Fresh Take: Sona Movsesian on Being the "World's Worst Mom"

0:00Sona Movsesian:Most women have been there. Something feels off. You don't feel like yourself. Yet your doctor says everything looks fine. Spoiler, it's your hormones. Midi is a virtual care platform built for women by women and offers specialized hormone care from trained clinicians. Plus, it's covered by most major insurances. Getting started is easy. You can book your first visit with a clinician right away. It's not you. It's your hormones. Visit JoinMidi.com to book your first visit. That's JoinMidi.com. Insurance coverage varies. Check with your plan for coverage. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Fresh Take.

0:35From what fresh hell laughing in the face of motherhood, this is Margaret. This is Amy. Today, we're talking to Sona Movsesian. She is the New York Times bestselling author of The World's Worst Assistant. Sona is also the co-host of Conan O 'Brien's podcast, Conan O 'Brien Needs a Friend, and she's worked with Conan for over 15 years. Sona lives in Los Angeles with her husband and twin sons, and her new book is The World's worst mom. Welcome, Sona. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I was saying this earlier. I feel like I'm among my people. I'm excited. You are. Welcome to What Fresh Hell. That's right.

1:10I mean, you've already been living in it, but now you just have a name for it. That's very true. So tell us how you got the title World's Worst Assistant. Well, that's a title I gave myself. I think that a lot of people have this sort of idea of what Hollywood assistants are like. You know, they're obsessed with their job. They're obsessed with the person that they work for and they give themselves to their jobs completely. And I wasn't that person. It's not in me to be that engrossed in my job. So that just was never me. And I called myself the world's worst assistant because it's like if you have an idea of what a Hollywood assistant is, that's not me.

1:48And yet somehow I got to work at that job for 12 years. So I don't know what that says about me. I don't know what that says about Conan, but that is why I gave myself that title. Do you think he liked your laid back approach? Did you think you were funny? What was it you think that made you guys click? I think he hated my laid back approach. It's very different from how he approaches work. I'm the kind of person where if I have to work on something, I do want to put out something good, but I don't, it doesn't have to be perfect. You know, it doesn't have to be exactly how I envision And I think I'm a very like, I think this is good enough kind of thing.

2:27It's why I was his assistant and why he was my boss, because he's not like that at all. But I think what he really responded to was I'm a good people person. You know, I'm really good with talking to people. I'm good with communicating. Everybody at the show, as far as I know, liked me. And I think most importantly for Conan, I gave him a lot of material. And I think that for a comedian, for a professional comedian, I don't think there's anything more valuable than that. I think that if I gave him bits, that's like gold. Yeah. I'm going to say in the world of what fresh hell, you're what we call a Margaret.

3:05OK. Amy is a Conan. She's got a spreadsheet and a clipboard available at all times. OK. And the people person chaos Muppet just kind of getting through the day. That's the Margaret. Oh, I'm a Margaret. I am definitely a Margaret. I think the world needs both. I really do. Absolutely. Amy and I have worked together now for, I don't know, 10 years or something. And it's a very nice alchemy when you have both. I think so, too. And I think that's why people respond to the relationship that Conan and I have. It's very familial. We're like siblings. We bicker a lot. We fight a lot, but we do care about each other.

3:47And a lot of what we a lot of our differences just come from who we are as people. You know, I mean, he is always from what I've heard from him and his siblings. He has always been an incredibly hard worker and he's put so much pressure on himself. And I have never done that. Is he oldest child? He's the third. Third. Interesting. Out of six. I know, but he has a lot of older child energy. Yes, because Amy's oldest of six. And let me tell you. Oh, my God. She was baked in the cake this way. Yeah, yeah. But then he also has the rubber chicken middle kid, you know, energy also. That's true. I know.

4:28Being the oldest, I only have one brother, but my brother could not be more different than me. Like he was he was a jock in high school. Like he joined a fraternity in college. He works in finance. Like he is, he has his shit together, you know, and I'm not saying I don't, but somehow through the chaos and Margaret, you probably feel this too. We just, it works out somehow and there's no rhyme or reason to it, but it's not in me to be like my brother. It's not in me to be like Conan. And in a way, like I'm okay like this. And it feels like a lot less pressure that I'm putting on myself. But I really admire the work ethic of the Conans and the Amys of the world.

