Name: Theo Asks Ben Affleck About Fatherhood and Parenting
Uploaded: 2025-06-12T22:00:39.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Theo Asks Ben Affleck About Fatherhood and Parenting' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-06-12. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Theo Asks Ben Affleck About Fatherhood and Parenting' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-06-12. Transcript available.

- Would you let your children act, do you think?
- Well, I wouldn't let 'em act professionally
while they were children, no.
But I would let them, if they wanna do plays and shit
and make their own kind of stuff with their friends,
that's fine with me.
I don't think it would be,
I don't know judgment against people that do it.
I've done playing movies with child actors and stuff,
and that's fine.
From my experience, acting as a kid and what I want
for my children is not that.
But also you gotta understand that then they,
I got a 19 year old, I got 16, I got 13.
- Oh, wow. - They can make their own choices.
- Yeah, oh yeah, that's true, right?
As a dad, you're just like,
has that gotta be tougher when you're a dad?
Like, you kind of have already lived some life,
so you were like, ah.
And not even about acting, it's about anything.
And then your kid is kind of like making it,
like is that, and you don't wanna like,
probably push them too much or like,
because then you're pressuresome.
Dude, that's gotta be a real,
like walking a police line or something.
- Yeah, I mean, that's the whole job of life.
It's like, for me, before I had kids,
you know, I didn't really realize what my life was about.
And then this becomes the central challenge of your life.
And if you have a, everybody has complications
and tricky shit in their life,
and that's part of being a parent is managing that
with what kind of life am I bringing my kids into,
making a good life for my children.
How do we, you know?
And that's, part of that is my kids are growing up,
out here in LA, I didn't grow up in LA.
I didn't, I never met a famous person or actor or anything.
That shit just seemed like a million miles away to me
and totally fanciful. - Oh, for sure.
If you're in the rest of the world,
it feels so far away.
And then you forget after you're here for a while,
how far away it seems to other people.
Like if you meet, you know, like just anybody who was in it,
it just like, that's like, it was a-
- Dude, I remember I was 12 years old in Boston
and I saw Christopher Lloyd,
who played the dude on Back to the Future, you know?
- Oh, yeah.
- And I saw him walking down the street,
I think he was doing a play, yeah, exactly.
I followed the guy for like six blocks.
Like now I'd be like,
there's this fucking 12 year old kid following me, right?
You know what I mean?
Like I stalked him, like I couldn't believe it
that it was the guy from Back to the Future.
I lost my mind and it was the only celebrity, famous,
whatever person I'd ever seen or not.
And so my kids are now, they're seeing different stuff.
Some of it's useful for them
because it disabuses them of some illusions
that I think are worth being disabused of and also,
but I'm also like, I don't, look, they're gonna,
if you, their kids are gonna kind of be
and do who they are, what they wanna do,
which your job is to let them know that they're loved,
that they're, keep them safe, you know,
provide them opportunities and also not, you know,
you gotta resist the temptation
to try to get everything out of the way for them
because you're not gonna learn anything
or develop any grid or resilience
if shit's just easy for them.
- Yeah, that's crazy, I didn't even thought about that.
It's like you're watching them walk
and there's something kind of in their path
and if you take it away completely,
then they're not gonna learn how to deal with an obstacle.
But if you leave it there,
then you're gonna have to watch them go through an obstacle.
That's gotta be crazy.
- And it's hard watching your kids,
like even trying to climb over something,
your instinct is pick 'em up, take 'em over,
but you have to like, yes,
you don't wanna put their finger in a socket,
you know what I mean, or throw off a cliff,
but that doesn't mean life has to be hard.
It has to be difficult in some ways.
It doesn't have to be, shouldn't be traumatic,
shouldn't be, you know, awful or painful,
but things have to be hard for you to learn
to do hard things.
And this world, like it or not,
is gonna demand that you do hard shit.
If you wanna have anything, you know,
if you wanna be able to provide for your own family,
have your own dreams,
have, you know, the things that you wanna have,
'cause if you don't do it,
the guy next to you is gonna do it better,
or, you know, or the woman over here is gonna do it better,
and you're gonna lose out.
And also, you know, I don't want my kids
to have that first big, tough experience in life
and like kind of fall apart.
You know, you gotta, like some of the best lessons
I ever learned in life were from failure.
In fact, for sure, I didn't learn much from success,
but I learned a lot from failure, you know what I mean?
But the most important thing you learn
is that you can survive it.
