{"id":780612,"date":"2026-07-23T21:43:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T21:43:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/780612\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T21:43:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T21:43:19","slug":"what-w-kamau-bell-watches-and-reads-with-his-daughters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/780612\/","title":{"rendered":"What W. Kamau Bell Watches (and Reads) With His Daughters"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Getty Images, Amazon, Everett Collection (Walt Disney Studios, 20th Century Studios, Columbia Pictures, Marvel, Searchlight, Netflix, Disney Channel)\n <\/p>\n

Growing up as an only child with a single mom, W. Kamau Bell\u2019s childhood was fairly serene compared to that of his three daughters. He spent his summers reading books, eating cereal, and watching a little TV. By contrast, he says, his daughters have become used to life in a noisy, busy house, where one parent or another is always trying to dash off to get some kid to some activity. There are more logistics to worry about now than there were when he was a child, Bell says, and with his daughters\u2014who are 15, 11, and 8 \u2014 currently traversing different stages in their girlhood, it can seem like a lot.<\/p>\n

Package that together with the fact that all three girls went through the COVID years, which Bell says made them part of the \u201cferal generation of kids who didn\u2019t have all the playdates that they should have,\u201d and throw Bell\u2019s career as a brainy, boundary-pushing comedian into the mix, and you get a pretty good sense of what life is like in his family\u2019s home.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll three of my girls seem a bit rough around the edges,\u201d he says, \u201cbut I think that trait will only help their generation.\u201d For America to thrive in the years to come, Bell asserts, \u201cwe\u2019re gonna need some people who are rough around the edges.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what Bell reads, watches, and listens to with his whole wild bunch.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

My wife and I are very conscious of the fact that we\u2019re raising mixed-race girls who are also Black, because that\u2019s how it works. So we\u2019d read the children\u2019s books that every other kid reads, like those by Sandra Boynton and Llama Llama Red Pajama, but very early on, we also made sure to buy books like Colors of Us, by Karen Katz, which is about how people can have different skin tones.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want my kid to be the kid who doesn\u2019t know about the thing that every kid is talking about, even if I don\u2019t necessarily love it. Even if my kids don\u2019t like superheroes, they should know Spider-Man exists. I want them to have a general cultural IQ, but I also want them to have the things that they need and that feed them, and so that\u2019s why we always prioritized stories like Colors of Us over other general kids\u2019 books.<\/p>\n

Now, my friend Adam Mansbach and I have a children\u2019s book coming out in October, which is our first one. It stars my family and it\u2019s called Rock Paper Scissors Cheese<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Adam is most famously known for the book Go the Fuck to Sleep, but he\u2019s also got three girls. We hang out together pretty regularly, and we were like, \u201cWe should write a kids\u2019 book.\u201d I knew that people might expect me to write a book about why kids shouldn\u2019t be racist, but those aren\u2019t the books in my house that my kids want to read. They want to read the kids\u2019 books that are fun. But because this book stars my family, you get to see lots of different shades of skin and it\u2019s about all the things I\u2019ve been talking about, like a family who is bored and trying to figure out what to do, so they get into a wild game.<\/p>\n

There are so many different ways to accomplish representation and to accomplish making things better, and some of those ways are just by talking about how people exist. One of the things that has been really fun with the book, and that was really important to me, was how, like even if my mom and I both look brown from a distance, if you put our hands together, you can see there are different shades of brown. So all of us in the book have different shades of skin, which is how a mixed-race family works.<\/p>\n

Sometimes I try to take my kids on business trips with me if they\u2019re just a day or two long. I love doing it because it gives me time to hang out with them one-on-one, so we can just be with each other as opposed to being spokes in a larger wheel.<\/p>\n

Three years ago, I went on a trip like that with my middle child, who I feel like I understand in a very particular way. Middle kids always feel like they\u2019re being pushed around. As an only child, I felt like I always had a lot of free time, so I understand why she feels like she\u2019s not getting what she needs. It\u2019s like she\u2019s always on her way to somebody else\u2019s event and she needs her own time.<\/p>\n

Also, I feel like taking kids to airports at that age is great because it teaches them that the world will not always be waiting for them. When kids are in their houses, the parents wait on them before they leave. But if you\u2019re in an airport and you have a connecting flight, you\u2019ve just got to go. It\u2019s like, Look, we have to get from gate AAA to gate ZZZZ, and our flight is not waiting for us. You cannot go to the bathroom, you cannot buy anything, you cannot want to eat. We\u2019ve just got to go, and when that happens, it\u2019s like you can see kids\u2019 operating systems get updated in real time. Like, once they can figure that out, they start to understand oh, you mean the world\u2019s not always on my schedule?<\/p>\n

