Warning to judgy moms: You might want to sit down for this one. On Monday on The Kelly Clarkson Show, Kristen Bell admitted that her kids sometimes drink non-alcoholic beer — and she also doesn’t care at all what you might think about it.
The 43-year-old movie star and husband Dax Shepard share two kiddos, Lincoln, 10, and Delta, 8, and the two children seem to have sophisticated palates for elementary-aged kids.
But as Kristen explained, their penchant for non-alcoholic brews makes sense if you know the backstory.
“My kids have ordered non-alcoholic beers at restaurants before, which sounds insane if you don’t know,” she began, while telling Clarkson about the family’s recent trip to Disneyland, where the Frozen actress was named a Disney Legend.
Bell explained that her kids’ taste for non-alcoholic suds came from Shepard, who is a recovering addict who drinks alcohol-free beverages from time to time.
“He’s a recovering addict, but he likes non-alcoholic beer, so he’d pop one open, he’d have [our oldest daughter] on his chest, and we’d walk and look at the sunset,” she recalled. “As a baby she was pawing at it, and sometimes she’d suck on the rim of it. So I think it feels to her like something special, something daddy, something family.”
“We’ve been at restaurants where she’s said, ‘Do you have any non-alcoholic beer?’ and I’m like … maybe we just keep that for home time,” Bell said, laughing. “But then I’m also sort of like, you can judge me if you want, I’m not doing anything wrong. Like that’s your problem.”
Bell has a history with being super honest with her kids about her husband’s history with substance abuse — and lots of other topics that make parents cringe.
“I hate the word taboo, I think it should be stricken from the dictionary,” she told Real Simple earlier this year. “There should be no topic that’s off the table for people to talk about. And I know it’s shocking, but I talk to my kids about drugs and the fact that their daddy is an addict and he’s in recovery, and we talk about sex. There’s all these ‘hard topics’— don’t have to be, if you give the person on the other end your vulnerability and a little bit of credit.”
Bell’s parenting style is refreshing — whether or not you agree with giving your kid a taste for non-alcoholic beers — and anyone who wants to judge that shouldn’t expect a response anytime soon.
