There’s no one right way to raise kids. Every parent, child, and situation are different, so as long as the kids are loved and cared for, that’s the most important thing. However, that doesn’t keep society at large from being extremely judgmental when it comes to some of the choices people make when it comes to their children. For instance, Kristen Bell has revealed that she lets her two kids drink non-alcoholic beer, and not everyone is on board with that.
- Kristen Bell and her husband Dax Shepard have two kids. They’re parents to 10-year-old Lincoln and 8-year-old Delta, and the actors have admittedly always taken a more unconventional approach to bringing them up.
- Do elementary school-aged kids really like non-alcoholic beer? And even if they do, should they be allowed to drink it? While there’s no alcohol in it so it’s not like they’ll get drunk, the idea that they’re drinking something meant to be like alcohol seems to set a bad precedent. It’s sending the message that booze is cool, to many, and that’s definitely NOT cool.
- So wait, what’s the story here? During an interview on The Kelly Clarkson Show, Kristen Bell was discussing the family’s recent trip to Disneyland, where her kids were pounding some alcohol-free brewski. “My kids have ordered non-alcoholic beers at restaurants before, which sounds insane if you don’t know,” she said.
- It does sorta sound insane, to be honest. However, it becomes slightly more acceptable when you hear the backstory. Basically, Dax Shepard is a recovering alcoholic so he often orders non-alcoholic drinks. The kids have seen this and wanted to emulate their dad.
- It’s not an everyday occurrence. Before you start thinking that Bell’s kids drink non-alcoholic beverages with every meal, think again. It’s more of an occasional thing. “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 explained. “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.”
- However, her daughter didn’t hesitate to try to order one in a restaurant. “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 admitted. “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.”
- Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard have always insisted on extreme honesty with their kids. “I hate the word taboo, I think it should be stricken from the dictionary,” Bell recently told Real Simple. “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.”
