Jennifer Garner has a special bond with daughter Violet Affleck.
Garner became a mom for the first time in 2005 when she and ex-husband Ben Affleck welcomed Violet. (The exes also share children Seraphina and Sameul who were born in 2009 and 2012, respectively.)
“My eldest daughter [Violet] didn’t have a shot. She couldn’t have a free thought — I was all over her,” Garner said of becoming a first time mom in a May 2023 interview with Allure. “I was a nightmare for everyone around me.”
Garner and Violet have maintained a strong mother-daughter relationship over the years. While the Affleck children have remained largely out of the spotlight, Violet was present when Garner got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and for a public visit to the White House.
Keep scrolling for a close look at what Garner and Violet have said about their relationship over the years:
Enforcing the Rules
Like most parents, Garner has to tell her children no sometimes — and Violet is understanding when her mom means business.
“I said to my girls, ‘What do I mean when I say no?'” Garner exclusively told Luxury Handbag Shopping in May 2015. “And they were like, ‘She really means no!’ So you just have to do it. It’s not pretty. I don’t think that I’m always the best at it but I try my best to be consistent and for them to know what they can expect from me.”
Setting Violet Up for Success
As Violet settled into fifth grade, Garner confessed that it took some time to get her daughter on the same level as her classmates.
“We just had back to school night, and I said afterwards, ‘Do they need a computer?’ They need some kind of device or computer to complete their homework. Our daughter doesn’t have any of those things, and she’s, like, the only kid in the class who doesn’t, apparently,” the actress told Today in 2016. “So I found an old laptop this weekend for her, and I am kind of panicked about it. She’s not on social media yet — her school has a no social media policy until 6th grade — but I know it’s coming soon.”
Dealing With Public Attention
In a March 2021 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Garner recalled that Violet was not afraid to share her thoughts about living in the limelight at a young age.
“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,’” Garner recounted.
Being Strict With Social Media
While Garner is active on Instagram, the 13 Going on 30 star confessed that she’s not keen on her daughter joining the platform.
“She’ll occasionally talk to me about getting Instagram, and I can see why because I’m on there and it’s something kind of fun that I do,” Garner said in a 2019 sit down with Katie Couric. “And I am modeling the opposite of what I want for her to do. How often is that in parenting?”
However, Garner decided to make a compromise with Violet.
“I just say, ‘When you can show me studies that say that teenage girls are happier using Instagram than not, then we can have the conversation,’” she continued. “‘But everything you look at, I don’t see anything positive for you out there. You can look at mine when you want to, we can go over it together, but I just don’t see it.’”
Emotional Milestones
When Violet graduated from high school in 2024, Garner had an emotional moment watching her daughter receive her diploma.
“Tell me you have a graduate without telling me you have a graduate,” Garner wrote via Instagram alongside a series of snaps and a video of her crying in multiple instances.
Mother-Daughter Arguments
Violet got candid about getting into a discussion with her mother during the Los Angeles wildfires in an essay she wrote for Yale University’s student-run Yale Global Health Review.
“I spent the January fires in Los Angeles arguing with my mother in a hotel room,” Violet penned in her essay titled A Chronically Ill Earth: COVID Organizing as a Model Climate Response in Los Angeles. “She was shell-shocked, astonished at the scale of destruction in the neighborhood where she raised myself and my siblings. I was surprised at her surprise”
