Tough talks. Jana Kramer and Mike Caussin are doing their best to explain the coronavirus pandemic to their two children.
“This has been heartbreaking for our daughter, [Jolie], because she just doesn’t understand,” the actress, 36, recently told Us Weekly exclusively while promoting her “Untouchable” single, out Friday, April 17. “Our 16-month-old, [Jace], has no clue what’s going on. Nothing is different for him, but [for] Jolie … it’s a bummer.”
While the One Tree Hill alum lets Jolie, 4, play with her neighborhood friends and “ride bikes six feet apart,” the kids have to be separated when they get too close. “She saw her friend and she wanted to go hug [her], and I’m like, ‘No!’ And she’s, like, crying. … It broke my heart and we ended up having to leave because she just wouldn’t stay far [enough] apart.”
When the Michigan native tried to tell her eldest that “everyone is sick right now,” Jolie replied, “‘I’m not sick.’” Kramer explained, “She just thinks there’s an evil virus going around, but it still doesn’t click with her.” In fact, the little one asks to go to Chuck E. Cheese every night.
Kramer became a mom in 2016 when Jolie arrived, but has been learning new parenting lessons while quarantining with her and Jace.
“I’ve learned it’s OK to put the phone down,” the “Beautiful Lies” singer told Us. “I’ve just really learned to, like, put it away and be super present because I’m never going to get this time back with my kids. They’re so little and they’re so impressionable.”
The Dancing With the Stars alum loves being “so connected” with her family in this time. “That email can wait,” she said.
Kramer is currently celebrating the release of “Untouchable” at home with her family, which she wrote a decade ago. “I love the message and what it stands for, about a love being untouchable,” she gushed to Us. “Hopefully it’ll help people during everything.”
With reporting by Carly Sloane
