Photo: John Parra/Getty Images
As their daughters grow up,Dax ShepardandKristen Bellhave had to field some tough questions.
On Monday’sWTF with Marc Maronpodcast, the actress revealed how she and her husband talk to their girlsDelta, 3½, andLincoln, 5, about topics like death and sex — in fact, when it comes to the latter, Bell hopes all the best for her girls in the future and will be there to give them information when they ask for it.
“They’ve asked about sex before and Dax says, ‘Well,there’s a penis, there’s a vaginaand there’s an ovum and there’s ejaculate,’ ” explainedThe Good Placestar, 38. “And they’re like, ‘Can I have some juice?!’ They’re just off of it. They don’t care.”
She added aboutinevitably having the conversationagain with Delta and Lincoln in the future, “That’s fine. Sex is wonderful. I want my kids to have sex. I want them to have good, healthy, positive, happy, wild sex.”
Kristen Bell/Instagram
Kristen Bel/Instagram
The spouses’ dedication to honesty where their kids are concerned extends to most aspects of their life, and recently, that included a difficult discussionabout the circle of life.
“He’s dying of prostate cancer,” Bell told the host of Shepard’s stepfather, who has since died, in May (his biological father died of lung cancer five years ago). “But we’re prepared, as a family. It’s been years coming. … We have all sort of made peace with it, and we’ve talked to our kids about it. They know that Papa’s gonna die.”
“In fact, a couple days ago in the car, my oldest daughter said, ‘Will Delta and I be around when we bury Papa?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, you guys will. We’ll go up to Oregon andwe have what’s called a funeraland there’s a casket and sometimes they open it and you’ll see Papa’s body and he won’t be in it.’ … We’re very honest with them.”
“And she said, ‘Okay, so we’ll be there when you bury him … do I need to bring my gardening stuff? I have a shovel. Where do we do it? The side of the house?’ ” Bell continued. “And it was so practical. I slammed on my brakes, I was laughing so hard.”
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“I was also so proud,” she raved of Lincoln. “She was like, ‘Well, one of our own is going, I guess we all participate.’ Her frontal lobe was firing about how to handle this and I thought that was so wonderful for a 5-year-old.”
“What I reallywant to give to my kidsis the science of [death] and the critical thinking of it,” said theVeronica Marsactress, who was raised on a more religious view of what happens after someone dies.
“[Lincoln] asked before, when she was 4, she said, ‘Am I gonna die?’ ” Bell continued. “And Dax and I both lost our breath for a minute and we were like, ‘This is the moment. This is the momentwe start to spin the fantasy ofsomething else — do we do it, or can we brave this water and say, “Yeah, we all die. That’s what happens. It won’t be for a hundred years, so you don’t need to worry about it.” ‘ ”
The experience did involve a few tears, but luckily they were short-lived. “We said that and she cried for about 10 seconds and then she went, ‘[Sniffles] Whereare myPAW Patroltoys?‘ And it was not a thing.”
The Good Placereturns to NBC Sept. 27 with a special 1-hour premiere at 8 p.m. EST.
source: people.com
