Dax Shepard revealed that while he and wife Kristen Bell share two daughters, they didn’t initially want a second child.
The 47-year-old actor was asked about the pros and cons of having more than one child during an appearance on The Endless Honeymoon Podcast on Tuesday. According to Shepard, he and his wife “did not want a second child” at first, after welcoming their first daughter, Lincoln, in 2013.
Speaking to two callers, he described how happy they must be with their one baby, similar to how he felt after Lincoln was born.
“You must feel so content and so full, you’re not wanting for anything,” he explained. “So it’s a bizarre conversation to start, because it’s perfect.”
“You can take that little subway sandwich anywhere,” he joked, referring to the callers’ child. “It’s so manageable with two of you.”
The Armchair Expert host acknowledged that he and Bell ultimately came to the decision that Lincoln needed to have a “playmate”, throughout her parents’ busy careers. The couple welcomed their second daughter, Delta, in 2014.
“So I think for Kristen and I, we had two thoughts,” he said during the podcast. “One is we travel a lot. It’s not fair to bring this little human everywhere we go and deal with only adults. We owe it to her to give her a playmate that travels with us everywhere.”
The comedian emphasised that Lincoln was a major reason why he and Bell had another child, explaining: “We love her enough to do something we don’t really want to do, which is, have a second ‘cause we were so absolutely happy with just the one.”
Shepard also noted that because his children are “so privileged beyond belief,” Lincoln needed a younger sibling so she could learn about the values of “compromising and sharing”.
“It rattles both of us being from very modest backgrounds,” the Hit & Run star continued. “So minimally, to make this spoiled b****, my firstborn, live in the same room with another person and have to share everything. Like I needed a force of compromise and sharing and discomfort, ‘cause I wasn’t gonna give it to her in the other ways.”
“We just thought it would be really helpful to make her a better person to have to deal with someone else,” he added.
He then suggested that the callers should have their second baby “as quickly as possible,” noting that the age gap between his children wasn’t easy to manage at one point.
“For a minute that was difficult, ‘cause when you’re five and the baby’s three, that’s no fun,” he explained. “But I will say the corner we’ve turned is now the party. Not only do they party together, they’re united against us, which I love.”
He went on to share that when he’s disciplining one of his daughters, the other will step in and say: “You’re not being nice to Lincoln, you didn’t listen to what she said.”
Shepard poked fun at his children’s behaviour, adding: “And I’m like, ‘That’s right. That’s your role. You guys gang up and kill me. It’s you two against the world like that.’”
This wasn’t the first time that Shepard has opened up about his family. In February, during an episode of Armchair Expert, he and Bell first revealed that they shared a bedroom with their two children, and that they would sleep on the floor next to their parents.
However, in July, The Good Place star shared that her daughters have “graduated” and no longer sleep in the same room as their parents.
“We just graduated from them sleeping on the floor on this tri-fold mattress,” she said. “So you can congratulate me - we did it, they now sleep in their room on beds right next to each other and they cuddle with each other instead of us.”
