comedy, how comedy is sexist and misogynistic.
And I don’t know if you know this, um, all jobs are.
Uh…
[laughter]
[cheering and applause]
I feel like we only talk about sexism in the fun jobs, but it’s also at CVS.
[laughter]
And I have a microphone, I can talk about it, you know? Like, they don’t have…
I mean, I guess they have an intercom, so…
[laughter]
They could be like, “Um, there’s sexism on aisle… All of them, all the aisles.”
[laughter]
And I’m not saying sexism doesn’t exist in comedy, but after having a baby, do you know who I found out the most sexist people are?
Babies.
[laughter]
That baby doesn’t come out and it’s not like, “I’m gonna split my time between both of you, all right? Ready?”
“Mom, Dad, we’re all in this together.
We’re a team. Hut, hut.”
That baby comes out, you give that baby to the dad, that baby’s like, “Who the fuck’s this guy?”
[laughter]
“He doesn’t smell like us, who is this?”
[laughter]
“His nipples have nothing.”
[laughter]
“Yeah, I think he’s going to eat me.”
“Of course I’m upset, I think you’re being a little bit of a bitch right now.”
[laughter]
“Just the other day, I could feel walls all around me.”
“Now there’s no walls, I feel like I’m falling all of the time.”
“I’m freaking out, and then you give me to this guy.”
“Who the fuck is this guy?”
[laughter]
I think every dad knows this.
That baby might’ve learned to love you, but when that baby came out, it didn’t give a fuck about you.
[laughter]
[applause]
That baby will hold you back more than a man ever could.
And so you do get away, you do break away from that crazy baby grip, and you get back to work.
That baby’s not leaving your head all day.
That baby’s in your head.
It’s made a home in your head all day long.
It’s like, “You’re at work? Interesting.
I thought we were having skin time.”
[laughter]
“Oh, you’re doing a presentation?
I wonder how I’m doing developmentally.”
[laughter]
“Oh, you’re in a meeting and can’t check your phone?” Hm.
“Maybe I died.”
[laughter]
“Maybe I died, and you couldn’t save me because you needed a worklife balance.”
[laughter]
[cheering]
[applause and cheering]
To be fair, I’m sure men think about their families at work too.
I’m sure at some point, you’re like, “That’s right, I do have a family.”
[laughter]
“Oh my God, I have two.”
[laughter]
“I always forget about the second family.”
“Don’t tell them that. They hate that.”
[laughter]
So I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to have a baby, and, uh…
But I was… I was sure about what I wanted to do with the birth.
I was going to lean all into the birthing experience.
So I decided to have a home birth.
Any other home birth moms?
[light applause]
That is consistently the number.
One.
[laughter]
Normally one lady who probably smells like tea tree oil.
Uh…
[laughter] “Use it as deodorant. Use it as whatever you want. It’s good for everything.”
[light laughter]
Here’s what I will say.
All jokes aside, no jokes here.
Uh, if you are, if you’re pregnant, you want to be pregnant, and you haven’t thought about home birth or you’re thinking about it now for the first time, I strongly encourage you to look into it because I will say, hands down, best experience of my life.
[applause]
Absolutely unbelievable. It was amazing.
You really found out how powerful and capable you are as a woman.
And it’s also probably why we don’t encourage women to have home births because, you know…
[laughter]
that would be terrible.
Uh…
[laughter] But there is… Okay, so the joke reason why I had a home birth, because it’s funnier…
Uh…
[laughter] is that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to have a baby, you know? And so…
[laughter]
If the baby came out and I was like, “Whoopsie,” I coulda been like, “Hey, look at that sunrise,” and then just, you know…
[laughter]
“It’s so crazy, a hawk just flew in.”
[laughter]
“Does that happen at a lot of home births? Do the…?”
[laughter]
“Do hawks steal a lot of the babies?”
[laughter]
There’s a couple of big differences between home births and hospital births.
Like, uh, at a home birth, you’re surrounded by people who, like, love and care about you and want you to be able to progress naturally and are encouraging.
At a hospital birth, you’re surrounded by people who are like, “Oh no, it’s an emergency.”
“It’s Thursday, so we have to cut you open.”
