Kristen Bell: Jason Bateman told me to think of having kids like if my dogs could talk
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Kristen Bell was on a podcast called Motherly, which I’ve never heard of until now and am assuming is very popular since Bell and Tammy Duckworth have been on it. The host of the show, Liz Tenety, focused on the fact that Kristen plays Ana from Frozen, which is likely how most of the listeners will know her. Of course they talked about parenting and their kids, and Kristen had some interesting things to say. She loves those subjects. To be fair to her, she has done a lot of work around parenting and you can tell she tries and cares. She’s also dead honest about these topics to the point where she overshares, but we’ve known this about her. Here’s some of what she said on the podcast, which you can listen to here.
On not being sure she wanted to have kids
[Dax and I] had a genuine conversation about whether or not we wanted kids and I was the hesitant one. ‘We love over lives, we like traveling. Is this what we want? I get so much fulfillment out of my dogs.’
When I was pregnant I was as connected with the baby in my belly as that water bottle. I was like ‘I don’t know you, I don’t know what you are. You give me gas.’ But all the cliches are true, you just know what to do when it comes out.
Jason Bateman told her during their movie Couples Retreat in 2009 what having kids was like
He said ‘you love your dogs, right? Imagine if one of your dogs stood on its hind legs and said I love you. That’s what it’s like.’
On how her marriage changed after having kids
Very transactionally. We read a book called Brain Rules for Baby. When we read this book it talked about how 75% of marriages can go downhill after having a baby because of the stress. It gave you five different tips to look for like sleep deprivation, isolation, uneven workload. Uneven workload was the first transaction. We said ‘ok, you do 50% I do 50%.’ We shook hands on it. He did 50% of the diapers. I don’t buy that you get to come home at the end of a long day never having seen your kids and make the rules. That’s baloney and 1950 is over. It needs to be an even workload. You keep an eye on it by making a list.
On if they have a parenting mission statement
My personal one is you just do the next right thing. His would probably have to do with his sobriety. He talks a lot about the only person you need to compare yourself to is yourself yesterday. The most annoying part about my husband is that he’s usually right.
How they play make up in front of their kids.
[After we fight in front of the kids] we say, privately, ‘I’m sorry I snapped at you I had a really tough day. They don’t ever see that. The next day they just assume the problem went away. [Dax] said, ‘let’s make a deal. If we ever make up when we’re behind closed doors that we role play the next morning.’
Every time we’re testy with each other we just say ‘good morning daddy. I just wanted to say last night I had a really long day and I’m sorry that I snapped at you.’ He would say ‘yeah, you’re right mommy. I had a hard day too and I’m really sorry.’ Then we physically kiss and hug.
[From The Motherly Podcast via Buzzfeed]
That was fifteen minutes of a forty five minute podcast. I skimmed through the rest and she talked about giving her kids the sex talk and telling them how everything works physiologically vs. letting them believe in magic and fairy tales like other parents do. (Her daughters are six and five.) She talked about the message of Frozen 2, that familial love comes before romantic love. They also discussed how hard it must be to deal with the loss of a child. She was promoting her babycare line, Hello Bello, which is celebrating their one year anniversary. They have more products coming out for older kids and are giving out a week worth of free diapers to new parents. Plus Kristen has a kids’ book coming out in June to celebrate people’s similarities. It’s going to be called The World Needs More Purple People.
As for thinking of kids like dogs that can talk, I guess that’s a way to explain the feeling to dog owners. It sounds ridiculous on one hand but it also makes total sense to me. The last time Kristen talked about having fights with Dax was on Justin Long’s podcast where she admitted that she and Dax once didn’t talk to each other for three days after a fight. They made up when Kristen asked about bringing a new dog home. I wonder if that was before or after she made the pact with Dax to make up in front of their kids.
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