Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard have learned how to share the parenting workload whilst sheltering at home during the coronavirus pandemic

Kristen currently isn’t working at all whilst Dax is still recording his ‘Armchair Expert’ podcast from their attic, and the ‘Frozen II’ star says that whilst she takes over homeschooling their brood most days, her spouse is happy to step in whenever she asks for help.

She said: “What we’ve settled on is that he is always open to allowing me to ask him for help and jumping at the opportunity. So when he comes home, even if it’s just from the upstairs attic, he says, ‘Thanks for watching the kids. Thanks for doing the house.’

“He’s not saying that to patronise me. He’s saying, ‘Thank you for allowing me to go work right now ’cause I know that you’re taking a lot of responsibility in the house, which allows me to go do my work.’ ”

The couple had “sit-down conversations” to work out the best plan for life in lockdown, and Kristen admits she was “nervous” to ask for help at first.

She added: “[I will say] ’Can you handle homeschooling?’ And he will say yes…there have been points where [I've] been nervous to ask him to take over some of the housework. These sit-down conversations in marriages happen to everyone.

“You really have to look around you and say, ask the questions of, ‘Do you feel like I contribute enough? Do you feel like this is equitable? Do you feel like you do 50 percent and I do 50 percent?’ ”

And Kristen also stood up for stay-at-home mothers, as she said the coronavirus pandemic has helped to end the stigma surrounding them.

Speaking to LinkedIn’s digital show, ‘Working Together’, she said: “I’m a working woman. I’m also trying to be a very present mother, but there is this way we talk about stay-at-home moms. Like they don’t do anything and I think that is dead now. That’s gone. That’s over. No one ever will ever think that again.”