Ben Affleck laughed that his kids don’t rate his parenting as highly as he’d hoped. He says he thinks he’s about “75 per cent as good” as his ex-wife, Jennifer Garner, but his three kids see it differently and put him at “40 per cent”. Talking about this, he spoke warmly about the respect he and Garner have for each other as they raise their children together.In his Sunday TODAY interview with Willie Geist, the 54-year-old actor spoke warmly about his ex-wife, Jennifer Garner. He called her a wonderful mother to their three children, Violet, 20, Seraphina, 17, and Samuel,14, whom they co-parent, and joked that she often leaves him feeling he is falling a little short.
5 Oct 2026 | 12:06
Parents, when your child refuses to greet relatives, do you make them say hello or respect their choice?
He then shared some lighthearted family maths. Affleck says he tells his kids, “75 per cent as good as your mom”. The kids, he says, have a different number in mind, which is quite a bit lower, “Maybe 40 per cent,” according to Affleck, who laughed it off and gave himself a B plus.Behind the jokes, he spoke seriously about gratitude and respect. The former couple shares custody on a week-on, week-off schedule, and he says he plans his work around being close to his children.This brings us to the question of why children rate their two parents so differently.Let us see what research has to say on this.
Mothers and fathers often parent differently
According to a 2008 study by Cliff McKinney and Kimberly Renk in the Journal of Family Issues, mothers and fathers often use different parenting styles, and older teens and young adults judge each parent separately. The study says that these views affect the young person’s emotional adjustment and also suggests that having at least one authoritative parent, meaning one who is both caring and firm, can act as a protective factor. So when kids rate one parent lower, it may be a representation of different roles and habits, not a failing grade.
Conduct of parents after divorce also impacts children’s emotional wellbeing
A 2020 study in Clinical Psychology Review researched 115 groups of divorced families, covering 24,854 families in total. It found that when former partners keep fighting, and when parenting is harsh or unsupportive, children are more likely to struggle with their emotions and behaviour. The researchers also found that the way parents treat their children helps explain why this happens. But even though the individual effects were small, how parents treat their kids and each other seems to matter more than who is the “better” parent.
Watching parents get along
A 2020 meta-analysis, published in Psychological Bulletin, reviewed 169 studies on children’s emotional and behavioural difficulties. It found that the quality of the parents’ relationship and the way they handle conflict highly impact how children fare, and many of these had a lasting impact over time. This can explain why Affleck’s words about respect for his ex-partner show a lot about healthy co-parenting when he talked about mutual respect with Garner and said he is grateful to her.
