Melissa McCarthy Gives Advice to Her Two Teen Girls About Social Media: 'This Is Smoke and Mirrors'

The Little Mermaid star graces this year's cover of PEOPLE's Beautiful Issue

Melissa McCarthy keeps it real when it comes to raising her two teen daughters.

As mom to Vivian, 15, and Georgette, 13, with husband and producing partner Ben Falcone, 49, McCarthy, 52, is "not the most laid-back," she admits to PEOPLE in this week's cover story.

"I'm really like, 'What are you doing? Do you want to go over your homework?' Ben is much more, 'Let them figure it out.' I'm like, 'Or I could empty their schoolbag and line up all their pencils.' I call it helping. Other people would probably say, 'You're meddling.' They're not babies anymore, so if I could put them in a BabyBjörn and still carry my teenagers around, I would. But I'd like to also think I'm fun."

Her girls actually have a nickname for McCarthy when she's in "fun" mode. "There's a version of myself that we call 'Midway Mom,' " the actress says. "We were coming back from visiting my parents and we went through the Midway Airport in Chicago. And for some reason everything they asked for, I was like, 'Sure, get it. Two of them. You want a Coke?' And they were just like, 'What's going on?' 'Can we have Doritos?' 'Yep.' Anything they said. 'Can we get sweatshirts?' 'You sure can.' Like everything. I was like, 'You want a beer cozy?' And they were like, 'Midway Mom's awesome.'"

"Midway Mom" even made a recent appearance in the household. "For no reason, I lost my mind this week and met someone's dog who's like a little wiener dog. We have two dogs and they all want a third one," McCarthy says. "And I said, 'Absolutely not. We're not doing this. This is crazy. We already have two dogs.' And suddenly I called the girls and I was like, 'Guess who's getting a wiener dog?' And they're like, 'Midway Mom!'"

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Related:Melissa McCarthy Recalls 'Awkward' First Sex Talk with Daughter, 15, While Picking Up Dog Poop

The actress, who next stars as Ursula in The Little Mermaid, credits Falcone for keeping her centered and grounded as a parent. "Ben gave me good advice when he said, 'When you're trying to get them to clean their room, organize their closet, do all these things,' he's like, 'You're 52. At 14 were you doing that?' " McCarthy says. "So that has made me back off. I still want them to pick up their wet towels. I'm not going to lie."

Helping their daughters navigate social media is also a team effort for McCarthy and Falcone. "We keep track of it. I think it is still something to be really, really watched," she says. "I'm sure I don't do half as good a job as I should because I'm so bad with it."

Most importantly, "we're always kind of reminding them, 'Keep this in perspective. This is not real,' " adds the actress. "I keep saying this is smoke and mirrors and entertainment, which is fine. I've said, 'It's as if somebody takes a character I've played and assumes that's the real me.' But that's an ongoing fistfight that concerns me all the time."

Teaching their girls about beauty has been a lesson in self-confidence. "They both really like makeup, but it's really used as this tool for expression," McCarthy says. "It's not to look older or other than. So I really let them experiment with it and with their hair. They both colored their hair, and I was like, 'It's hair. As long as you are not trying to suddenly look 19.' I think it's more, 'This would be fun.' I dyed my hair in high school, and I did think it was fun. I think they have a good perspective."

McCarthy admits she won't even allow herself to think of the day when her kids will leave the nest. "Nope, because it's never going to happen," she says jokingly. "One of my daughters was talking about maybe going to school in Scotland. And literally Ben's like 'Your lip's twitching.' And then she did walk past me the next day and she was like, 'Mama, no. You're looking up apartments in Scotland.' And I was like, 'I can get an apartment in Scotland. You can't legally stop me.'"

The best thing about having daughters? "Watching the next generation," McCarthy shares. "There's such hope in that they can save us. There's such hope in that they're so much more evolved than I was at that age. My world was so tiny. Watching them navigate a world that's so much more complicated and so much harder. And to do it with such grace and love and care and such empathy for other people... Boy, you don't want to mess with those two if you're doing wrong to good people, they stand up for themselves. And I learn from that every single day."

The Little Mermaid swims into theaters May 26.

For more from Melissa McCarthy's exclusive interview, pick up this week's issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.

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