NEW YORK, July 13 (UPI) — The movie “Bad Moms” pokes fun at the ridiculously difficult standards modern mothers are supposed to meet, and its star, Kristen Bell, says she can totally relate.
“Every day is something comical,” Bell said on Today on Wednesday. “Every day when you’re raising kids, you feel like you could cry or crack up and just scream ‘This is ridiculous!’ because there’s so much nonsense, whether it’s what they’re saying to you or the fact that there’s avocado or poop on every surface.”
“I was very much a rule-follower, yet rejected by instinct every single thing my mom wanted,” she said. “‘I’d love you to wear this dress.’ ‘That’s the only dress I don’t want to wear today’ would be my instinct. And I now feel so apologetic. But seeing some of that in my girls, I realized I have to nurture their desire to be autonomous individuals. But it will be difficult.”
Bell has been famous for more than a decade for her roles as a high school sleuth on the hit TV show “Veronica Mars,” and for comedies like “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and “Couples Retreat.”
“Bad Moms” thumbs its nose at those unattainable standards mothers are supposed to reach.
Bell gave some insights into her thinking about motherhood.
“Recently I’ve had an epiphany that if I’m as nice to my daughter as I want to be, she’s not going to respect me. Giving your kids strong boundaries is good for them, because if you just let them do whatever they want, you raise a jerk,” she said.
She has also determined that her first obligation is to her daughters, not others who want her to make plans.
“I don’t let myself feel guilty about not committing to things anymore,” Bell said. “How I position it in my head is that I have more of an obligation to my daughters than I do to anybody else.”
Bell will star this fall with Ted Dansen in “The Good Place,” a fresh sitcom about a woman trying to make up for her bad behavior.
