Kristen Bell has sparked a debate on social media after revealing that she allows her kids to drink non-alcoholic beer. On Monday, July 24, Kristen Bell put her spin on the age-old debate on “The Kelly Clarkson Show” by admitting that her older daughter occasionally drinks non-alcoholic beer. Bell and her husband, Dax Shepard, are the parents of two daughters, Lincoln, 10, and Delta, 8.
Clarkson started the conversation by saying that her daughter accidentally drank champagne as a baby.
“My kids have ordered non-alcoholic beers at restaurants before, which sounds insane if you don’t know,” Bell admitted.
Lincoln developed a fondness for non-alcoholic brews at a young age because her father would drink one when the family went on walks.
“We’ve been at restaurants where she’s said, ‘Do you have any non-alcoholic beer?’ and I’m like…maybe we just keep that for home time,” Bell continued. “But then I’m also sort of like, you can judge me if you want. I’m not doing anything wrong. Like that’s your problem.”
“He’s a recovering addict, but he likes non-alcoholic beer, so he’d pop one open, he’d have [our oldest daughter] on his chest, and we’d walk and look at the sunset,” she recalled. “As a baby, she was pawing at it, and sometimes she’d suck on the rim of it. So I think it feels to her like something special, something daddy, something family.”
“I hate the word ‘taboo.’ I think it should be stricken from the dictionary,” Bell told Real Simple earlier this year. “There should be no topic that’s off the table for people to talk about.”
Shepard has been open with his daughters about the dangers of alcoholism.
“One of the cuter moments was, I wanna say, my oldest daughter was 3—back when my daughters really wanted to be with me 24 hours a day—and she said, ‘Where are you going?’ I said, ‘I’m going to AA,'” Shepard recalled. “She said, ‘Why do you have to go?’ I go, ‘Because I’m an alcoholic and if I don’t go there, then I’ll drink, and I’ll be a terrible dad.'”
Bell’s comments have been met with mixed reactions. Some people have praised her for being open and honest about her parenting choices, while others have criticized her for allowing her kids to drink anything that even resembles alcohol.
“I think it’s great that Kristen Bell is open about her parenting choices,” said Dr. Sarah Smith, a child psychologist. “However, I do think it’s important to be aware of the potential risks of giving kids non-alcoholic beer. There is some evidence that it can lead to underage drinking later in life.”
Smith also pointed out that non-alcoholic beer can still contain trace amounts of alcohol. “While the amount of alcohol in non-alcoholic beer is very low, it’s still possible for kids to get drunk if they drink too much,” she said.
