Jennifer Garner has opened up about how she and her ex-husband Ben Affleck juggle parenting alongside their busy schedules.
The 13 Going on 30 actress, 53, candidly spoke about raising Violet, 20, Fin, 17, and Samuel, 13, in separate hold during Tuesday’s of Bustle’s One Nightstand YouTube series.
Garner explained that when the kids are with her, she has to ‘become mom and dad’ and added that there is a sense of ‘loss’ that comes with co-parenting.
Addressing how she balances giving her children a ‘conscientious upbringing’ and ‘appreciation,’ Garner told host Charlotte Owen that she feels she provides ‘a bit of both.’
‘And I think my kids’ dad does too. Especially when your kids grow up in two separate households, I become mom and dad and he becomes dad and mom.’
‘You kind of can’t help it, right? Because you don’t have the benefit of both sides of the yin and yang being in the same house,’ she added.
‘There’s a little bit of loss in that, but there’s also something gained in that,’ the actress noted.
‘You also just learn. It’s made me let go and not focus so much on bringing up,’ she added.
Garner and Affleck were wed from 2005 until 2018. Last month Garner talked about how ‘hard’ the split was in an interview with Marie Claire UK.
‘The fact of it is what was hard. The actual breaking up of a family is what was hard. Losing a true partnership and friendship is what was hard.’
And she made it clear she has always put her children first even though she has a big Hollywood career.
‘It never felt like a sacrifice. It was really hard to go to work and it definitely shaped the jobs I chose, in a big way,’ she said.
Ben went on to marry Lopez in 2022 but she filed for divorce two years later.