5:08It's always something I love to watch, but never partake in. Girl, same, as they say. Yeah. So you probably figured, right? So parenthood, I mean, I know how to do this. I've created this career for myself. It's all good. Everything works out. I'm going to get pregnant. That won't be hard. And then I'm going to have kids. It'll be like, it's fine. It's all good. It's the pea is the cake. How did that work? Well, it did not work like that. You know what, for me, it was even before I had my kids, you know, I mean, just conceiving my kids was hard and I had to go through IVF. So already from the very beginning, I felt like I failed.

5:51I felt like my body betrayed me. My husband and I got married and we started trying right away because I was 35. and, you know, that term geriatric pregnancy just kind of like haunts you. Yeah. It took years for us to just conceive. And then we went through IVF. That's all consuming. It just became all I could think about. And then, you know, I got pregnant. I was very lucky. I got pregnant with I mean, I say I got very lucky. I got pregnant with twins just because I wanted two kids and didn't have to do it again. But twins are hard. I'm not going to lie. Is it luck? Yes. I mean, it's your destiny, but I don't know that I would say twin boys is luck.

6:32It's not. It's not. They're crazy. It's a lot of humanity at the same time. Oh, my. And they're two boys. What I've noticed is my nieces. I had my nieces who were sort of my frame of reference. And I feel like at my boy's age, they were doing advanced calculus. And so it's very different. There needs to be a different word for boy moms and girl moms. And I know that my younger friends and colleagues and nieces and nephews do not believe in gender anymore. But let me tell you, I had two boys and my friend had two girls and we went out to dinner. And these two girls just like sat with the salt and pepper shaker.

7:11And they were like, Mommy Salt and Daddy Pepper are going to the dinner. And my kids were like pulling the curtains off the walls. It's just not the same job. I'm not saying it's always easier or harder, but the waves hit very differently. Well, my nieces now are 13 and 11, and you can see that change. It's the same that happened with me when I was 13 and when I was 11. I, you know, I was a nightmare, an absolute nightmare. And I'm not saying my kids are not going to be nightmares. I mean, judging from how they are now, they were on track for it to be just like, like this forever. But I think that there is I brace myself and I think that the most important thing that I've done as a mom is to remember what it was like for me at a certain age.

8:00You know, I remember how curious I was at five. And so when my kids when they play in the sink and they make like there's a lake in my kitchen, I'm like, they're just curious. They're mixing things up because they're playing and I can't get mad at them. And I keep reminding myself that even people in their 40s are a work in progress. People in their 50s are a work in progress. So it's really just me trying to change my frame of mind in order to cope. It's a coping mechanism. I'm not going to lie. It's a coping mechanism. You talk in the book, Sana, about the point of being a podcaster and a comedian.

8:35It's all material, right? So when your kids are being feral at the restaurant, you're like, well, that's a good story. I'm saving this one for later. It's all good. You know, you're OK with it. as long as it's funny, it's fine almost. And then there's a point where that maybe isn't fine anymore. And is it harder to find when you're a funny person? Yeah. You know, for a while, I realized I was making a lot of jokes at my kids' expense. And it's things that you just like, oh, yeah, these kids, they're like crazy, whatever. And then sometimes they would hear how I would refer to them. And it almost it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy, right?

9:09You tell your kids they're smart. They feel like they're smart. And if you tell your kids they're feral animals, then they're going to act like feral animals. And so I realized I'm in this job where I just feel like I always have to like find something funny or set up something funny. And so that really informs the way I talk about my kids, or at least it did. And then I realized they were feeding off of that and that I really needed to change the way I talked about them publicly. You know, I mean, I know I think I called them psychotic earlier. So clearly it's like still a work in progress. We'll bleep that out.

9:47We're going to just use AI to make that spectacular. We're just going to switch the word right out. But I mean, in front of them, especially when I'm talking about them in front of them, it's vital for me to just stay a lot more positive when I talk about them. When you're used to doing comedy, I had the exact same experience as a mom and I continue to have it with my teenagers that the kind of like ball busting that you do as like a comedian is not great mothering, it turns out. And I was like, wow, that's a revelation. And I will still goof on my children. And they like look at me with like wounded animals.

10:22I'm like, oh, that's right. Like, I'm your mom. I'm not like your frat brother. You don't have to shape shift, but you have to kind of sand off some of the edges, I think. Maybe more so when you're a little bit more of a chaos Muppet to start with. Oh, yeah. And I am. There's things I look at differently. You know, like I talk very openly about eating edibles on the podcast. I mean, I'm I'm crass. And when I talk about things in general, I am I'm very open about things. And before, I never thought about it. But now I'm thinking, oh, in the future, my kids will have access to all the things that I've said.

