Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck's 3 Kids: Everything They've Said About Parenting
- - Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck's 3 Kids: Everything They've Said About Parenting
Karli Bendlin, Sophie Dodd, Nicole PomaricoJanuary 17, 2026 at 9:30 AM
0
Jason Merritt/Getty ; ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty
Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck at the Oscars on February 24, 2013 in Hollywood, California ; Jennifer Garner and her daughter Violet Affleck arrive at the White House state dinner on December 1, 2022 in Washington, DC. -
Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner were married from 2005 to 2018
They share three children: Violet, Seraphina and Samuel
The former couple have continued to co-parent their kids after their divorce
Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck's Hollywood romance came to an end in 2018, but they still work together to parent their kids.
The Yes Day actress and the Gone Girl star split in 2015 after 10 years of marriage, officially divorcing three years later. Together, they co-parent their three children: Violet Anne, Seraphina Rose and Samuel.
Over the years, the former pair have worked hard to keep their kids out of the spotlight, particularly regarding paparazzi photos and social media. But despite their best efforts to preserve their children's privacy, the family has had to weather several public ups and downs over the years. In January 2022, Affleck told the Los Angeles Times that he worried about how his kids would handle his public perception, explaining that he paid little mind to the media attention surrounding him until his children began to see it.
"I got to a place where [the public perception] was so different from who I am that I just stopped reading and stopped caring," he said. "But then, as my kids got older and started seeing the Internet themselves, that's the difficult part."Since getting divorced, Garner and Affleck moved on to other relationships. The 13 Going on 30 star has been dating CEO John Miller on and off since 2018, while Affleck was married to Jennifer Lopez for two years before she filed for divorce in August 2024. They have also both continued to act, with Affleck starring in the Netflix movie The Rip, which began streaming on Jan. 16.
From their early reflections on raising children to how they're navigating life with teenagers, here's everything Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck have said about parenting.
Violet Anne Affleck, 20
Nathan Howard/Getty Violet Affleck and Jennifer Garner
Garner and Affleck welcomed their first child, Violet, on Dec. 1, 2005. "Mother, father and baby are doing great," a rep for the couple told PEOPLE at the time. Violet shares a middle name, Anne, with her mom.
From the beginning of their parenting journey, Garner and Affleck did their best to keep their children out of the spotlight, which proved difficult given the intense media attention surrounding their relationship. When she was just a kindergartener, Violet was already dealing with the paparazzi, as Garner explained in a March 2021 cover story for The Hollywood Reporter.
The actress recalled a time when Violet spoke out about the traumatic experience of being constantly photographed. "She stood up on a chair in a little velvet dress, with her hair a bit back and her glasses on and she didn't say her R's right, and she said: 'We didn't ask for this. We don't want these cameras, they're scary. The men are scary, they knock each other over and it's hard to feel like a kid when you're being chased.' "
Garner noted that the constant attention "put so much anxiety in our little family," which was one of the reasons she was inspired to help to pass a bill that made it a crime for paparazzi to photograph children without permission.
"Anywhere that we went it was a total circus," she said during a conversation on PBS' Tell Me More With Kelly Corrigan in October 2020, adding that the paparazzi had a profound impact on her kids' childhoods, particularly when it came to their firstborn. "My one daughter tried to play soccer and it was such a zoo for the families that they just said, 'Can you please not,' " Garner explained.
Paul Morigi/WireImage Violet Affleck and Jennifer Garner
While Violet has still largely managed to stay out of the spotlight, for her 17th birthday in 2022, the teen made a rare public appearance with Garner at a State dinner hosted by President Joe Biden and first lady Dr. Jill Biden. In July 2023, Violet stepped out again, this time with her dad and Jennifer Lopez, for Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin's White Party.
In July 2024, Violet stood before the L.A. County Board of Supervisors and advocated for mask availability and free COVID-19 testing.
Violet began attending Yale University in the fall of 2024. Now that she's in college, she has continued to advocate for public health, speaking about the impact of COVID at the U.N. in September 2025.
In May 2025, Violet contributed to Yale's Global Health Review, publishing an academic paper about living through the Los Angeles wildfires earlier that year.
Seraphina Rose Elizabeth Affleck, 17
Garner and Affleck welcomed their second child on Jan. 6, 2009. Seven days later, the couple's rep revealed their newborn's name exclusively to PEOPLE: Seraphina Rose Elizabeth Affleck.
