When Mila Kunis isn’t busy making relatable movies about mom life with pal Kristen Bell or raising money for refugees fleeing Ukraine, she spends her time parenting her two kids. The Bad Moms actress, who is one of PEOPLE’s 2022 People of the Year, shares daughter Wyatt Isabelle, 8, and son Dimitri Portwood, 5, with husband Ashton Kutcher. She married The Ranch star on July 4, 2015, after meeting on the set of That 70s Show in the ‘90s and getting together in 2013. They call themselves the “KuKus” for Kunis-Kutchers, which is so cute!
Although Kunis is very private — and doesn’t even have social media! — The Luckiest Girl Alive actress has opened up about raising kids throughout the years.
One of the challenges of being a celebrity parent? The way she is treated by the media. Tabloids have caused stress to her family, as Kunis detailed in a Cosmopolitan cover story in August 2018. “At one point when I was pregnant, [the tabloids] said that I had an emergency and was rushed to the hospital, and my face was on the cover,” she said. “The amount of stress that caused my family, nobody will understand. Although my dad is always very hopeful that the pregnancies are true. He’s always like, ‘Is there really another?'”
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Women in general are criticized unfairly. Even before Kunis became a mom, she experienced the harmful treatment. “But, you know, people criticize a woman for everything — like, I get criticized for how my hair looks when I go grocery shopping or the fact that I don’t wear makeup when I get my nails done,” she told James Franco for an article in Interview Magazine in 2012. “Women get scrutinized all the time for the way they look. So if I can learn to deal with that, then I do believe I can learn to deal with people’s criticisms of my film choices.”
Because of this, she is selective about what she puts out in the world publicly, but we do know she is a great mom. Kutcher told Ellen DeGeneres in Dec. 2014, per Us Weekly, “The most amazing thing about having a baby is my partner, Mila. She’s the greatest mom, I can’t even. I go to work every day and I come home and she’s like perfect. And it just seems like everything went amazing. And I know that something probably didn’t go amazing, but she never tells… it’s unbelievable. She’s incredible.”
Kunis has said some inspirational (and funny!) things about motherhood. Check out our favorite quotes below!
On Staying True to Her Beliefs
When Kunis and Kutcher saw Will Smith slap Chris Rock at the Academy Awards on March 27, 2022, she was “shocked” and did not stand up and clap.
In an interview with C Magazinein Oct. 2022, she talked about this decision. “The idea of leading by example only makes sense when you actually have someone to lead. We have our tiny little tribe here at home, and never once do I want to tell them to do something if I’m not willing to do it myself,” she said.
“Not standing up, to me, was a no-brainer, but what was shocking to me was how many people did stand up,” she continued. “I thought, ‘Wow, what a time we’re living in that rather than do what’s right, people focus on doing what looks good.’ It’s insane to me.”
On Embracing Bodily Functions
Kids are gross sometimes, and they also have no respect for personal space. Hence, Kunis just embraces it.
“It’s just one of those where, for better or for worse, as a family and the kids have all kind of embodied bodily function as a very standard norm,” Kunis told E! News in Sept. 2022. It may be gross, but it’s relatable!
She also explained that after her kids would knock so many times, she decided, “‘Oh, forget it. Just keep the door open.’”
On Lying to Her Kids
Kids are just too dang busy, and parents need a break! On an Oct. 2022 episode of The Kelly Clarkson Show, Kunis and host Kelly Clarkson bonded over lying to their kids to get out of social plans.
“We just tell our kids we have plans when we don’t,” Kunis said, and Clarkson responded, “That’s lying!” Kunis then throws her hands in the air and says, “We all lie to our kids, okay, fine!”
On Self-Growth
Having kids put things into perspective for Kunis. She told C Magazine that becoming a mom made her focus on self-growth.
“Having kids changes your perspective,” she said. “When I was in my twenties, even my teens, my drive was always ‘how can I be more successful at work?’ After I had kids, it was ‘how can I be a person that I want my kids to admire?’ So I went from career growth to self-growth.”
And her kids are paying attention. “When the war broke out, my kids identified that Ukraine was a part of me before I did,” she continued. “They were like, ‘Mom, isn’t that where you’re from? Do we have family there? There’s a war happening—what are we doing about it?’ ”
On Teaching Her Kids About Money
Because Kunis and Kutcher came from “pretty solid poverty backgrounds and grew up very poor,” they want to teach their kids about the value of money.
“It’s a matter of teaching them from a very early age that, you know, ‘Mommy and Daddy may have a dollar, but you’re poor,’” she joked on The Kyle and Jackie O Show, per PEOPLE. “‘You are very poor, you have nothing. Mommy and Daddy have a bank account.’”
On Acting Silly At Home
“I think we’re silly at home,” Kunis said on the Teach Me Something New iHeartRadio Original podcast in March 2020. “We’re very goofy parents when it comes to our children, but that don’t have skill. I think that’s just being idiots. I think we’re very comfortable with ourselves acting a fool at home, but maybe that comes from the idea of being comfortable in your own body, and in your own skin, and in your mind and not having a fear of making a fool of yourself.”