11:00So if they're like, well, I want to try weed, I'm going to be like, you can't. They're like, well, you do it. And you talk about it openly on a podcast you're on that millions of people listen to. And take it from us. We've had a podcast for 10 years. That's tomorrow that's happening. That's right. It comes at you so fast because you're looking at three year olds and then they're in high school tomorrow. And they're like, my friends found your podcast. It comes at you quick. It worries me. And so am I editing myself on the podcast though? No, I'm not. I'm like, that's my job. It's also very hard for me to change who I am and how I talk about things.

11:38So in a way, I'm just kind of letting it ride. I think I'm at the point now where I'm like, the train has left the station at this point. It's too late. It's just, it is what it is. And the boys are going to have to find out and we have to have like an honest conversation about it. And I'm going to have to figure out how to deal with that later right now. Luckily, they can't listen to podcasts right now, so I'm okay. We're talking to Sona Movsesian. Her new book is called The World's Worst Mom, and we'll be right back. Amy, you know that in our relationship, you have historically been the one to care about skincare.

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14:58If you've never bought glasses online, Zenni has a virtual try-on so you can see exactly how the frame will look on your face before you order. This is huge. I did the virtual try-on and I can confirm that my sunglasses look just as good on me in real life as they did virtually, Amy. Face it, that scratched up pair has done its job. Upgrade today with Zenni. Go to zenni.com slash podcast and use code podcast15 for 15 % off your first order, plus free shipping on all U.S. orders over$65. These styles sell out, so don't sit on it. That's Z-E-N-N-I dot com slash podcast promo code podcast 15. I had a mom who I knew when my kids were in grammar school, the perfect, like beautiful Southern belle.

15:48Like she looked like a Disney princess. She had a beautiful Southern accent and she just seemed perfect to me, like always put together. And I was always like, you know, coming late with the hair and everything. And at some point we were both arriving late at preschool and her kid was like, Mom, Mom, we're late and I missed the check in or whatever. And she said, well, darling, I'm sorry, but if you wanted to be an untimed child, you should have chosen a different mother. And I was like, God bless you. Like it freed my soul. And I think that all the time. If you wanted a different mom, I'm sorry, you get what you get and you don't get upset.

16:22You got this one. Right. And we have lots of fun. But also you get these other parts. Yeah, I think that's true. I mean, it's true for me and my mom. You know, I mean, I look at my mom differently now. You know, she was much younger than me when she had us. And she she was an immigrant. She came to this country like just maybe four years before she had my brother and me. And she was new. She was learning the language. She was learning the customs. She had like she was starting fresh. And then she had babies. And this is going to sound awful. But my brother and I, we would always make fun of her accent when she would say words incorrectly, you know, and that's that's so messed up.

17:00I look back on that now and I just feel bad that I did that to my mom and made her self-conscious about something. So much of what she did and how she approached motherhood came from a very different place than how I do it. And so being a mom now makes me look at her much differently than I did before. And it's I'm a lot more sympathetic about it. But you're right. You know, you have to accept so much about who she is and how I am with my kids. Like I knew my mom was not going to be the type of mom to talk to me about the birds and the bees. And so when I eventually got my period and I thought I was dying later on down the line, I looked at it differently.

17:39Instead of being resentful towards her, I was like, OK, well, she didn't know what to do. We don't come with a manual. And for her, she came from a different culture where people don't talk about that stuff. And so it's a work in progress now. I really am changing a lot about how I look at my mom. Becoming a mom, you instantly see your mother as the scared, imperfect, wonderful, real person that she was, right? Instead of the guardian angel on the wall that came down to make you dinner. You know, she becomes real. She does. We had an aunt who was pregnant with her sixth child. Her husband died of a heart attack in his 40s.

18:17And she, like, had to figure out how to raise these six kids. And I was like, oh, yeah, yeah. And Eileen, whatever. And I had my first child and I was like, why don't we have a statue of Ann Eileen in the front hallway? Like, why do we talk about this as if it was something normal? Like, right, right. Possible. Yes. And you think about that, right? Your mom coming from a foreign country. You think about how hard it is to do it the way we're doing it. And I just remember my mother and I having these conversations where I'm like, were you depressed? She's like, are you kidding? I lived in a basement apartment.

