Kristen Bell has revealed the reason why she told her young daughters about their father’s addiction and recovery.
Last year, the 44-year-old Good Place actress appeared on the cover of REAL SIMPLE‘s Game Changers print and digital issue.
During her interview with the outlet, Bell opened up about her honest open approach to parenting, and how no topic is off limits in her household.
Bell tied the knot with her husband Dax Shepard in 2013, and the pair share daughters Lincoln, 11, and Delta, nine.
Over the years, the 49-year-old filmmaker has been candid about his struggle with drug addiction and his rocky road to sober living.
While the Frozen actress understands that her parenting style might be controversial to some, she believes that it’s important that her children understand what their father is going through.
“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,” she told the outlet. “There are all these ‘hard topics’ that don’t have to be if you give the person on the other end your vulnerability and a little bit of credit.”
“I hate the word ‘taboo.’ I think it should be stricken from the dictionary. There should be no topic that’s off the table for people to talk about,” she added.
Elsewhere in the interview, the Bad Moms star revealed that there are some rules she and the Armchair Expert co-host are teaching their children.
“Making amends and apologizing is an important thing in our family because humans leave carnage wherever they go,” Bell said. “I really respect when someone does something wrong or hurtful and they apologize. I’m like, ‘Yeah, right on.’ That’s important.”
The actress continued: “If there’s one thing I want to teach my kids, it’s how to make amends – and that it’s for themselves, so they can like who’s in the mirror a little bit more.”
The Without a Paddle actor has been open about his sobriety journey.
Back in 2012, the filmmaker disclosed to Playboy that from the age of 18 to 29, he was a “heavy smoker, heavy drinker, drug addict, terrible eater, and philanderer,” as cited by E! News.
In 2020, the comedian announced on his Armchair Expert podcast that he suffered a brief relapse after 16 years of sobriety, using painkillers following a motorcycle accident earlier that year.
The following year, he shared how he and Bell spoke about his relapse with their daughters. “We explained, ‘Well, Daddy was on these pills for his surgery and then Daddy was a bad boy and he started getting his own pills…Yeah, we tell them the whole thing,” he said during a 2021 episode of Chelsea Clinton’s In Fact podcast.
He also shared that his daughters “know that dad goes to an AA meeting every Tuesday and Thursday” and recounted a conversation he had with Lincoln when she was younger.
“She said, ‘Where are you going?’ I said, ‘I’m going to AA,” he recalled. “She said, ‘Why do you have to go?’ I said, ‘Because I’m an alcoholic and if I don’t go there, then I’ll drink and then I’ll be a terrible dad.'”
“And she said, ‘Can I go?’ And I said, ‘Well, no, you got to be an alcoholic.’ And she goes, ‘I’m gonna be an alcoholic.’ And I said, ‘You might become one. The odds are not in your favor, but you’re not there yet,'” he added.