[laughter]
So that’s a point in the home birth column, um…
But a point for hospital births is that, um, a lot of, you know, most hospitals are plastic and linoleum, you can, like, wipe stuff down pretty easy.
And at home, everything’s absorbent.
Uh…
[laughter] So then later, when people come over, you can be like, “This is where we had the baby.”
[laughter]
“Would you like some spaghetti?”
[laughter]
I love to serve my guests spaghetti.
I don’t know.
And really, I wanted to lean into this.
I was gonna have a water birth, I was going to get a birthing pool.
I didn’t know this about birthing pools.
Do you know they’re just regular inflatable pools?
[laughter]
There’s not a special one for birth.
It’s just the same one you can use in your yard with your sad family.
[laughter]
I was excited about this. I thought it’d be a gentle transition into the world.
But I ended up not being able to use the birthing pool because I ended up having a really quick labor.
I couldn’t use it because my baby came too fast, which is the last time she’s going to get to say that.
[laughter]
Please don’t take my baby. Please.
I didn’t even want to tell that joke.
It’s just there, and I have to.
[laughter]
But this one, I am gonna need you guys to prepare yourselves for this one ’cause…
[laughter]
Just trust me. Uh…
So after I had the baby, I, um, drank a placenta smoothie.
[groans]
All right, well, first of all, we mixed it with berries, okay?
[laughter]
So it tasted of berry.
[laughter]
But also, your body made the placenta, and it nourished your baby and gave it everything it needed to be born.
And then you have the baby, and you have the placenta, and eating part of it is supposed to help you recover both physically and mentally.
And I know even after saying all of that, you’re still like, “That’s fucking gross.”
[laughter]
But here’s the thing.
You’ve swallowed cum.
[laughter]
[applause]
And what’d that help you recover from?
[laughter]
Your body didn’t even make that.
His body made that.
Who is he?
[laughter]
How long’s that been in there?
[laughter]
What’s he been eating?
[laughter]
But now I have this really great baby.
Rolled the dice, came out good.
Uh…
[laughter] I have this really great baby, and now she does baby talk, you know?
She’ll be like, “Bababababa,” and I talk back to her, but I talk back to her like I’m talking to you guys now.
Because I’m a fun mom.
[laughter]
So she’ll be like, “Bababababa,” and I’ll be like, “That’s interesting.”
“Bababababa.”
“Wow, I think so too.”
“Bababababa.”
“Thank you so much for sharing.”
Which is like, “Wrap it up,” you know?
[laughter]
And I like to think she’s, like, telling me about a dream she had, or, I don’t know, maybe something she saw when we were out on a walk.
And that’s really nice if that’s what it is, you know?
But what if it’s not?
[light laughter]
What if she’s like, “Damn Jews”?
[laughter]
That’s why I don’t talk baby talk.
I don’t know the language.
I don’t want to accidentally be saying something super racist.
And even worse, I have a halfBlack baby.
What if she’s saying the Nword to me?
She can say it.
[laughter]
I don’t want to accidentally be saying it back to her.
She’s going to be like, “I have a racist bitch of a mom.”
And I have to be like, “Yeah, I agree with you on the Jew thing.”
[laughter]
It’s very interesting.
It’s very interesting being the white part of a halfBlackbaby situation.
Because, you know, like, I’m a white woman.
And, you know, I just have to be on guard to not be one, you know?
[laughter]
So we were at the airport bookstore, you know, like our local bookstore. And, uh…
[laughter]
And I think we can all agree, baby books are garbage. Uh…
But I thought I’d buy one so she could look at it for 30 seconds before she tried to lick everything on the plane.
And so there’s this whole series of baby books that’s like, If I Were a Puppy, If I Were a Giraffe, If I Were a Unicorn, If I Were a Dinosaur, If I Were an Octopus.
And then the last one in the series is If I Were a Monkey.
I’m like, “Your dad’s gonna have to buy you this one because I’m not…”
[laughter]
“You’re not getting me with this.
I’m not showing up to the counter as a white woman with a Black baby and a book about a monkey.”
“You’re not getting me.”
[laughter]
I think all of us white people know, there are times where we’re accidentally racist, right?
I mean, there’s also times we’re very much on purpose racist.
