During a press tour for her new feel good family film Yes Day, Jennifer Garner opened up about how surprised she was by how hard having three kids can be. The 48-year-old actor shares custody of 15-year-old Violet, 12-year-old Seraphina, and 9-year-old Samuel with her ex-husband Ben Affleck, and has largely stepped away from the big screen since Samuel’s birth in 2012.
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Garner called into SirusXM’sThe Jess Cagle Show yesterday to discuss Yes Day and her decision to return to features. Prior to the new movie (which you can catch on Netflix), Garner hadn’t had a starring movie role since 2018’s Peppermint. That hiatus wasn’t due to a lack of work according to the star, but instead because Garner found parenting three children while working to be a lot more work than she expected.
“I think when I look back at that time, that third kid, oh, I’m so glad I have him, but I was so overwhelmed,” she told Cagle’s co-host Julia Cunningham. “I almost don’t remember the first year of his life. I was just so overwhelmed by an infant-toddler-little-kid combo.”
She went on to explain that she always thought that a lot of women sort of “breeze through” their third kid because they’ve already mothered two before. “I was just gobsmacked by the amount of mothering that was required,” she said. “And I didn’t know how I was ever going to set foot in the world.” Listen, as a working mother of three myself I can tell you that nobody “breezes through” this. Each child is different and has their own individual needs and quirks that have to be attended to. Plus, if anything, the second kid is the one you breeze through. By the time you have a third you’re outnumbered and exhausted.
While Garner may have stepped away from the big screen, it’s not like she was out of work (IMDB has her listed in 18 roles since she made comments about retiring after Dallas Buyers Club ). In fact, my fellow moms of little ones will likely recognize her voice as belonging to the one and only Mama Llama, not to mention her Once Upon a Farm baby food brand. Maybe Garner’s big reveal about her “return to work,” which we can all agree she never actually stepped away from, is just another example of moms expecting too much of ourselves and holding ourselves to a higher standard than necessary.
Like the name Seraphina? Then you’ll love some of our other favorite unique celeb baby names.
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