Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell are navigating the challenges of raising two teenagers.
“19 f***ing years, and I think we’re pretty good at handling our s***,” Shepard, 51, said during the Wednesday, October 28, episode of his “Armchair Expert” podcast when asked by guests Erin and Sara Foster whether he and Bell, 46, ever get into fights.
“We have a lot of s***, though,” the Parenthood alum admitted. “We have two children, and they are going through puberty, and that stressor … it throws the whole dynamic into a new zone that you have to figure out. ‘OK, how do we now navigate this?’ You know, I think it’s really hard when they’re really little because you care so much about the decisions you’re making with the kid. You’re certain you can f*** it up.”
Shepard added that he and Bell sometimes “butt heads” over how they should raise their daughters, Lincoln, 13, and Delta, 11, which can be “stressful.”
“And then there’s a sweet spot between, like, [age] six and puberty,” he explained. “You’re like, ‘This is working out pretty good. I think this compromise, however we’re doing it, is working.’ And then a whole new situation comes, and you’re like, ‘F***.. Well, now we need a new strategy, and I don’t know that we always agree.’ And then there’s more stress. I like to think if we didn’t have kids, it would be pretty smooth sailing. … But we don’t scream at each other or swear at each other.”
Shepard also admitted that he and Bell sometimes put off important conversations about their kids.
“We’ll kick something down the road for a week,” he said. “We’ll go to bed for a week where it’s like, ‘We’re gonna have to talk about this eventually.’ You know, what day will that be? When will there be enough free air in the f***ing room without the kids to mount this?”
Shepard and Bell began dating in 2007 and announced their engagement in 2010. The pair welcomed Lincoln in March 2013, seven months before they tied the knot at the Beverly Hills County Clerk’s Office. They later welcomed Delta in December 2014.
For years, Shepard and Bell have been open about the highs and lows of their parenting journey while still maintaining their daughters’ privacy by keeping their faces off social media. Earlier this month, Bell opened up about the struggle to maintain balance between transparency and ambiguity.
“It’s hard,” the Nobody Wants This star told Bustle. “Do not think because I am on your television that it is easy for me. It’s brutal. I cry weekly.”
She continued, “Oftentimes when you’re in that cyclone of puberty, you could think, ‘My kid is the only one doing this.’ And that is just simply not a fact. … For the good of the people, we should share our dirty stories, we should share our shame, we should share our hardships. But for the good of the one? My main job in life is to protect those two.”
Bell added, “I guess a conclusion we came to at a time in our parenting journey is, like, we can share all the cute things when they’re little, but when they could possibly be exposed to [media] or possibly have a feeling in response to it … well, now, the equation has changed. There’s someone else in the mix, and you have to have enough self-awareness and consideration to consider that person. And that person is my daughter, so she’s No. 1.”
