Jennifer Lopez wants Ben Affleck to be an "ally" for her children.
Jennifer Lopez wants Ben Affleck to be an 'ally' for her children
The 'Jenny From the Block' hitmaker married the 50-year-old actor-and-director earlier this year and while she admitted blending their families is a "process", she ultimately wants to be able to take a fresh perspective on raising her and ex-husband Marc Anthony's 14-year-old twins Max and Emme from her spouse, who has children Violet, 16, Seraphina, 12, and 10-year-old Samuel from his marriage to Jennifer Garner.
She said: "The transition is a process that needs to be handled with so much care.
“They have so many feelings. They’re teens. But it’s going really well so far. What I hope to cultivate with our family is that his kids have a new ally in me and my kids have a new ally in him, someone who really loves and cares about them but can have a different perspective and help me see things that I can’t see with my kids because I’m so emotionally tied up.”
Now the twins are getting older, they are looking for independence and even though Jennifer is "hurt" when they want to go out without her, she can understands why they want to hang out with their friends away from the spotlight she is constantly in.
She told America's Vogue magazine: “The other day, one of my kids said, ‘I want to go to the flea market.’ I was like, ‘Oh, you want me and Ben to come?’ They said, ‘You know, it’s such a thing when you go, Mom.’ It hurt my feelings. I get it.
"They want time with their friends when they aren’t being watched and followed and photographed. It’s a thing. Nobody’s complaining, but it’s a thing.”
The 53-year-old star wants her children to be "fighters" but knows they have grown up with much more privilege than she had at their age.
She said: “It’s hard, in its own way, when you don’t have to fight for things, because then you don’t learn how to be a fighter.
"I had to learn how to be a fighter. I wanted to give them a life that I didn’t have, but they don’t get to have the experience of something that is also helpful, which is developing that survivalist mentality.”
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