‘sMothered’: Cristina Wants Mom Kathy Not to ‘Interfere’ With Her Sex Life in Exclusive Sneak Peek

sMothered star Cristina Bertolli is trying to set boundaries with mom Kathy Crispino as her motherly concern about her daughter’s work-life balance veers into the bedroom. Kathy tries to convince Cristina to delay expanding the family pizzeria with her husband Carlo in a PopCulture.com exclusive sneak peek of Monday’s all-new episode of the TLC show.

As Kathy gives a lesson on making meatballs to Cristina’s daughter, she makes sure to impress just how important passing on these family traditions is to her. “My meatballs aren’t the greatest meatballs – you could buy better meatballs anywhere,” she admits to the camera. “It’s more of a ritual than the actual meatball itself.” 

Cristina doesn’t love the implication, however. “You act like I don’t wanna teach my kid how to make meatballs,” she tells her mom, who responds pointedly, “Well, why aren’t you? Oh, I forget. You’re at the pizza place all the time.” Kathy explains her meaning even more bluntly to the camera: “I wanna put a kibosh on the expansion of the pizzeria right now because the kids are so young,” she says.

“I want them to remember doing traditional things with their mother,” the TLC star continues. “Not remembering mom having to leave all the time to go to the pizza place, ’cause that’s what they’re gonna remember.” To Cristina, Kathy continues that the expansion means “less time for everything,” from taking care of the house and spending time with their kids to “less time for playing hide the salami with your husband – if you know what I mean.”

Cristina counters, “Seriously, the fact that you even bring up the salami is like the other night, which was so embarrassing,” while Kathy defends her sex intervention for her daughter as something that “made [her] stop and think” about the issue. “It made me stop and think that my mom is out of her mind,” Cristina fires back. She adds to the camera, “The sex intervention was my mom crossing the line. She crossed the line and I just think there needs to be a boundary when it comes to what goes on.”

Kathy asks, “What do you mean by a boundary? We don’t have boundaries,” which prompts Cristina to tell her, “Well, I just put one up. …This boundary means you’re not allowed to cross over and interfere into my sex life.” Kathy isn’t taking that for an answer, however, telling her daughter, “No, I don’t think so.” sMothered airs Mondays at 9 p.m. ET on TLC.