You can be okay.
They can knock you the fuck down.
And you know, it's like getting,
like when I was a kid where I grew up,
I mean, we used to get in fights all the time.
- Oh yeah, dude, people used to beat the shit out of me.
- You'd get punched in the face
and get your ass kicked and that's not,
and then you'd be like, "Yeah, he kicked your ass."
And you'd go like, and you'd get up
and you come to school the next day.
And you know what I mean?
It's kind of like-- - Oh, it was a tough day, dude.
That first day was so tough.
They were like, "Damn, Randy kicked your ass."
- I know, it's worse that you have to hear about it
than like just getting hit five times.
It's like, "Yeah, you kind of get your bell rung."
You know what I mean?
But it's the like, that's kind of going back
to that thing about like embarrassment.
Like kids will suffer more from being humiliated
than physically hurt, for example.
Like that's the shit that really is painful.
But now I don't wish, to be clear, that on my kid,
like you don't need to be fighting
and shit all the time. - No, no, no, no.
- But it is valuable to know that you can fail
or have something difficult happen, really painful,
or get your heart broken, have some girl be like,
you know, be like, I don't like, you know what I mean?
Embarrassed or whatever. - Oh yeah.
- You're gonna be okay.
These things are not gonna kill you.
And in fact, they actually do make you stronger
if you kind of go like, okay, that was,
if I didn't have some of the resilience
that I picked up by, you know, my early life,
trying to, you know, see, I would have just
kind of given up, or collapsed, or had bad people say bad shit,
I'd be like, oh, you know, and I'd fall down
and never get up again.
- Yeah, you'd have no experience.
And you also, it sharpens your intuition.
You start to, it all learns.
It's all, it is, if you can see yourself as a tool,
sometimes it's definitely harder when you're younger
because some of those feelings are new
and it hurts so much, you know?
- Here's the thing, getting better at anything
really never feels good.
Like, if you're building resilience,
it's not a time that you're liking.
You know what I mean?
It doesn't feel good.
Like, so that's what, okay, I don't like this.
This feels like shit, but because it's hard,
because I can't lift these weights anymore,
because I can't, these other, you know,
I'm exhausted and the other kids are still,
you know, running sprints or whatever, you know?
But like, those are the moments,
for what it's worth, where you're getting better.
- What is, what's something that you admire
about each of your children,
so one day they can look back and know, is that uncomfortable?
- Oh, God, I mean, the thing I really,
that I care most about,
and it's true of all three of my kids,
is that all of them have, like,
an innate, like, goodness of character,
like a kindness.
They don't, they're not trying to go out
and hurt other people.
They, and they have empathy.
Like, they care about and respect other people.
Doesn't mean, you know,
that, obviously they don't make mistakes,
or they're perfect or whatever,
but that basic thing about them is really,
really important.
I think it's definitely also credit to their mom,
who's amazing, and who's spectacular,
and it's great.
Like, I mean, we're divorced,
but we, I think, do pretty good together.
Raising the kids, going back and forth,
and all that stuff, and they're,
I mean, they're all, look, I think, you know,
like any parent, you're gonna be like,
my kid's so cool, and I like, I love it.
- No, but I feel like something you admire,
like, individually about them,
that's maybe unique.
And if it's too personal, I'm not trying to,
- I think my oldest kid, no, not at all.
Listen, I think truly,
there's so much that I don't want,
I just don't want to come off,
and I know my kids will be like,
"Dad, don't fucking go on there and talk about me."
You know what I mean?
So I'm like, my son especially is like,
dude, he's right now, he's watching this,
like, "Oh no, no, no."
But here's the truth.
My oldest one has got a beautiful,
like, commitment and sense of,
like, wanting to make the world truly a better place.
And she'll put her money where her mouth is.
Like, she doesn't want to do something.
She's not asking other people to do.
She makes personal sacrifices.
She has that kind of integrity.
You know, my middle child is really,
is this incredible,
like, feels things deeply,
like artist, you know,
kind of, is brilliant and so funny.
And my son has got like this incredible,
like, joy of life and magnetism
and sweetness and goodness to them.
And like, that's the stuff where it's like,
whether you can like dunk a basketball
or write a great paper,
like, great, and I'm not, you know,
but like, that's the shit that to me
is more important than,
like, kind of internal character stuff.
- Yeah, that's cool, dude.
That's nice, man.
Yeah, it's nice to hear dads talk about their kids,
you know?
