There's a double standard in the world of stand-up, according to Sarah Silverman.
In a series of tweets Monday night, Silverman explained why she chose a career over children. "As a comic always working & on the road I have had to decide between motherhood & living my fullest life & I chose the latter. Men don't have to do that. I'd so love to be a fun dad, coming home from the road & being my best fun dad self," she told her 10.1 million followers. "So this is just a lil f--k all y'all bc u can't be a woman w/out sacrifice & that's the fact jack."
Lest anyone misunderstand her point (as has happened in the past), Silverman tweeted that she loves her "comedian brothers" who "acknowledge this truth" on behalf of female comics. "They're my family," Silverman wrote, "& for a lot of us women comic sisters, our only family."
Columnist and mother of two Ada Slivinski retweeted Silverman, adding, "Becoming a mother has filled my life more than I could have ever imagined. Filled it in ways a career alone never could have." Silverman understood her point, but tweeted in response, "That's beautiful, Ada! Living my fullest life is different than u living urs is all. I'm jus talkin bout me & people like me."
Though Silverman has often said she doesn't want to get married, she has expressed a desire to start a family of her own. In fact, in a 2015 interview with E! News' Marc Malkin, she said, "You know how some guys have a rubber neck about like hot girls' butts or whatever? "That's me with babies and toddlers and even like children and young teens. They fortify me. I love them."
Even then, Silverman knew motherhood might not be in her future. "I just don't have a life conducive to this. I could be a fun dad. I could do that. I could go on the road and come home and 'Daddy's home!' and give them everything I have and just love them to pieces when I'm home and have a career and a life...I live in a little apartment. Sometimes I sit and [think], 'So my guest room would be the baby's room and then I'd just buy it clothes and food?' I don't how people do it. It's so huge. It's so much and there's no going back. It's a big decision," she said. "I don't know how people make it so cavalierly. They're human lives you're responsible for."
Silverman echoed her comments when she appeared on Marc Maron's WTF podcast nearly a year later. "It's a sadness for me because I love kids. I ache for kids," the 46-year-old star of I Smile Back explained at the time. "But I love my life more. You can't have it all; you really can't."