Now a mother to a three-year-old daughter with her husband, David Rooklin, Glazer says she has learned how to accept—if not necessarily how to balance—all that comes with being a working mom who happens to star in movies and make people laugh for a living.

“Being on the road for a 52-date comedy tour—it definitely affected my daughter. But I worked to make it sustainable and doable, and being able to center my family for my work made that all more joyous,” the Broad City star tells Harper’s Bazaar. “And that’s a boundary I never would have found if I didn’t have a kid. That’s just one gift of many she’s given me.”

Ahead, Glazer gets real about making art as a mom, keeping your creative spirit alive, and the types of stories surrounding motherhood—and family—she wants to see in the future.

You’ve now starred in and helped write two very different films about motherhood: False Positive and now Babes. Why it was important to you to show these different sides of motherhood?

False Positive was this psychological thriller about IVF and pregnancy, and I am realizing now that it was my expression of first and foremost being really scared of the unknown of becoming a parent. There’s unknown loss when you become a parent. There’s unknown gain. It’s something that I really appreciate that I don’t think is popular enough. False Positive was both about my fears about becoming a parent, [and] also my fears about entering the medical system in such a vulnerable way. Really, I think it was about the fear of losing myself as a parent and even as a pregnant and birthing person. Whereas once I got through the fear of it—and it took my partner and me years to plan and decide to do it—it was a really joyful experience for me, which I’m so grateful for.

Once I started writing Babes, I had full agency and had taken the time I needed to come to the place where I decided to have a child, and I was already feeling so blessed about it. It was so much easier to come to it from a place of hope and comedy and also faith in friendship, which is something that Babes is really centered around.

How has your creativity evolved since becoming a mother?

I’m so grateful for my partner. I chose to have a kid with this person, and I had this feeling that we’d be a good fit as parents. I’ve been so continually surprised as the onion layers peel away to be, like, wow, I made the right choice, because my husband is so focused on creativity and playfulness at the center of our parenting.

As a comedian, I’ve learned how to organize and package and produce myself and my work. I have forgotten just the messy shamelessness of creativity, and with a kid it’s been like this whole reboot—this whole reset for me of creativity and trusting that I can keep following the ball and not feeling like I have to strangle it so much or hold it so tight. I’ve learned how to trust that my creativity is going to continue as long as I’m alive and it comes from within. I had that experience in carrying my child and birthing her. I literally created from within.

You’ve spoken about how since becoming a mother, you love incorporating that part of your life into your work and stand-up. How has your approach to comedy changed since becoming a mom?

Parenting is so effortful and laborious. At first, I was continually surprised when I had this sense that, no, it should be easier. [The whole experience] of not sleeping for a full night for 10 months—that’s how long it took for my child to start sleeping through the night—that’s not a full night’s sleep to me! [Other parents will say], “Oh, 9:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. is a full night’s sleep.” I’m like, I don’t think so. Not on my planet!

Now, I’ve learned how to accept that this is the way things are. Comedically, outside of parenting I have always been finding the comedy in the challenging, gritty moments. I think in Broad City, for example, because this world and New York is so hard to live in, the need to try and find beauty among all the trash was kind of the contrast. That was the vibe of the tension that we would find the comedy in. As I get older, it’s actually the tension between how hard it is just to be alive—parent or not. It’s just hard to exist. Being alive is so hard day in and day out, especially in this world, don’t get me started. But really just having awareness, being alive, and paying attention.

Babes isn’t just about motherhood either, but it’s also really about how friendships evolve and change, especially with big life events like having a child. Did you have any formative relationships change once motherhood was on the horizon for you?

Absolutely. My kid is three now, and I’m noticing a new change, because it’s not just baby land any more. Toddler-dom is so crazy, but I feel like we’re past the terrible twos and we’re into my kid becoming a kiddo. I found a real gentleness around the baby period. In New York City there’s such a culture around connecting with someone on the street about whatever they’re going through. There’s a lot of young families where I live, and there’s a deeper sense of how people parent and how people maintain friendships while parenting, which is something I find so hard. Being with my kid, being present and putting my phone down [when I’m with her]—I’m good at that. But maintaining friendships? It’s hard for me. I’m like, “When should I call this person and aren’t they busy? Are we just going to call and complain? How much am I going to get into therapy talk?”

