Actress Melissa McCarthy wants her daughters — Vivian, 12, and Georgette, 9 — to learn that “life is short” so they should always be themselves.

“My oldest has a really good head on her shoulders, but kids that age are always thinking, ‘Does someone think I look silly?’ I tell them it’s all silly and we’re all idiots!” the Bridesmaids star revealed to People. “The second you embrace that and have real friends, you realize that’s the fun part. Who is the dumbest and the goofiest? Those are the friends you’ll have all your life.”

Melissa McCarthy kids
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“How boring would it be if we were all the same?” she added. “We’re drawn to each other because of all our weird, unexplainable character quirks.”

However, Melissa, who shares her kids with husband Ben Falcone, understands the pre-teen years can be a little bit difficult. “At that age, I was eating dirt and running around a farm like a dingbat, but they have a much bigger view of the world,” the comedian joked. “I love to see my two girls just truly say, ‘I know who I am and I know what I like and what I don’t like.’ And they’re kind, so to have all of that come together is lovely.”

The No. 1 takeaway the brown-haired beauty wants her kids to have is to “just be yourself.” In fact, when Georgette, a.k.a Georgie, turned 10 years old on Tuesday, February 11, the Spy star said she got her daughter a one-of-a-kind gift.

Melissa McCarthy and daughter Georgette
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I got her a Hong Kong harness. It’s what you use. It’s a stunt harness which is what you wear if you’re being jerked up or if you’re in a fight scene. Or if you’re in an explosion in a movie, it’ll pull you back. And that’s all she really wanted,” the mom of two recently explained on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

With a mom like that, Melissa’s kids will never be afraid to embrace who they truly are!