Ilana Glazer Reacts To Parenthood In Relatable Video: ‘Whoa, Dude.’

You can count on Ilana Glazer for a hilariously true take on any given topic, and the comedian’s repertoire has now extended to motherhood. In discussing this new role, Glazer keeps it real and speaks without fear from her own experience, prepared to question myths from being ready to giving birth.

Glazer, 35, who welcomed a baby girl with husband David Rooklin last July, speaks about what becoming a parent has been like for her in a new video for People and Parents.

The Broad City co-creator addresses head-on how important it is to not blindly follow a script and just have a baby because it’s the next box to check, but also how it’s impossible to be truly prepared for the sudden shock of parenthood.

“I had my baby when I was 34, so I was like, ‘Okay, let’s do this. If I’m not ready then, when am I going to be ready?” explains the performer, who wed Rooklin in 2017.

“My partner and I really had to be sure,” explains Glazer. “It wasn’t just like, ‘I’ve always pictured a baby, so now we’re having a baby.’ It was like we’ve really got to want and need this baby.”

“Of course, you’re never really ready. You become a parent like that,” says Glazer, snapping her fingers. “Twenty-four seven,” she continues, laughing.

“I was prepared in . . . the big picture way, but in the moment-to-moment way there’s almost no way to really be prepared for it.”

Like many others who have gone before her, Glazer suffered from sickness and disrupted sleep during her pregnancy. However, Glazer describes her birth experience with a couple of unusual adjectives: “fun and cool.”

“I had a really positive experience and I wish there had been space for that conversation,” she says. “It’s all nightmare, trauma, horror, is really the only part of the public discourse so far. I wish I had heard more, ‘You’re gonna have fun.’”

While she may not have hit a wall during labor, taking care of a baby hasn’t always been easy. Glazer says parenting is teaching her to be gentle with herself and to ask for help when she needs it.

The support for working mothers is there, she says. “There’s a real community now and there’s so much visibility about it, and I have to remember to take it. I have trouble taking help when there is help.”

Calling her first months of motherhood “mind-blowing,” Glazer says she sees her baby “growing and learning every day” and it makes her realize that she is undergoing the same sort of transformation, which she refers to as an “unfolding.”

“It feels like a privilege to have,” she says. “Like, ‘Dude, you’re just a baby,’ I say to myself, looking at this baby.”

This new mom perspective has also encouraged Glazer to go easier on herself.

“I wish someone told me that I should go as gently with myself as I am with my baby regarding my new identity being a mom. I’m really harsh with myself sometimes and then I’m so gentle with my baby,” explains Glazer. “Because you’re kind of one, it’s just like, go gentle, give yourself time and space.”