18:50All I saw was wet feet and I had three children. And I'm like, how do we never talk about this? She's like, you didn't care. And it's just the scales falling from your eyes and seeing the world in a completely new way. It is. I mean, my mom would talk about after she had my brother, she was just sad a lot. And that's how she described it. She was sad a lot. And then she told her doctor and her doctor just kind of dismissed it and said, you have the baby blues. I'll never forget when she would tell me about it. She said he just called it the baby blues. And, you know, now looking at it with the information we have, we're like, oh, my mom had postpartum depression.

19:29Right. And her doctor dismissed it, like dismissed a lot of things. I feel definitely more lucky and luckier to be a mom now where you can be more vulnerable almost. I mean, I don't know if you guys feel that way, but it's like you have a podcast about it. I think you can be more vulnerable with other people, but your kids still see you as that weird archetypal person. We were having a discussion this weekend about postpartum depression, and my kids were sort of like, well, what is it? And they're teenagers. And I said, well, you know, after I had you, I had this horrible postpartum anxiety. And I could just see their faces kind of, they were interested, but I could see like the penny could not drop for them.

20:12that I was a person with like medical or psychiatric problems. They could not marry what I was saying. And they were kind of like, huh. Anyway, the guacamole is this way. And it's like that. I think that what we've figured out is like the ability to be vulnerable with other moms and peers and have these conversations and have this podcast is extraordinarily valuable and useful and knowing that there's postpartum depression and anxiety and knowing that we don't have a social safety net and how that affects women and having all those discussions. But to your kids, you are always this like glowing object that feeds them and gives them what they need.

20:56Yeah. I think it's like they're 30 before they ever turn to you and be like, did you ever feel sad? Yeah. Are you a person? Are you OK? Are you a human being? Yeah. Yeah. Shocking. You know, it's funny you say that. This is going to be a bit of a downer, but we lost our house in the Eaton Fire. You know, I talk about it in the book, but my kids were three and a half at the time. My big thing was not to completely lose it in front of them. So even the day after it happened, I remember, you know, we pretended we were on vacation in Newport Beach. I go to the car after they sleep and I just start bawling.

21:30and you know I wrote a whole book about how much difficulty I'm having being a mom but even then at that point I couldn't get myself to be sad in front of them or show them that we were going through this horrible like traumatic event and that I was dealing with it so it was definitely something I hid from them and then hopefully when they get a little older and have more of the tools that they need in order to kind of understand it better and that's probably what it is is that they have to be old enough to really digest it and really understand it, you know, and I think that it's the same with your kids.

22:07It's the same with mine. You know, we protect them until we think that they're ready to get the information we want to give them. And we had a guest who said, don't hand your kids things that are too heavy for them to carry. And it's like, right, that is too heavy, probably for like a kid to carry. That is too heavy for a three-year-old. You can't hand it to them. I think you do have to cry in the car or cry with friends or spouses. Yeah. And that you have to always be adjudicating a little bit. Like I could see in my kids eyes when I was like, I had postpartum anxiety and I really was having a mental health struggle.

22:39Even for them teenagers, they were like, nope, that's a little too heavy for me. I'm not ready to know that. And I'm like, I'll take it back. It's fine. You don't have to carry it right now. We'll talk about it when you come back when you're 30. We'll talk a little more about it. Yeah. Yeah. But it's nice to be honest with them. It's nice to have these conversations with them. You know, I mean, I do think that I'm at the point now where when my boys ask me questions that I feel are a little too intense, I still have to find a way to answer instead of just dismissing their questions. One of my sons has a very clear Oedipal complex.

23:11I mean, he I mean, I think he has tried to kill my husband. And I think that his ideal place would just be back in my womb. And so he always asks about the differences between our relationships. And it's a very complex question. And we try to answer it, but I don't know how to. I'm even a work in progress. I have no idea how to tackle these very complex ideas with him. Just to be like, we can't get married, you know. You can't be my husband. This is not how it works. This is not something we can do. We're talking to Sonam of Sestian about her new book, The World's Worst Mom, and we'll be right back.

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25:10Okay, folks, for the first time ever, I have a kid who is truly out of the house. I can't wait up for a teenager to come home who doesn't even live at my home or answer my texts. I don't need an FBI surveillance fan. I just need signs of life, Amy. Is that fair? I know exactly what you mean. It's time for Hey Polo, a family safety app that keeps families connected and safe so you're not wearing where your kids are on top of everything else. And your family members get to share their data on their own terms. They can choose to share their exact location, general area, or put the app in private mode, which I think my kids would really appreciate.