Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner are letting their kids decide on their own future when it comes to show business.
Ben and Jennifer, 53, were married from 2005 to 2018. They met on the sets of the movies Pearl Harbor and Daredevil, but didn't start dating until 2004, a year after Daredevil's release. Together, they welcomed kids Violet, 20, Fin, 17, and Samuel, 13.
© Getty ImagesAll three have different levels of comfort with the spotlight, with Fin mostly keeping out of the public eye. Violet has made a name for herself as a public advocate and spokesperson for global health issues, while Samuel has often attended public events like basketball games with his dad.
When asked whether he expected to see his children enter the world of Hollywood, Ben told E! News: "You put something on your children when you have a public life and that's complicated. We really want to give them room to figure out what they want to do."
© Getty ImagesRemarking on the values he and Jennifer had raised their kids with, he similarly spoke of the relationship his The Rip co-star Matt Damon and his wife Luciana Barroso have with their own daughters.
"I wouldn't push them into that," Ben continued. "They're brilliant and lovely and wonderful and we love them and we're proud of them," also joking: "And hope that they don't waste their life acting."
"In some way, it was kind of a blessing to anonymity, to struggle, to where we started, which was just in the middle of nowhere," the Batman actor concluded. Both Fin and Samuel are still in school, while Violet is a student at Yale University.
In fact, Violet headed back to school after spending the holidays at home just a few days prior to Ben's interview, spending some time with her mom Jennifer in Los Angeles. The 13 Going on 30 star spoke with WWD at the 83rd Golden Globe Awards about catering to her daughter and her friends the morning of the show before getting ready.
© Getty Images"My daughter went back to college this morning," she told the outlet on the carpet. "So I got up at 5, took her to the airport. Did a little work, I had a huge sleepover at my house last night, I made waffles for a bunch of teenagers."
"There's no stress here, it's all good," she added of being able to balance her work with parenting. She did also jokingly clarify, when talking about her jewelry for the night: "These and waffles did not intersect." The Alias star recently admitted to Marie Claire that the hardest thing about being a parent was taking into account the public interest in their lives.
© Getty Images"Not hard in the grand scheme of what is hard in the world, but tricky for me and tricky for my family," she shared, further adding: "Parenting now has shifted. It's more about parenting with a button on my mouth…. You have to let them grow up and make their choices. You don't get to control it."