So, anyway, I had a college gig at Colorado State University, and because they knew she was coming with me, they put together a swag bag for her that they gave her when we showed up at the gig. It had a sweatshirt and a pennant and a stuffed animal of the school mascot, and for like a year after that, she was absolutely determined to go there when she was old enough.<\/p>\n

We had a day in Fort Collins before the gig, too, so we were like, We\u2019re going to try all the ice-cream shops in town! There\u2019s a kids\u2019 museum here? We\u2019re going to have to go there. An arcade, too? It\u2019s a great way for me to be on the road, really, because sometimes it\u2019s boring and lonely. I would never go to an art museum or a kids\u2019 museum or an arcade by myself, but when I take a kid with me, I go out in town.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Photo: Lester Cohen\/Getty Images\n <\/p>\n

Because I have three kids, they have to take turns picking what they want to listen to when we\u2019re in the car. My wife wants turns, too, so she gets them. I never really want turns, because I just want everyone else to be happy.<\/p>\n

All of them have very different musical tastes, too, so sometimes we go song by song. My 15-year-old will want Daniel Caesar; my 11-year-old will want Lauren Spencer Smith; and my 8-year-old will want some ridiculous kid song. Well, actually, it\u2019s either the most annoying kid song or something by John Legend. We sort of rotate between those two poles.<\/p>\n

Generally, she\u2019ll pick \u201cOrdinary People\u201d if she picks John Legend. I think there\u2019s just something specifically about that song that grabbed her, and it\u2019s been her song for the past couple of years.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s funny to think about, really. What songs do your kids like? \u201cWell, they like this song about a banana and they like John Legend.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Photo: Walt Disney Studios\/Everett Collection\n <\/p>\n

On Father\u2019s Day, our big activity for the day was that the whole family went to see Toy Story 5. It\u2019s funny when you have a movie that we are all excited about seeing, but it doesn\u2019t happen that often.<\/p>\n

Toy Story has been around long enough that there are parents who have grown up with it. I was an adult when the first one came out, but I still see it as my franchise, and also my 8-year-old sees it as her franchise. So we all saw Toy Story 5, which was great because none of us felt like we were being dragged into it.<\/p>\n

In terms of a review, I think we were all happy to see Jessie take front and center.<\/p>\n

When my oldest daughter was 6 or 7, we watched Toy Story 2, which is the first one that Jessie is in. After that, she would sit around and sing Jessie\u2019s song, \u201cWhen She Loved Me,\u201d which is a pretty melancholy song for a 6-year-old to sing. And now my 11-year-old, since seeing the new movie, has gone online and found fan theories about who Jessie\u2019s owner was and how she\u2019s supposedly related to the Inside Out franchise, so it has all taken on a life of its own.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Photo: Walt Disney Co.\/Everett Collection\n <\/p>\n

When my oldest kid was born, I think streaming had started, but it wasn\u2019t like you could get every movie yet. I think the only movie that Netflix had at the time that we felt like she would be interested in was The Aristocats, which is a Disney movie that\u2019s not really great all the way through, like it\u2019s pretty racist against Asians even if the songs are good.<\/p>\n

I remember when Disney+ came out six or seven years ago. I was on the road and my wife reached out and was like, \u201cSign us up for Disney+. We need Disney+,\u201d and now that has become the hub of so many of their experiences.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Photo: 20th Century Fox\/Everett Collection\n <\/p>\n

When we do a movie night, if my youngest is watching, we definitely need to pick something animated. She hasn\u2019t segued into live-action movies yet.<\/p>\n

My 15-year-old will still watch the new Trolls movies because she has very fond memories of the first Trolls movie. Kids will sit through movies even if they\u2019re not fully into them just because they reference something else that\u2019s familiar.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, also, there will be a thing where if the movie isn\u2019t hitting, like if the movie\u2019s too young, then in the corner my 15-year-old will just get on her phone. If the movie\u2019s too old, we\u2019ll give my 8-year-old the iPad.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Photo: JoJo Whilden\/Columbia Pictures\/Marvel\/Everett Collection\n <\/p>\n

Historically, none of my kids were very interested in superhero things. I tried to pass that down, but it didn\u2019t happen, so when a new superhero movie would come out, my wife and I would go by ourselves or I\u2019d go by myself.<\/p>\n

