These quotes from Jennifer Garner in the title are from a panel she did in September, but I keep up with the news about her and they’re new to me. People Magazine used them as filler for one of Jen’s “relatable mom!” moments on Instagram, a photo she posted of herself in wet hair, her robe and slippers while waiting for her daughter’s school bus. That’s below. She bugs, but this is her brand and she’s done a lot toward building that with Instagram so I get it. I also sometimes do find her relatable, like this story she told about making homemade stuff for your kids and having them reject it.

“I can’t really complain about my kids,” she said in September, speaking at an INBOUND panel in Boston, Massachusetts. “They’re pretty awesome. They humor me.”

“But I have chilled out and stopped trying to be my mom,” she added at the panel, explaining that growing up, her mom cooked everything from scratch and she used to try to do the same.

“Here I am making homemade wheat thins like a nerd and my kids don’t want them,” she said. “The harder you work on whatever you’re making for your kids, the less apt they are to eat it.”

But Garner’s new laid back approach to parenting hasn’t affected her need to protect her kids’ privacy.

“It’s so gnarly to be a kid now,” Garner told InStyle in August. “I guard my kids’ privacy as much as I possibly can, and I’ve never posted pictures of them on Instagram. I used to refuse to say their names during interviews — but everyone knows their names! I would just say ‘my eldest,’ which I still do out of habit a lot.”

“I’m sure there are times my kids would really love to see themselves reflected on my social media in a fun way and to have the attention they would get from that. But I’ve fought too hard against it. It would feel hypocritical,” she continued. “There’s no implied judgment of people who do put their kids up there; I just don’t think most kids have been hounded in the way that mine were when they were little.”

We did report on that second filler quote People Magazine is using, the one about not posting her kids photos on Instagram and guarding their privacy. That’s a mixed bag with Garner and Affleck in that we always see them out with their kids when they have a PR crisis. I suspect there’s no escaping that cycle unless they move. I wanted to talk about cooking though. I do cook him meals, but when my son was smaller I stopped bothering because he never seemed to really like what I cooked. I swear I could cook the exact same thing as my mom and grandma’s was always better. Now that he’s a teenager though he appreciates the dinners I make and so I cook for him more. He once told me he knew when we were having company because I would make dinner and that cut me deep. After that I made it a goal to cook for him about twice a week, no matter how busy I am. I know that’s not much and I make quicker meals on the off days, like black bean or turkey burgers, baked potatoes with ham and cheese and things like that.

Here’s Jen’s post, which gave us yet another reason to talk about her. She knows her audience.