Alicia Silverstone – best known for her roles in The Crush (1993), Clueless (1995), and Miss Match (2003) – is no stranger to making headlines for her taboo, unique, and non-traditional parenting style. In fact, she has faced her fair share of criticism in the past from parents who take exception to her ways.
During an appearance on The Ellen Fisher Podcast – which was released on July 19, 2022 – Silverstone addressed some of that criticism and even re-ignited more criticism when she reaffirmed that she still co-sleeps with her son Bear Blu Jarecki, who was 11 years old at the time and is 12 years old today.
“The things I’m doing I’m not inventing. I didn’t invent any of it. It’s just me following nature. Bear and I still sleep together. If you were in any kind of wild setting where there are animals if you put your baby over there, your baby is going to get eaten, so it’s not ideal for your baby to be over there,” Alicia explained.
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Alicia Silverstone went on to describe herself as a ‘natural mama’ and ‘loving mama’ who believes in love and nature – further adding that ‘our society is scared of nature and love.’ She stands by her parenting methods in the same way she has stood by her decision to go vegan – a decision she made in 1998.
“Every choice I make is either based on instinct or deep research,” she said – which is how she intends to raise her child. “I think being a mom is the most precious, most unbelievable experience in this world, and it’s not for everyone, and anyone who doesn’t want to do it shouldn’t do it, but for me, it’s so divine.”
Silverstone further defends her decision to co-sleep with her son as he approaches his teenage years by arguing that she ‘wouldn’t put him in a separate tent’ if they were to sleep outside in a tent. Of course, this isn’t the first time she admitted to co-sleeping with her son and it’s not the first time she defended herself.
For example, she believes placing children in a crib is ‘tantamount to child neglect’ – something she wrote about in her book The Kind Mama, which was released in 2014. She also talked about how she and her son would ‘wake up and snuggle for two or three hours laughing and talking’ in a 2020 TODAY interview.
Alicia Silverstone Explains Why She Didn’t Have More Children
Alicia Silverstone shares her 12-year-old son, Bear, with rock musician Christopher Jarecki – whom she met in 1997, dated for eight years, and was engaged to for one year before tying the knot on June 11, 2005 in Lake Tahoe. They welcomed Bear on May 5, 2011, but finalized their divorce seven years later.
While talking to Ellen Fisher in July 2022, Silverstone talked about her initial desire to have more children and why she ultimately stuck with just one. Not only did she want to be as present as possible with her first child, but then her relationship got messed up and she felt it wasn’t the right time to have more kids.
“I didn’t want to have one right away because I was so in love with my Bear. I wanted to … squeeze every little moment out of him, so it wasn’t until he was like 3 that I was ready to make another baby and then I didn’t have a partner, so that’s why I don’t have four babies,” she said on the podcast – isn’t that sweet?
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In addition to the criticism she receives for co-sleeping with her son, she has also received criticism in the past for chewing her son’s food for him (when he was a toddler), potty training her son as an infant, letting her son grow out his hair, and limiting his sugar intake – all of which she describes as a ‘good foundation.’
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