Jennifer Garner Shares Advice to Working Moms After Admitting She ‘Struggled’ When Her Kids Were Young

Jennifer Garner is getting candid about the struggles she faced as a working mom.

The Alias alum, 54, who shares Violet, 20, Seraphina, 17 and Samuel, 14, with ex-husband Ben Affleck, appeared on Today Monday, July 13, where the self-described “worker bee” shared her philosophy on balancing work and motherhood.

“When I work, I don’t apologize to my kids for it,” Garner shared, adding that instead she does “thank them for being so sweet about it.”

“You thank them for their patience, but you don’t apologize,” host Jenna Bush Hager offered.

“Yeah because work is part of life,” Garner agreed. “And I get so much joy from what I do.”

“I really do believe that any job I have had I’ve just really loved, the getting in there and just doing the best [that I can],” she added. “I mean, I like to work.”

As her kids have gotten older, however, the Five-Star Weekend actress noted that her feelings about that work-life balance have evolved.

“My kids, now that they’re older, when they were younger I struggled with it so much, but now that they’re older they’re just like, ‘Thank you for showing us that work is something to be enjoyed,'” Garner said. “It doesn’t have to just be tedious all the time.”

“Granted I have a pretty great job,” she went on to explain before sharing a message to other working moms: “Let go of the guilt, it doesn’t serve anyone.”

While Garner is back on our screens these days, most recently appearing in the Apple TV hit The Last Thing He Told Me, the actress reflected on the nearly 10-year period she spent out of the spotlight while raising her and Affleck’s children in an interview with InStyle last month.

“First of all, when you’re in a performance kind of role, you give up a year/year-and-a-half of performance while you are pregnant, having a baby, recovering,” Garner noted. “When my kids were little, I worked so little, and then we had such an upheaval in our family, that I really hardly worked for a long time.”

“I feel lucky because I really come at [acting] from a place of joy,” she added, gushing about being able to focus on her craft again. “I’m not tortured. It’s not filling a hole. I just really love to do it. And I love to be around people who love to do it. I was really, really happy when I was working in summer stock and making a hundred bucks a week.”