I think sometimes you just don't hear it enough sometimes,
you know?
- I agree, and I think it's,
it's so important.
Like, it's the most important thing in the world.
- There's not as many male leaders,
there's not as many male teachers as there were.
There's not as many,
like, there's a space where we're missing a gap
of mentorship from male to male,
'cause a lot of people,
well, some people were pedophiles or whatever,
but outside of those people,
it's like, there's not as many--
- Let's rule those fuckers out.
- Yeah, those guys are out.
Well, also, anybody pop around to you
who's driving around taking pictures of kids,
anybody else would be arrested
for taking a photo of a kid in public.
- But, and I think, absolutely,
boys need important mentors.
And so do girls.
Like, you need to see that there's good men,
you need to understand that good men are accountable,
they tell the truth,
they can say they're sorry when they make a mistake,
they're strong, you can rely on them,
they're funny, like that they can show you strength
and love and all this stuff that is good and beautiful
and what you, the people you want to be drawn to
in your future life about masculinity,
you wanna know and see that modeled.
And if you don't, first of all,
there are children who are expecting,
'cause we're, there's children expecting to have that.
- That's important.
- If you don't, it fucks you up.
And if you don't see what that looks like,
you don't know kind of what to look for, you know?
- Oh yeah, dude, did you have a fun, like,
do you have a memory of your dad that was like fun with,
for you, I'm trying to think of one.
My dad would, dude, my dad was like,
my dad was really old when I was born.
And so my dad was 70 when I was born, right?
He was born in 1910.
- Dad was a serious guy.
- Yeah, I wish he had some money, which was crazy.
'Cause usually if a woman's hooking up with an older guy,
he's got some money.
He's like, "What did your dad have going for him?"
- It was not money, dude.
- It wasn't money, it must've been charming.
- He didn't have a bank, he was very charming.
My dad was very, very charming.
But he would like take me to the, like,
he would like go, sometimes have a beer,
about like this bar at the railroad tracks,
and he would like let me walk on the bar,
and they had like these little bowl of chocolates or whatever.
And if the bartender, I remember, if I danced good,
she would like give me some of the chocolates or whatever.
And he'd be like, "Go wiggle for chocolates or whatever."
And I remember, so I just remember, I think.
- That's like when my dad pimped me out.
That was a good time.
- Well, he was just pimping me for confections,
you know, or sugars, you know?
It was kind of an outtake from that movie "Chocolata,"
if you've ever seen that.
But yeah, he would be like, "Go wiggle for chocolates."
And I just remember, that was one thing that I remember.
Anyway, sorry, I made that about me, but.
- It was nice to take that walk down memory lane.
- Yeah, it's fun.

Theo Asks Ben Affleck About Fatherhood and Parenting

- Would you let your children act, do you think?
- Well, I wouldn't let 'em act professionally
while they were children, no.
But I would let them, if they wanna do plays and shit
and make their own kind of stuff with their friends,
that's fine with me.
I don't think it would be,
I don't know judgment against people that do it.
I've done playing movies with child actors and stuff,
and that's fine.
From my experience, acting as a kid and what I want
for my children is not that.
But also you gotta understand that then they,
I got a 19 year old, I got 16, I got 13.
- Oh, wow. - They can make their own choices.
- Yeah, oh yeah, that's true, right?
As a dad, you're just like,
has that gotta be tougher when you're a dad?
Like, you kind of have already lived some life,
so you were like, ah.
And not even about acting, it's about anything.
And then your kid is kind of like making it,
like is that, and you don't wanna like,
probably push them too much or like,
because then you're pressuresome.
Dude, that's gotta be a real,
like walking a police line or something.
- Yeah, I mean, that's the whole job of life.
It's like, for me, before I had kids,
you know, I didn't really realize what my life was about.
And then this becomes the central challenge of your life.
And if you have a, everybody has complications
and tricky shit in their life,
and that's part of being a parent is managing that
with what kind of life am I bringing my kids into,
making a good life for my children.
How do we, you know?
And that's, part of that is my kids are growing up,
out here in LA, I didn't grow up in LA.
I didn't, I never met a famous person or actor or anything.
That shit just seemed like a million miles away to me
and totally fanciful. - Oh, for sure.
If you're in the rest of the world,
it feels so far away.
And then you forget after you're here for a while,
how far away it seems to other people.