[laughter]
But there’s times where a lot of us are accidentally racist.
And you just hope the times you’re accidentally racist happen in the privacy of your own home.
But I can’t be accidentally racist at home because home is where the Black people are.
[laughter]
And my husband, he’s the Black one in the halfBlack situation.
[laughter]
You can’t miss him. Unless it’s dark.
[laughter]
People get mad at him ’cause they’re like, “You married a white woman, you’ve abandoned Black families.”
And I understand the logic behind that, but I just want to reframe it a little bit, you know, as a white woman would.
Uh…
[laughter] I don’t think of it so much as he abandoned Black families as he stopped a white family from happening.
[laughter]
[applause and cheering]
So he’s really a hero.
[laughter]
And there’s only really been one time that, like, as a mom, that I’ve gotten, like, truly furious, and that was when I was buying clothes.
And do you know what baby clothes have?
Pockets.
They have tiny little pockets for, I don’t know, your worries.
[laughter]
And I do… I am, I find myself…
I’m lucky enough to breastfeed. Um…
Breastfeeding’s weird, though.
It is weird. Um…
I’ve always been very supportive of breastfeeding moms, especially in public. I’m way more comfortable breastfeeding in public than I thought I would be. I thought I’d feel weird about it. Yeah.
[applause]
I’ll do it anywhere. And…
But, like, I also understand people’s discomfort with it, because, like, even if you support it, you don’t know how to show your support, you know? Like, it’s kind of… I feel the same way as when I see a person with one arm, and you make eye contact with them. You don’t want to look away right away, like… You know? Like…
[laughter]
But you also don’t want to make a big deal out of it.
You just want to be like, “Hey, look, you and me just walking down the street.”
“Two people, and you’re…”
“But if you need help, I can help you.”
“But…”
[laughter] I also know you do this all the time.
So it’s not…
You don’t need help, but…”
“You got it. But if you don’t, you know…”
Uh…
[laughter] It’s hard to know what face that is.
You know? It’s…
It’s hard to know how to say that all with your face.
So I get it.
I get when people are uncomfortable.
You know?
In America, you know, because they just care about women so much… They, um…
[laughter]
They put those breastfeeding sheds in a lot of airports.
Um…
[laughter]
So nice of them. Uh…
I personally have never used one.
I don’t think I ever would use one. Um…
Mostly because I’ve never seen a woman go in, but more importantly, I’ve never seen a woman come out.
[laughter]
Uh…
Also, I’m almost positive if you open the door to that, you’ll see a guy in there being like, “Yeah, I milk stuff too.”
[laughter]
But there was one day, I was breastfeeding my baby, and she finished eating, and I lift her up above my head.
And yeah, exactly what you think is going to happen is about to happen.
[laughter]
So I lift her up above my head, and I think to myself, “One of these days, I’m going to do this, and my baby’s going to throw up all over my face.”
And this is how connected me and my baby are.
[laughter]
No sooner did I finish that thought than my baby threw up directly into my mouth.
[groans]
It was so direct that none of it got on my face.
[groans]
It was just directly from her mouth into my mouth.
She reversebaby birded me.
[laughter]
And I was, I was shocked, but, like, I was holding the baby.
So you can’t freak out when you’re holding the baby, because you’re holding the baby.
So I just swallowed it.
[loud groans]
And I know that sounds gross, but it’s still not cum.
[laughter]
[applause and cheering]
It went from my boob to her mouth, right back into my mouth. Who is he?
[laughter]
Thank you very much, I’m Michelle Wolf.
[applause and cheering]
Have a good night.
[“Make My Love Your Home” by The Days playing]
♪ And please ♪
♪ Please, please darling, do ♪
♪ If you can’t be right, be wrong ♪
♪ Make my love your home ♪
♪ The moon ♪
♪ Is rising somewhere in your eye ♪
♪ Yeah, this is real ♪
♪ The life we came from, sure ♪
♪ I’m shivering, sure I’m scared ♪
♪ But I’m all yours ♪
♪ So breathe ♪
♪ Breathe, breathe darling, you ♪
♪ You can make my love your home ♪
♪ Make my love your home ♪
[“Make My Love Your Home” fades]