There’s a deeper sense now, I think, among me and my friends, of how we all exist as parents. I remember when my first friend, who has three kids now, told my other friend she was pregnant, my other friend was so upset and crying and didn’t even hold it back. Part of [her reaction] was feeling the pressure that she was going to have to have a kid next—which she eventually did. She just had really intense feelings about [pregnancy and motherhood] that overwhelmed her at that point in time. Then after she got over it, she was like, “Okay, I’m done making it about me—so sorry about that.”

It draws a line in the sand between you and someone else when you choose to have a kid. Even if someone already has their own kid, you’re going to [parent] your kid in your own way. It’s really intense and really turns inside out all the ways in which you organize yourself. Now having a true kiddo, it’s a new deeper sense of shifting between friends.

It’s important to have that community. I say this as a non-mom, but I find New York moms very intimidating. They’re all so put together at six in the morning for their stroller walks, and I’m outside wiping the crust from my eyes, walking my dog braless.

I was in Brooklyn Heights yesterday and I was like, “Are we in Paris? Is this London?” There is so much money going on. It is crazy, but fun and chic and fun to visit. The neighborhood I’m in—whatever point it’s at in its development, redevelopment, whatever the hell—it’s just, I don’t know, more down-ass. Today I was also braless! But this was a choice that I thought was going to be chic.

I love Dumbo, though, because it’s chill and a lot of people from different neighborhoods come there. There’s such an honesty to walking around with your kid, and in New York also there’s this heightened sense of visibility. I love that my neighborhood is less performative in those public spaces—while I still certainly appreciate and visit those performative spaces. I love being like: Damn!

Do you have any parenting inspirations in the industry?

I’m inspired by a lot of comedian [moms]. I always think of Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Wanda Sykes—Wanda’s so funny. Hearing about her parenthood through different comedy specials and through her experience of being in touch with her queerness and starting a family in that relatively new context is so cool. Whoopi Goldberg had a kid as a teenager and then went on to be Whoopi Goldberg!

I have looked up to Michelle Buteau for so long too, not only since she’s had her twins, but I think also because of our kids’ development together and their ability to play together. Michelle has a unique story of her journey to parenthood, and she worked really hard for it. She was a mom for years before she was a mom, if that makes sense. So seeing her hold that need, that spiritual physical need to have kids while she had ups and downs on her journey to getting there was really inspiring to me. Now, being in the trenches with her as a mom has been a really cool privilege because it’s all just so funny.

Over the last few years, there’s been a conversation about the importance of moms taking the time and intention to center and focus on themselves more. Would you say remembering to be a bit selfish is an important part of motherhood for you?

I would word it such that caring for myself is what allows me to care for my child. And part of it is, yes, physical things—I truly do love my skincare regimen. I do a lot of therapy, and I definitely have gotten support in thinking about this and how giving quiet, careful attention to my kid is the ultimate love.

It’s so interesting to model something as a parent and then apply it to myself—and I always thought it was going to be the other way around. I always wanted to get enough therapy so that I was ready to have a kid, but I think letting go of that is benefiting me now. And to just not think of feelings as rankable, but rather just … messy! Is the ocean bad just because it’s not neat? It’s just like the way things are.

What other types of stories surrounding motherhood do you want to see in the years to come?

It’s so rare to see moms tell their stories authentically. I want to see more of that. I want to see stories from all different kinds of women—Black, Brown, Asian, Latina. Hopefully, my story is just the first of many. I also want to see queer families tell their stories authentically from the inside out, from genuine queer perspectives.

I want to see more stories from fathers, too. I don’t think fathers’ stories have been told in a deeper or layered or new way in a long time. It’s sort of as though men have gotten to say it all, which is true in a way, but even they’ve been dehumanized by these stories—the Homer Simpson of it all, where he wishes he could party and drink more, but he’s a good dad when he needs to be. I’m curious about more-nuanced dad stories too. I don’t think those have been explored.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Bianca Betancourt is the culture editor at HarpersBAZAAR.com, where she covers all things film, TV, music, and more. When she’s not writing, she loves impulsively baking a batch of cookies, re-listening to the same early-2000s pop playlist, and stalking Mariah Carey’s Twitter feed.