Like if you meet, you know, like just anybody who was in it,
it just like, that's like, it was a-
- Dude, I remember I was 12 years old in Boston
and I saw Christopher Lloyd,
who played the dude on Back to the Future, you know?
- Oh, yeah.
- And I saw him walking down the street,
I think he was doing a play, yeah, exactly.
I followed the guy for like six blocks.
Like now I'd be like,
there's this fucking 12 year old kid following me, right?
You know what I mean?
Like I stalked him, like I couldn't believe it
that it was the guy from Back to the Future.
I lost my mind and it was the only celebrity, famous,
whatever person I'd ever seen or not.
And so my kids are now, they're seeing different stuff.
Some of it's useful for them
because it disabuses them of some illusions
that I think are worth being disabused of and also,
but I'm also like, I don't, look, they're gonna,
if you, their kids are gonna kind of be
and do who they are, what they wanna do,
which your job is to let them know that they're loved,
that they're, keep them safe, you know,
provide them opportunities and also not, you know,
you gotta resist the temptation
to try to get everything out of the way for them
because you're not gonna learn anything
or develop any grid or resilience
if shit's just easy for them.
- Yeah, that's crazy, I didn't even thought about that.
It's like you're watching them walk
and there's something kind of in their path
and if you take it away completely,
then they're not gonna learn how to deal with an obstacle.
But if you leave it there,
then you're gonna have to watch them go through an obstacle.
That's gotta be crazy.
- And it's hard watching your kids,
like even trying to climb over something,
your instinct is pick 'em up, take 'em over,
but you have to like, yes,
you don't wanna put their finger in a socket,
you know what I mean, or throw off a cliff,
but that doesn't mean life has to be hard.
It has to be difficult in some ways.
It doesn't have to be, shouldn't be traumatic,
shouldn't be, you know, awful or painful,
but things have to be hard for you to learn
to do hard things.
And this world, like it or not,
is gonna demand that you do hard shit.
If you wanna have anything, you know,
if you wanna be able to provide for your own family,
have your own dreams,
have, you know, the things that you wanna have,
'cause if you don't do it,
the guy next to you is gonna do it better,
or, you know, or the woman over here is gonna do it better,
and you're gonna lose out.
And also, you know, I don't want my kids
to have that first big, tough experience in life
and like kind of fall apart.
You know, you gotta, like some of the best lessons
I ever learned in life were from failure.
In fact, for sure, I didn't learn much from success,
but I learned a lot from failure, you know what I mean?
But the most important thing you learn
is that you can survive it.
You can be okay.
They can knock you the fuck down.
And you know, it's like getting,
like when I was a kid where I grew up,
I mean, we used to get in fights all the time.
- Oh yeah, dude, people used to beat the shit out of me.
- You'd get punched in the face
and get your ass kicked and that's not,
and then you'd be like, "Yeah, he kicked your ass."
And you'd go like, and you'd get up
and you come to school the next day.
And you know what I mean?
It's kind of like-- - Oh, it was a tough day, dude.
That first day was so tough.
They were like, "Damn, Randy kicked your ass."
- I know, it's worse that you have to hear about it
than like just getting hit five times.
It's like, "Yeah, you kind of get your bell rung."
You know what I mean?
But it's the like, that's kind of going back
to that thing about like embarrassment.
Like kids will suffer more from being humiliated
than physically hurt, for example.
Like that's the shit that really is painful.
But now I don't wish, to be clear, that on my kid,
like you don't need to be fighting
and shit all the time. - No, no, no, no.
- But it is valuable to know that you can fail
or have something difficult happen, really painful,
or get your heart broken, have some girl be like,
you know, be like, I don't like, you know what I mean?
Embarrassed or whatever. - Oh yeah.
- You're gonna be okay.
These things are not gonna kill you.
And in fact, they actually do make you stronger
if you kind of go like, okay, that was,
if I didn't have some of the resilience
that I picked up by, you know, my early life,
trying to, you know, see, I would have just
kind of given up, or collapsed, or had bad people say bad shit,
I'd be like, oh, you know, and I'd fall down
and never get up again.
- Yeah, you'd have no experience.
And you also, it sharpens your intuition.
You start to, it all learns.
It's all, it is, if you can see yourself as a tool,
sometimes it's definitely harder when you're younger
because some of those feelings are new
and it hurts so much, you know?
- Here's the thing, getting better at anything
really never feels good.
Like, if you're building resilience,
it's not a time that you're liking.
You know what I mean?
