Jennifer Garner Admits She Was a 'Nightmare' Mom While Raising First Child, Says Eldest Daughter 'Couldn’t Have a Free Thought'

Though Jennifer Garner refrains from sharing photos of her three kids on Instagram, the actress declared there's nothing she loves more than being a parent — even if she's made a few mistakes along the way.

"Being a mother was one thing I knew I was going to be. I really could have been a mother in any way," she explained in a new interview. "I could have adopted, I could have fostered, but there was no doubt I was going to be a mom."

The Elektra star, 51, said her love for childcare started early on, admitting she used to bring her doll with her "everywhere" she went, and by middle school, she and a pal formed their own "babysitting company."

These days, the brunette beauty is raising daughters Violet, 17, and Seraphina, 14, as well as son Samuel, 11, with ex-husband Ben Affleck, and she does her best not to be a helicopter parent.

"Your kids will really figure out who they are and what they are when they’re older, and most likely they will hew toward lovely," Garner told Allure. "I have a lot of faith in my kids. I don’t love every behavior all the time, always."

The Golden Globe nominee acknowledged it's "gnarly growing up" in this day and age since "we didn’t have the eyes on us that our kids have."

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"I was such a first-time mom. [My eldest daughter] didn’t have a shot," she confessed. "She couldn’t have a free thought — I was all over her. I was a nightmare for everyone around me."

Elsewhere in the chat with the beauty magazine, the actress shared why her children don't usually tune in to her work. "They don’t mind watching their dad, but they kind of want me to be their mom," said Garner. "They don’t want to see me upset and women cry more in what we do. And they don’t really want to see me in a romantic thing."

During a recent interview of his own, Affleck, 50, confirmed their offspring finally watched one of his flicks.

"The first movie of mine that my kids actually sat through together was Armageddon because they like movies where they can make fun of me, and they really like the idea that I was an astronaut or an oil driller ... or they just found the whole thing kind of preposterous but they loved it," the Oscar winner quipped. "They loved the fun of it."