Kristen Bell is opening up about the interesting way her children support dad Dax Shepard‘s sobriety. As The Ranch actor celebrates 16 years of sobriety, Bell revealed during Tuesday’s Say Yes! with Carla Hall podcast that daughters Delta, 5, and Lincoln, 7, are an active part of an open conversation about his choice to no longer drink.
Admitting she knew she would get “a lot of flack” for the story, the Frozen actress said she didn’t care. “You’re allowed to give me any advice you guys want, any of these listeners,” she prefaced. “You’re welcome to tell me I’m a terrible parent. I don’t care. I’m a great parent, I think. I’m learning every day.”
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Recalling that Shepard had brought home a six-pack of O’Douls the night before, a “nonalcoholic” beer, which the company stresses has “less than 0.5 percent alcohol by volume,” Bell explained that her daughters have developed a taste for the beverage, even having ordered it at restaurants.
“The reason for this is because when we first had our child and my husband would put her in the Babybjรถrn and we’d walk around the neighborhood, he’d pop a nonalcoholic beer in his hand and the baby would paw at it and put the rim in her mouth,” she continued. “It’s a sentimental thing for my girls, right? It makes them feel close to their dad.”
The night before, the girls had an O’Douls with their dad for dinner, which Bell said was “essentially a bubbly juice.” The Good Place actress added, “We also talk to them very much about [Dax’s] sobriety and the importance of it and why Daddy can’t drink.” When the girls brought the beverage to a Zoom school lesson, however, Bell said she assumes there may have been some questioned raised.
“They have 15-minute breaks where they’re allowed to jump around and grab a snack and wiggle it out. And I walk in to check on them at 9:30 and both of them are drinking an O’Doul’s on their Zooms,” she remembered. “They’re both just sipping their Doulies. And I’m like, ‘What must these other parents and teachers think of me?’ “
“And then I remind myself, ‘You don’t care, Kristen. They can pretend like you’re doing something wrong.’ I would argue that I’m not, because it’s nonalcoholic,” the Veronica Mars alum added. “If anything, it opens up the discussion for why Daddy has to drink nonalcoholic beer, because some people lose their privileges with drinking. Drinking’s not always safe.”