It doesn't feel good.
Like, so that's what, okay, I don't like this.
This feels like shit, but because it's hard,
because I can't lift these weights anymore,
because I can't, these other, you know,
I'm exhausted and the other kids are still,
you know, running sprints or whatever, you know?
But like, those are the moments,
for what it's worth, where you're getting better.
- What is, what's something that you admire
about each of your children,
so one day they can look back and know, is that uncomfortable?
- Oh, God, I mean, the thing I really,
that I care most about,
and it's true of all three of my kids,
is that all of them have, like,
an innate, like, goodness of character,
like a kindness.
They don't, they're not trying to go out
and hurt other people.
They, and they have empathy.
Like, they care about and respect other people.
Doesn't mean, you know,
that, obviously they don't make mistakes,
or they're perfect or whatever,
but that basic thing about them is really,
really important.
I think it's definitely also credit to their mom,
who's amazing, and who's spectacular,
and it's great.
Like, I mean, we're divorced,
but we, I think, do pretty good together.
Raising the kids, going back and forth,
and all that stuff, and they're,
I mean, they're all, look, I think, you know,
like any parent, you're gonna be like,
my kid's so cool, and I like, I love it.
- No, but I feel like something you admire,
like, individually about them,
that's maybe unique.
And if it's too personal, I'm not trying to,
- I think my oldest kid, no, not at all.
Listen, I think truly,
there's so much that I don't want,
I just don't want to come off,
and I know my kids will be like,
"Dad, don't fucking go on there and talk about me."
You know what I mean?
So I'm like, my son especially is like,
dude, he's right now, he's watching this,
like, "Oh no, no, no."
But here's the truth.
My oldest one has got a beautiful,
like, commitment and sense of,
like, wanting to make the world truly a better place.
And she'll put her money where her mouth is.
Like, she doesn't want to do something.
She's not asking other people to do.
She makes personal sacrifices.
She has that kind of integrity.
You know, my middle child is really,
is this incredible,
like, feels things deeply,
like artist, you know,
kind of, is brilliant and so funny.
And my son has got like this incredible,
like, joy of life and magnetism
and sweetness and goodness to them.
And like, that's the stuff where it's like,
whether you can like dunk a basketball
or write a great paper,
like, great, and I'm not, you know,
but like, that's the shit that to me
is more important than,
like, kind of internal character stuff.
- Yeah, that's cool, dude.
That's nice, man.
Yeah, it's nice to hear dads talk about their kids,
you know?
I think sometimes you just don't hear it enough sometimes,
you know?
- I agree, and I think it's,
it's so important.
Like, it's the most important thing in the world.
- There's not as many male leaders,
there's not as many male teachers as there were.
There's not as many,
like, there's a space where we're missing a gap
of mentorship from male to male,
'cause a lot of people,
well, some people were pedophiles or whatever,
but outside of those people,
it's like, there's not as many--
- Let's rule those fuckers out.
- Yeah, those guys are out.
Well, also, anybody pop around to you
who's driving around taking pictures of kids,
anybody else would be arrested
for taking a photo of a kid in public.
- But, and I think, absolutely,
boys need important mentors.
And so do girls.
Like, you need to see that there's good men,
you need to understand that good men are accountable,
they tell the truth,
they can say they're sorry when they make a mistake,
they're strong, you can rely on them,
they're funny, like that they can show you strength
and love and all this stuff that is good and beautiful
and what you, the people you want to be drawn to
in your future life about masculinity,
you wanna know and see that modeled.
And if you don't, first of all,
there are children who are expecting,
'cause we're, there's children expecting to have that.
- That's important.
- If you don't, it fucks you up.
And if you don't see what that looks like,
you don't know kind of what to look for, you know?
- Oh yeah, dude, did you have a fun, like,
do you have a memory of your dad that was like fun with,
for you, I'm trying to think of one.
My dad would, dude, my dad was like,
my dad was really old when I was born.
And so my dad was 70 when I was born, right?
He was born in 1910.
- Dad was a serious guy.
- Yeah, I wish he had some money, which was crazy.
'Cause usually if a woman's hooking up with an older guy,
he's got some money.
He's like, "What did your dad have going for him?"
- It was not money, dude.
- It wasn't money, it must've been charming.
- He didn't have a bank, he was very charming.
My dad was very, very charming.
But he would like take me to the, like,
he would like go, sometimes have a beer,
about like this bar at the railroad 