Mila Kunis Uses Her 'Poverty Background' To Teach Her Children 'What A Dollar Is Worth'

Apr 08, 2022 by apost team

Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher are American actors who are best known for their work on the sitcom "That 70s Show." The show aired from 1998 to 2006 and had eight seasons and 200 episodes. It centered around the lives of a teenage friend group in the 1970s and addressed social issues during that time. The show performed well and was a commercial success, which helped launch the careers of both Kutcher and Kunis.
Incidentally, they played a couple in the show, but it would be many years before they got together romantically in real life. 

Before Kunis was an actress, she traveled many miles from Ukraine to the United States at the age of seven to experience a one-of-a-kind upbringing. Before she would go on to join hit tv shows and classic movies, Kunis was playing the challenging real-life role herself of a young Jewish girl feeling out of place in Los Angeles, California. 

Moving with her brother, mom, and father, the star said her parents left the (then) Soviet Union for more opportunities. From Barbie Mattel commercials to "Seventh Heaven" appearances, Kunis quickly became popular as a successful child actor. Finally making her way onto "That 70's Show", Kunis was 14 when she was cast. Working a full-time acting gig with a studio teacher, Kunis said her family dynamic and situation were still very unique. In an interview on The Howard Stern Show in 2016, Kunis opened up about her emotional past; read on to learn more about how the star's childhood influenced her parenting style. 

Crying almost every day after school during her second-grade school year, Kunis' parents decided to enter her into an acting school to help with her English as well as her young, fragile confidence. With just $900 in the family's bank account, her parents spent $890 on the program; she would later find out. Fortunately, the young actress with an accent started to get jobs. "We were really poor, and I just had money," Kunis revealed in a Howard Stern Interview. From "That 70's Show" to "Family Guy," and now to movie screens all over the world, her work ethic has kept her in the entertainment business for almost 30 years. The actress confessed:

"The thing about this industry is it's not like chess. You can't really think five steps ahead. If you could, you would be the master, and that's impossible. There is no plan. You take it one day at a time. You just try to make smart decisions."

Now that she's reached box office status, Kunis' parents still won't accept simple or luxurious things from her- not even a dinner. "I've never been able to pay for dinner, to this day I'll be like 'Let's go out to dinner for your birthday, Dad and then he calls the restaurant before we get there and puts his card down," she admitted. Seeing the world from a different perspective now that she is a wife and mother, her husband Ashton Kutcher are parents of two children. Despite each having a hugely successful Hollywood career, the actors have mostly stayed under the radar while raising a family of their own. The actress is following in the same footsteps as her parents, working to show her two children the meaning of hard work and creating opportunities for themselves. 

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Acknowledging her celebrity status, Kunis said — "It's a matter of teaching them from a very early age that, you know, mommy and daddy have a dollar, but you're poor," — hoping to instill life lessons. "You are very poor; you have nothing. Mommy and daddy have a bank account," she added. Although the actress has acknowledged her upbringing wasn't traditional, she recalled:

"My recollection of it was always so wonderful" "I don't know if it was a coping mechanism that happened, but I never missed out on anything."

The A-List actress admits that her husband, Ashton Kutcher, shares similar stories about how they grew up. Both individuals faced major adversity for their ages. Kutcher didn't come from another country- he was born in Iowa with a fraternal twin brother who has cerebral palsy. He would later attend the University of Iowa and study Biochemical engineering before getting his start in the entertainment industry.

Kunis said:

"It's so important because we both came from pretty solid poverty backgrounds and grew up very poor and are very much self-made and are very aware of what a dollar is worth."

She added, "Nothing's been handed to us." Working and raising kids- she has acknowledged that not all of her parenting so far has been perfect. Appearing in a segment on "The Ellen Degeneres Show" called "Mom Confessions," Kunis revealed that after her daughter told her she'd been pushed in preschool, she asked if she pushed the kid back. She admitted this was probably a "parenting fail" and that her husband was mortified when he heard her response. 

The Hollywood couple has gone as far as to reveal that they don't plan on leaving their children their earnings, "We're not setting up a trust fund for them. We'll end up giving our money away to charity." Kunis, Kutcher, and their two children currently live in Los Angeles, California.

Do you think that Mila's childhood has had an impact on how she and her husband, Ashton, are raising their children today? How does her parenting style compare to how you raise your children or how you grew up? Let us know — and pass this article along to any other parents or parents-to-be!