On Limiting Her Kids’ Presents
Kunis opened up about her and Kutcher’s holiday tradition of giving their kids one present for the holidays. “Last year when we celebrated Christmas, Wyatt was 2, and it was too much,” she told Entertainment Tonight in October 2017.”We didn’t give her anything — it was the grandparents. The kid no longer appreciates the one gift. They don’t even know what they’re expecting; they’re just expecting stuff. We’ve told our parents, ‘We’re begging you — if you have to give her something, pick one gift. Otherwise, we’d like to take a charitable donation, to the Children’s Hospital or a pet [or] whatever you want.’ That’s our new tradition.”
On Not Washing Her Kids Daily
After Kutcher admitted he and Kunis don’t bathe their kids until they can “see the dirt on them,” in an episode of the Armchair Expertpodcast, Kunis explained that she didn’t shower often as a kid due to a lack of hot water. She added, “But when I had children, I also didn’t wash them every day,” she said. “I wasn’t that parent that bathed my newborns — ever.”
On Telling Her Daughter to Stand Up for Herself
Kunis shared a story of the one time she gave her daughter advice about school bullies in an epsidoe of EllenTube’s Mom Confessions in October 2021. “There was a little kid in my kid’s preschool that wasn’t very kind and pushed my daughter,” she explained. “My daughter came back and was like, ‘Such and such little kiddo pushed me.’”
The actress added, “You push her back next time. You push her back and say, no thank you, and you walk away.” She revealed Kutcher gave her a look, but she doubled down. “But I was like, ‘You stand up for yourself and say no thank you. Don’t push her off of a ladder, off of a swing or off of a slide, but on the ground, even Steven, you push ’em back.’”
Looking back, says Kunis, “I’d say that that’s a parenting fail.”
On Being Ukrainian
“It seemed like overnight we both turned to our kids and were like, ‘You are half Ukrainian, half American,’” Kunis said in an appearance on Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace? in March 2022. “It instantly became a thing, and they’re like, ‘Yeah, I get it Mom.’ But it is ultimately incredibly important to know where you came from. It’s beautiful, it’s amazing to have multiple cultures. It’s a beautiful thing to have out there. We shouldn’t all be alike. We shouldn’t all think alike. That’s not the importance of community and growth. And so, we very quickly reminded our kids that they are half Ukrainian.”
On Not Raising ‘A—holes’
“Yeah, we’re not gonna raise assholes. There’s enough assholes in this world!” Kunis told Entertainment Tonight in October 2017. “We don’t need to contribute.”
On How Kids Are Like Dogs
“I love my kids very much, we both do, but they’re like dogs: they can sniff you out!” Kunis said on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in February 2021, per PEOPLE, about being in quarantine with kids. “They know your smell, they know what room you’re hiding in — you can’t get away from them. You just can’t. They’re just there.”
On the Difference Between Boys and Girls
“They’re incredibly different. My boy’s like a sloth. He’s wonderful, and I love him,” Kunis said on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in March 2018, adding, “But the truth is, women are smarter than men. And I have this evident from my two different humans that I created.
“Girls are just like on it and boys are like, dum da-dum,” Kunis continued. “They’re more like little linebackers going through life and like Neanderthal-ish. So there’s an element where Wyatt will be like, ‘Pass the cup please.’ My boy’s like, ‘Eh, eh.’ That’s it! That’s all you get … There’s just a huge difference.”
On Trying Out Cool Kid Activities
“I can write you a book on kid-friendly activities anywhere in the world,” Kunis told Entertainment Tonight in October 2017. “Because that’s what we do. We used to be like, ‘What’s the coolest club?’ and [now] I’m like, ‘Let me tell you about the zoo in Atlanta and the bouncy house.’ There’s not one kid activity that I haven’t done yet with my child! We have a public library card everywhere we go. When it is really hot outside, we go to the library and read books.”
On Being a Working Mom
“I felt like I was failing as a mother because I wasn’t there for her every minute of the day,” Kunis said in an interview with A Plus, per HuffPost, about going back to work after having Wyatt. “It took me a little while to realize that I was a better mom going back to work because when I was with her, I was present 100 percent. If you are with your kid and you are present, and you are there and you’re engaged, and you care, then you’re a great mom.”
On Being Pregnant
“Hello, I’m Mila Kunis, with a very special message for all you soon-to-be fathers,” Kunis said on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in 2014. “Stop saying, ‘We’re pregnant.’ You’re not pregnant! Do you have to squeeze a watermelon-sized person out of your lady-hole? No. Are you crying alone in your car listening to a stupid Bette Midler song? No. When you wake up and throw up, is it because you’re nurturing a human life? No. It’s because you had too many shots of tequila. Do you know how many shots of tequila we had? None. Because we can’t have shots of tequila. We can’t have anything, because we’ve got your little love goblin growing inside of us. All you did was roll over and fall asleep.”
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