Traveling with kids is rarely like the relaxing vacations that parents enjoyed before having children, but apparently, Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard have found a workaround — one that’s already drumming up quite a bit of controversy. Kristen has admitted that she let her daughters run around a Danish amusement park for hours without adult supervision, and people have a lot of thoughts about it.
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Kristen opened up about the family's recent trip to Denmark.
While appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Kristen uttered one of the most true statements about parenting ever while chatting with Jimmy about their travels: “Don’t you find that going on vacation as a parent, it’s not a vacation? You’re just watching your kids in a different city.”
So to combat that truth, Kristen decided to try something a little out of the box.
She realized their hotel was connected to Tivoli Gardens, a popular amusement park in the area.
“Anyway, the hotel opens up into the theme park and so we just were kind of like, ‘Are we going to free-range parenting and roll the die here?'” she said. “We let them wake up … they woke up at like 6:00 every morning. They scanned their bracelets to go outside. Didn’t see them for seven hours. Just running around Copenhagen.”
And as Kristen noted, “they’re both alive,” so everyone was just fine.
Kristen and Dax would relax while their daughters had their own adventures.
As Kristen pointed out, the park in Copenhagen is apparently “real loosey-goosey” with rules, so that meant that 11-year-old Lincoln and 9-year-old Delta didn’t run into any problems while they were out exploring — they were able to ride the rides without an adult present.
“It was heaven. We just had coffee, we played Spades, and then around 3:00 we’d be like, ‘Anybody see them?’ And then one of them would run up and need a Band-Aid or whatever,” she said.
People have a lot of feelings about this.
In responses to Pop Crave’s post about the situation on X (formerly Twitter), people shared their thoughts about Kristen’s “free-range parenting,” and many didn’t agree that it was a good idea.
“Then they wonder why children go missing,” one person wrote.
Another tweeted, “revealing this is so unsafe.”
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Fortunately, their story does have a happy ending.
As Kristen pointed out, everyone made it home safe and sound. And of course, safety is different all over the world — and so is each parent’s comfort level.
It’s good to hear that their family all enjoyed themselves, and totally understandable if letting kids run free isn’t everyone’s jam.
