Jennifer Garner Says Co-Parenting With Ben Affleck Is "Very Freeing" — and the Reason She Gives Tells You Everything About How Far They Have Come

Jul 23, 2026 by apost team

Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck divorced in 2018 after more than a decade of marriage. What followed — publicly, at least — was one of the more quietly impressive co-parenting stories in Hollywood. They attended their children's school events together. They spent Thanksgiving 2024 with The Midnight Mission in Los Angeles as a family. Affleck told GQ: "I'm really lucky that I have a really good co-parent and partner in Jennifer Garner, the kids' mom, who's wonderful and great and we work together well." Garner, for her part, has said the "actual breaking up of a family is what was hard" — but that what she and Affleck have built since is something she genuinely values.

On July 16, 2026, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly tied to the premiere of her new Peacock series "The Five-Star Weekend," Garner, born April 17, 1972, gave one of her most specific and candid accounts yet of what that co-parenting relationship has actually made possible for her professionally.

The series — an adaptation of Elin Hilderbrand's best-selling novel, in which a lifestyle influencer gathers her followers for an all-expenses-paid trip to Nantucket — was originally set to film in Nova Scotia. Garner said she turned it down immediately. "I would love to do it, but like everything, I really only work in L.A.," she told EW. She typically will not take her children out of school for a project, and she will not spend weeks away from them. The producers moved the shoot to Los Angeles. She said yes.

But that was only part of the story. The children's increasing independence — and one specific development at home — changed the equation entirely.

"When they were younger, I wouldn't have done a couple of weeks away without taking them with me," Garner told Entertainment Weekly.

"Now they're in high school. You can't really do that anymore. But they can stay with their dad. He's wonderful. He takes care of them. He's a great partner in that way. And so that's very freeing."

She shares three children with Affleck, born Aug. 15, 1972 — Violet, 20; Seraphina, 17; and Samuel, 13. The comment arrived as "The Five-Star Weekend" premiered at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles on July 8, 2026 — Garner's first major red carpet appearance as a lead in a new television series in years.

She also spoke in the same period to Bustle's "One Nightstand" about the emotional texture of co-parenting specifically. "Especially when your kids grow up in two separate households, I become mom and dad; he becomes dad and mom," she said. "You have to have a bit of both in the way that you parent. There's a little bit of loss in that, but there's also something gained in that. You also just learn. It's made me let go and not focus so much on the bringing up."

Garner said she "absolutely" got caught up in motherhood when her children were younger and has never regretted it.

"There is a time in your life where you just do get caught up in all of that, and that's okay. Nothing is forever. That's a season. And it's a beautiful thing. And I wouldn't trade a minute of it."

Their father, it turns out, is what makes the next season possible.

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Are you a fan of Jennifer Garner? Do you think her candor about co-parenting with Ben Affleck is one of the most refreshing things a Hollywood star has said this year? Let us know in the comments and pass this on to your family, friends, and other Jennifer Garner fans out there!