Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Christina P: Mom Genes’ On Netflix, A Comedian And Mother Who’s Proud Of Her Resilience, On And Offstage

For her second mom-themed comedy special for Netflix, Christina P makes light of her marriage to fellow comedian Tom Segura and what it’s like raising children with him. You might not relate to having children with a comedian, but the other moms out there should get a special kick out of this special that dropped on Mother’s Day. Am I right, ladies?!? More importantly, is Christina P right?

CHRISTINA P: MOM GENES: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: She comes right out and says “it’s all dicks, all day” in her house, what with her two young sons and one “cisgender” husband, and lays out several graphic metaphors and euphemisms for what her 10-pound, 10-ounce baby boy did to her vagina after childbirth. Strap in, folks! There’s plenty more where this came from!
What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?: Christina P has a joke about how you can learn a lot from your spouse’s Netflix queue and the algorithm’s suggestions. If you type her name into the platform, it interestingly doesn’t list other comedy moms. After her specials and those of Segura, the first women Netflix suggests are Nikki Glaser and Whitney Cummings; Ali Wong appears farther down the list.
Memorable Jokes: There’s an early joke at Bert Kreischer’s expense, and she lets us know that she knows some of her audience comes to hear things exactly like that, based on the popularity of her long-running podcast with Segura, “Your Mom’s House.”
And as a two-time mom, she has no effs left to give. A little pee in her pants? A progress report for her three-year-old? Forget about it. She grew up in the 1980s with a mean Hungarian mom who had different standards of motherhood to live up to, and even then, neither of her parents quite met those expectations. But Christina, now in her mid-40s, loves reminding her audience that Generation X grew up without safe spaces, trigger warnings or nut allergies.
She also boasts that her favorite joke of this hour centers on a kid she went to school with who turned out just fine, and she’ll gleefully tell you why.

She’ll also get into how the Muppets from Sesame Street have adopted different characteristics to adapt to the changing times, and impart her own life lessons after 17 years of marriage of what keeps her husband happy. It’s three S’s: sandwiches, sports, and sex. And if you want to know what their sex life is like, she’ll act that out for you, too.

Our Take: This is Pazsitzky’s first hour for Netflix in almost five years, since Christina P: Mother Inferior, although in between, she popped out her second son as well as a half-hour set as part of The Degnerates showcases.
No wonder a belch gets an applause break.
As opposed to some boomer comedians these days bemoaning the kids these days, Christina P celebrates her Gen X toughness and how she passes that down to her kids. On Pepé Le Pew, she uses the problematic Looney Tune to teach her boys about men and the French. Nothing much feels problematic to her, though. Perhaps that’s because of how her parents raised her. She can laugh about how she could’ve ended up in porn, and how choosing stand-up comedy isn’t exactly a smart choice, either. She can smile as she relays how therapy has helped her in “breaking the cycle of generational trauma,” even if she still feels slightly crazy.
As she says in a refrain that’s almost a catchphrase for the hour: “Good person. Not a great one.”
Christina P knows she’ll catch some flak for some of the words and voices she uses in her act, but she’s resilient and still has heart. Which shows as she tears up during her closer. Being a mother is tough. Being a mother working in comedy? Even tougher.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The graphic nature of her act likely isn’t for all audiences or all mothers. But there’s more than plenty who can relate and will laugh easily and heartily along with her.

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat for his own digital newspaper, The Comic’s Comic; before that, for actual newspapers. Based in NYC but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.