But at some point, my oldest kid realized that Zendaya is in the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies, and that\u2019s when she was like, \u201cWell, now I have to see all these Spider-Man movies if they\u2019re Zendaya movies.\u201d So we\u2019ve had fun watching the trilogy of Tom Holland Spider-Man movies, even if they\u2019re all tied into a million other Marvel movies, so every three seconds we have to pause and I have to explain, like, \u201cOkay, so that\u2019s Iron Man and here\u2019s his background\u201d or \u201cThat\u2019s Captain America and the thing he\u2019s referring to is what happened with Thanos, and what happened there was \u2026\u201d It was a very frustrating and hilarious way to watch them, really.<\/p>\n

Now there\u2019s a lot of excitement among my 15-year-old and myself about the new Spider-Man movie, but we\u2019re also trying to get my 11-year-old into it just because it\u2019s fun when you have more people involved.<\/p>\n

Something that\u2019s good about Spider-Man is that my kids have never really been fans of violence, and Spider-Man doesn\u2019t really fight like that. It\u2019s not really hardcore fighting. If it\u2019s too much, look away for a few minutes and you\u2019ll be fine.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Photo: Searchlight Pictures\/Everett Collection\n <\/p>\n

My 11-year-old has become my documentary-watching buddy, like we watched Summer of Soul together. The first documentary that really hooked her was Black Barbie on Netflix. I realized that she was watching it even when I wasn\u2019t around because she wanted to finish it without me. So now we have a rule about how you\u2019re not supposed to watch a documentary unless your documentary partner is there with you.<\/p>\n

I was in a documentary called Hollywood Black, about the history of Hollywood, so we sat down and watched that together, too. She\u2019s doing an Alvin Ailey dance camp this summer, and a friend of mine directed a documentary about Alvin Ailey, so we\u2019ve watched about half of that together as a way to prepare her for camp.<\/p>\n

Watching these movies with her reminds me of how my mom and I would watch Eyes on the Prize or Roots or PBS documentaries together. The difference was that my mom could suggest things easier because there weren\u2019t other choices on TV, so watching Eyes on the Prize was in part because there was nothing else happening on TV, whereas with my kids, sometimes they\u2019re like, \u201cCan we just put on something else?\u201d I\u2019m just glad my 11-year-old has developed the patience to watch documentaries with me, though.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Photo: Disney Channel\/Everett Collection\n <\/p>\n

My oldest daughter was 2 or 3 years old when the TV show Doc McStuffins hit, so there was a period of time in my house when Doc McStuffins was like religion. So much so, in fact \u2014 and I did this joke in my first Netflix special \u2014 that the first time she went to a doctor, she thought it was weird that the doctor wasn\u2019t a Black woman because she\u2019d watched so much Doc McStuffins, so mission accomplished.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

My kids had a gardening teacher who left during COVID to start a podcast called The Marvel of My Ordinary Life!, which is about kids being rambunctious and adventurous. I don\u2019t know how many listeners it has, but it\u2019s a great podcast for kids, and I can\u2019t recommend it highly enough.<\/p>\n

I was walking around the streets of Berkeley years ago when my oldest was just a kid, and someone gave me this book that Lashon Daley had just written called Mr. Okra Sells Fresh Fruits and Vegetables. It\u2019s a real story about a Black man in New Orleans who has a truck and drives around the city selling fresh fruits and vegetables. The book also sort of serves as a tourism guide to New Orleans, like the blueberries are as blue as the doors of the children\u2019s museum, and the whatever else is green as the palm fronds at some other place.<\/p>\n

Anyway, we had that book for years, and this is a book that, if you try to order it, it\u2019s always back-ordered because they didn\u2019t print a lot of them. But my middle kid, when she was about 4 or 5 years old, loved that book so much that she said, \u201cI want to go to New Orleans and do all the things that are in this book.\u201d<\/p>\n

My dad lives in Alabama, so New Orleans is really only about two hours away, so one time when we took a trip to Alabama, we drove down to New Orleans and did all the things that Mr. Okra does in the book, which, for a 4-year-old, turned out to be such a powerful experience.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Vulture Daily<\/p>\n

An entertainment newsletter for the pop-culture obsessed.<\/p>\n

Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n

By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms<\/a> and Privacy Notice<\/a> and to receive email correspondence from us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Getty Images, Amazon, Everett Collection (Walt Disney Studios, 20th Century Studios, Columbia Pictures, Marvel, Searchlight,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":780613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[236,1036,88,26997,181069,332447,181068,10677,107308],"class_list":["post-780612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-comedy","tag-entertainment","tag-family-entertainment","tag-kids-movies","tag-kids-shows","tag-quality-time","tag-vulture-homepage-lede","tag-w-kamau-bell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=780612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/780613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}