Ben Affleck Admits to Making More Parenting Mistakes Than His Own Parents

As of October 18, 2025, actor Ben Affleck, now 59 years old, has been reflecting on his parenting struggles and the mistakes he made with his own children. In a recent documentary, Affleck shared that hearing his kids' confessions about their childhood was hard, as he had tried to ensure they had a better upbringing than he did.

"The irony is I thought I was doing so much better than my parents," Affleck admitted. "I thought I was pulling it off. I was flying home on weekends and finding special places for the kids to play when they would visit the set. But in reality, just hearing them talk about it, for them, it was the same thing I was going through as a kid and I just couldn't see that at all at the time."

Affleck has continued to ponder this topic since discussing it with his kids on camera. "I probably f--ked up more with my kids than my parents did with us," he confessed in an interview with The Sunday Times published on October 11, 2025. Affleck's son even told him that being a dad might not have been at the top of his list.

While Affleck recalls "things that weren't happy about my childhood," he added that once he became a parent, he realized it was almost "impossible to avoid making the mistakes" his own parents made.