If behind-the-scenes footage of Hilary Duff miming a mouse's face for early-aughts Disney Channel promotion — which worked its way onto the internet in November 2016 — left you cringing, she's got an explanation: Child labor kind of sucks!

In a new interview with POPSUGARDuff remembers shooting the famous spots, in which she and a handful of other actors like Raven-Symone and Kirsten Storms would wave glow sticks into the ether while reciting canned lines from cue cards. And Duff says she wasn't surprised the response was so...iffy.

"So many people were like 'Oh, my gosh, this is the most awkward thing ever," Duff recalls. "They put all the animation in later, so you're just, like, having to imagine that it's real. And you do it one-hundred times in a million different ways — all of us were, like, kids working adult hours so I'm sure we were, like, kind of fed up."

And speaking of fed up, Duff, who's the mother of a four-year-old son, says she reached her wit's end a month later in December, when Instagram followers criticized her for posting a photo in which she kissed the child on the lips. Usually one to take jabs on the chin, Duff said she just couldn't be quiet, and instinctively bit back.

"There's been so many times throughout my career that I've felt judged, or people have misconstrued what I've said, or said something that wasn't true about me," she says. "This was so annoying to me, I couldn't even believe it...Without even talking to my publicist I was like: 'This is ridiculous.' And if anyone thinks that this looks bad or is inappropriate in any way, like, unfollow me immediately."

"This is my child," she adds. "He's edible to me. He's so yummy. He's four...It made me sad for kids that don't kiss their kids."

Oh, and she's not done with the Lizzie McGuire hairstyles, for what it's worth:

"The chopsticks are going in here later, when everyone leaves."

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