Nearly eight years after her divorce from Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner opens up about the parenting aspects of the split.
Videos by Suggest
During a recent interview with InStyle, Garner reflected on the divorce, noting it didn’t impact her career the way many people expected.
“I feel lucky because I really come at [acting] from a place of joy,” she explained. “I’m not tortured. It’s not filling a hole. I just really love to do it. And I love to be around people who love to do it.”
Garner also spoke about taking time away from her acting career to focus on raising her children before the high-profile split. The former couple shares three children: Violet, 20, Seraphina, 17, and Samuel, 13.
“First of all, when you’re in a performance kind of role, you give up a year/year-and-a-half of performance while you are pregnant, having a baby, recovering,” she said. “When my kids were little, I worked so little, and then we had such an upheaval in our family, that I really hardly worked for a long time.”
Although she was able to take on some roles while her children were younger, Garner admitted it wasn’t easy. She had been the mom who couldn’t attend certain activities or events because of her busy career.
“To have this year and a half where I just indulged [in acting is a gift], because this job is very selfish,” she noted. “It’s all about your schedule. It’s not about what the kids have going on at school.”
She further shared, “It’s not about pickups and drop-offs and making it home for dinner.”
Garner Doesn’t Apologize to Her Children When She Has to Work
However, Garner pointed out that when she works, she doesn’t apologize to her children for it.
“I do thank them for being so sweet about it,” she said. “But that’s part of life. Working hard is part of life, and messing up is part of life. Tripping and falling — there’s room for all of it.”
This isn’t the first time she has spoken about the highs and lows of motherhood as an actress. During a 2023 interview with Access Hollywood, Garner reflected on the pressures working moms face during their children’s early years.
“Working moms … get all freaked out because we’re told constantly, ‘You have 18 summers, you have this much time … Time is fleeting;” she explained. “It makes you panic, and my mom has always said to me, ‘You’re their mom forever. Don’t worry, you can do your job … your kids are gonna be so proud of you.”