Ben Affleck might be a huge movie star, but he’s not afraid to make his presence known at his son’s basketball games.
The ‘Air‘ director/actor talked to PEOPLE recently and revealed that he had a pretty embarrassing experience while cheering on his 11-year-old son Samuel at a basketball game.
I have found myself just this year really embarrassing myself. I was at a basketball game for 11-year-olds, loudly complaining about the inconsistencies of the traveling calls against [them]. And I just was like, ‘Get a hold of yourself.’ I was like, ‘That’s a… Look at that, that’s a travel.’ Because my son got called for traveling.
But he doesn’t want to be one of those parents, so he’s trying to control himself. He says sometimes parents need to get their own “esteem” out of it.
It’s that thing, I think, in modern parenting, especially. We want to help our children. We want them to succeed. We love them so much. And yet the real challenge is to get out of the way and let them do it on their own.
It’s great that he was able to recognize this on his own. Or maybe his new bride Jennifer Lopez gave him some pointers.
You’ll remember, Affleck recently talked about wanting to be a better father. He revealed one of the reasons he’s moving more toward the production side of things is because he doesn’t want to be away from his children for months at a time.
One of the reasons I did it was, I’m divorced. I share custody. I don’t want to go to Austin and New Orleans and Georgia anymore and not see my kids. These years are too important. If I miss them, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.
