Jennifer Garner says don’t give in to working mom guilt

If you’re a working mom, you probably feel both pressure to be there for your kids as much as possible and guilt when you’re not able to. Don’t worry, Jennifer Garner has some very assuring words when it comes to mom guilt—and she would know, since she’s a working mama of three.

“Working moms get all freaked out because we’re told constantly, ‘You have 18 summers, you have this much time…time is fleeting,’” she said during an interview with Access Hollywood this week. “It makes you panic, and my mom has always said to me, ‘You’re their mom forever. Don’t worry, you can do your job. Your kids are gonna be so proud of you.’”

OK, can Jennifer Garner’s mom be our mom too? Because that’s some good stuff right there.

Garner says it’s easy to fall into the trap of mom guilt, especially when you have a job or other obligations outside of your children. But it really can all be amended by being mindful and present when you can be.

“If you come from a place of expansiveness instead of feeling just like, ‘I can’t be a mom because I’m also working and I’m supposed to be guilty all the time,’ you better just lean into wherever you are, any day, right now, just be there when your kids show up and we’ll have a great time,” she says.

Garner shares three children with ex-husband Ben Affleck: Violet, 17, Seraphina, 13, and Samuel, 11. She and Affleck, 51, announced they were divorcing in 2015 after 10 years of marriage. Being a single working mother is basically a recipe for even more mom guilt and added pressure to get things right when you’re with your kids.

Garner says there are times when she’s “fully around” and there are times when she isn’t, because of work and how difficult it is to balance it all.

“However your ‘balance’ looks, just give yourself some grace,” she says.