Being a parent is hard. Being a celebrity parent is just as hard, with the added stress of your career choice damaging your children’s life. Ya know, just the usual things parents stress about!
Now, actress and eternal goddess Jennifer Garner is speaking out about how the years of being chased by photographers have negatively affected her children.
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Jennifer Garner is one of my favorite celebrities of all time. Not only is she a great actress, she’s a great mom, too!
During her marriage to Ben Affleck, the pair welcomed three children together — son Samuel, 9, and daughters Seraphina, 12, and Violet, 15.
Now, the 48-year-old is opening up about how the paparazzi affected her young children.
In a new interview with *The Hollywood Reporter* Jennifer admitted she doesn’t have family photos because her children were traumatized by paparazzi cameras when they were younger.
“When they were smaller and there were things out there that were shocking, my request to them was always, ‘Let Dad and I talk you through whatever it is,’ ” she said .
“I’d tell them, ‘If you see an image on the front of a magazine, I’ll look at it with you and we’ll process all the scary feelings that come up together.’ “
Jennifer went on to share the story of her oldest, Violet, speaking out about paparazzi while she was younger.
“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.”
Violet continued: “The men are scary, they knock each other over and it’s hard to feel like a kid when you’re being chased.'”
She went on to explain the constant hoard of paparazzi added lots of stress to their lives.
Jennifer continued: “I’d go do a school run and it’d be 15 cars going with me.”
“I never had a day without them, and if I did, if I made it to a park by hiding in the bottom of the pool man’s truck or something, then a nanny would see me there and call a number and they’d swarm.”
Back in October, Jennifer recalled other traumatizing experience during a conversation on *Tell Me More With Kelly Corrigan.*
Jennifer explained that while she understood the constant attention was a “cost of doing business” she knew it was becoming unliveable for her children.
“For 10 years, there were at the very least six cars and often 20 outside of our house, and outside of school, and at the pediatrician’s,” she recalled.
“And you’re begging them, ‘Please step aside from the pediatrician’s door. I have a sick kid. Please.’ “
“Anywhere that we went it was a total circus,” she said.
She then went on to recall one of the more heartbreaking stories that affected her daughter.
“My one daughter tried to play soccer and it was such a zoo for the families that they just said, ‘Can you please not.’ “
Thankfully, this circus all came to a stop in 2013.
As fans may recall, Jennifer and a team of celebrity parents (led by Halle Berry) decided to take action on the paparazzi issue and passed a bill that made it a crime for photogs to photograph children without permission.
This victory meant Jennifer’s kids, and celebrity kids across California could have a slightly more normal childhood.
What do you make of these encounters? I had no idea how bad it was for celebrity parents.