Ahead of Seraphina's birth, Garner and Affleck's pal Bradley Cooper spoke to PEOPLE about the couple expanding their family, noting that he thought the pair would be "perfect" parents.
"She was a great leader for a TV show I did with her and she can literally do anything. So she can certainly run a family," Cooper said of Garner, his Alias costar. "She will have no problems having two kids."
In 2012, Garner said that Affleck was excelling as a dad. "He's all about [tea parties]. He can do it without using any energy at all," she said during an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. "He can sit there and be almost asleep and they think they're having an incredible game with him. It's skill."
And while Affleck and Garner quickly settled into their new role as parents of two, Affleck later revealed that having multiple children made him rethink how he approached his career and work schedule.
"My life has really changed a lot. Once I had kids, it became very obvious to me that the priority was time with them," he told PEOPLE in 2021 when he was working on The Tender Bar with his longtime pal George Clooney, who directed the film.
"George was spectacular in that way," Affleck said of the director. "He's a dad too and would let me out on the weekends or cut me early. He really understood and appreciated how important it was for me to see my kids."
Garner and Affleck announced they were divorcing after 10 years of marriage in June 2015, when Violet was 9, Seraphina was 6 and Samuel was 3.
In 2018, the former couple reunited to host a party for Seraphina's 9th birthday. "It was a small celebration," a source told PEOPLE. "Ben was there too. Seraphina had friends over for cake and got a lot of gifts."
Samuel Affleck, 13
Allen Berezovsky/Getty
Ben Affleck and Samuel Garner Affleck
Garner and Affleck's third child, Samuel, was born on Feb. 27, 2012. "We are happy to announce on February 27, Jennifer gave birth to a healthy baby boy, Samuel Garner Affleck," the actor posted on Facebook to share the happy news.
As Samuel grew up, he seemed to have inherited a love of baseball from his dad, who's famously a die-hard Boston Red Sox fan. In 2019, Affleck told DeGeneres that he was the coach of Samuel's Little League team. "It's one of those things, you love it so much, it's like the dad dream," he said, explaining that he was so dedicated to the job, he had even pulled a few strings to be at every game.
"I had a game last week and I was promoting [Triple Frontier], and I was going to Asia and I was like, 'I have to come back a day early!' " he said. "And it was like, 'Whats the … ?' And I was like, 'My son's Little League game? I'm the coach.' But thank you, Netflix. They did let me [go]."
That same year, Affleck recalled how he took matters into his own hands after Samuel told him he wasn't a New England Patriots fan.
The actor explained to Jimmy Kimmel how he tried to share some Boston sports history with Samuel before they headed to a World Series Red Sox game.
"I was telling my 6-year-old, my son in particular, you know, 'We're really excited because we're from Boston and this is a big deal and the Red Sox' and I'm giving him the whole history," Affleck told the host.
"And he listens to me and then he stops and goes, 'Dad. You're from Boston. I'm from L.A.,' " Affleck continued. "And I had a full existential crisis. 'I failed, I'm a bad father, this is a disaster, I don't know what to do!' "
Rather than accept his son's L.A. fandom, Affleck decided to "help him understand where he comes from. If not literally, then spiritually" by decking Samuel's room out in Patriots gear — including a giant football slide, a chair shaped like then-quarterback Tom Brady's head and life-sized poster of Brady on the wall.
"My ex-wife thinks it's creepy," he joked.
Affleck's efforts seemed to have some effect on his son, as Samuel recently made a rare public appearance at a Boston Celtics game in December 2022, where he sat courtside with his dad at the Crypto.com Arena in L.A.
In February 2023, Samuel and the Gone Girl star attended the Ruffles Celebrity Game during NBA All-Star Weekend in Salt Lake City, Utah. The father-son duo had the honor of introducing the teams before the game, and while sitting courtside, they snapped a photo with Shaquille O'Neal.
Playing basketball has become one of Samuel's hobbies — and Affleck is often in the stands cheering for his son (or yelling at the refs).
"I have found myself just this year really embarrassing myself. I was at a basketball game for 11-year-olds, loudly complaining about the inconsistencies of the traveling calls against [them]," he admitted to PEOPLE. "And I just was like, 'Get a hold of yourself.' I mean, listen, you don't want to be one of those parents."
Affleck continued: "It's that thing, I think, in modern parenting, especially. We want to help our children. We want them to succeed. We love them so much. And yet the real challenge is to get out of the way and let them do it on their own."
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
