Taylor Tomlinson has a lot to say about how it felt to grow up in a religious household. Part advice, part philosophy, and all funny, she speaks her truth in this slice of stand-up awesome.
I love my parents because I am an adult.
I’m a grown up. Yeah, I have friends, grown up, men and women who say things like, “Oh, I hate my mother.” And I’m like, “What are you 4?”
Nobody got enough hugs. Hug yourself. Walk it off.
People who hate their parents have unrealistic standards. They think parents are these superior beings and they’re not. They’re just people who suck like the rest of us. That’s how we should introduce them. Just like, “These are my people, Rhonda and Tim. They do what they can.” Set the bar low.
Have you guys realized that your parents messed you up yet? Yeah, you find a stray dent in your head. You’re like, “What happened there?”
“We did our best. That’s what happened there. You were slippery.”
Have you guys had this happen as adults where you realize your parents messed you up based on how other people react to stories about your childhood? Stories you thought were fine because when you’re a kid, you’re stupid. You’re just like everybody gets tied in the yard. Like you don’t know.
Fast forward 10 years, you’re to barbecue. Everyone’s going around swapping stories like, Oh my God, my mom was crazy. She used to make this take our shoes off in the house and you’re like, I know we wore muzzles at night. What happened? Why did everyone gets sad? What is it?
My parents are cool. They’re very religious. That’s how I was raised. I’m not super religious anymore. I still believe in God. I think cause I’ve invested so much time into the idea. Yeah, because if there’s no God then I told the wind a lot of secrets.
My dad’s very conservative. He’s still thinks gay people shouldn’t be allowed to get married. You ever hear older people say stuff and you’re like, oh, someone missed the software update? Can’t just say that out loud. We’re in a Target. We’re going. It’s crazy. He taught show choir for 10 years and the whole time he was like, “Homosexuality is a sin.” And we’re like, “Without homosexuality you would not have a job. Those sparkly teens put food on our table. Don’t bite the jazz hand that feeds you.”
Growing up, he encouraged me to abstain from drugs and alcohol and sex and enjoyment, and I really took all of that to heart. Even today, I’m, as an adult, very sexually conservative. Not that I’m bad at sex. OK, I’ll have you know, in bed. I am a wild animal, right? Yeah. Way more afraid of you than you are of me.
I was celebate all through high school. Didn’t need to be. No one was trying to get in here, didn’t need to lock the door. No one even jiggled the handle, as it turns out. But I signed the papers and people don’t realize how scary it is being an abstinent teen girl because friends of mine were like, “Oh, I miss my time of the month, I’m pregnant.”
I missed my time of the month. I was like, “Oh no, I’m carrying the Messiah.”
I saw a lot of pressure. I don’t know any carpenters.
But it’s so easy to mess kids up. I have a lot of respect for parents, even babysitting. I just babysat for a friend of mine. I was so nervous about it. I didn’t wanna mess a kid up. So I was like, I’m just gonna put on a movie. I’m not gonna talk to it, and everything will be fine. So I put on a fairy tale Princess movie little girl. She’s four, adorable.
She comes running up to me 20 minutes into the movie and goes, “Taylor. Once being in love feel like?”
Right. I was like, what? How do you explain love to a child that young? How do you even begin to explain romance and dating and courtship?
You know, it’s complicated. There’s an app and you get a downloaded and swipe. Here, lie a little bit, fill out a resume. Take a picture from up here like it’s a whole thing.
But I wanted to be honest, so I thought about it carefully. I’m like, “What is being in love feel like that’s similar to something she’s done?”
And I went, “OK. Do you remember when you got lost at the grocery store? That was scary, right? But then do you remember the feeling you got when you finally found your mom? How safe and happy and relieved you were, and how you ran up to her and you grabbed her leg and then you looked up and it wasn’t your mom? That’s kind of what it’s like out here, yeah. Oh. No. You think you know a guy? Turns out it’s just some stranger with your mom’s knees. Trust no one. Swipe left.”
Here’s a bit about Taylor from her management
Dating, friendships, our evolving relationship with technology and reality––Taylor skewers modern twenty-something life with self-deprecating precision. Raised in a conservative home, Taylor also prods Christianity and privilege with that same blend of distanced awareness and personal familiarity that defines her jokes about her age. “I’m a perfectionist. I’m not really a risk-taker––being a standup comic to me is already risky enough,” she says. “I don’t drink. I don’t party, and I never have. My mom died pretty young. I think when that happens when you’re a kid, you realize sooner than other people that you aren’t in a bubble. You lose that self-perceived invincibility a lot of young people have.”
You can find more Taylor on her site.
If you’re interested in seeing another funny video, check out comedian Anthony Jesilnik talking about college, his grandmother, and the Bible.
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