{"id":222379,"date":"2025-10-24T10:06:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T10:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/222379\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T10:06:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T10:06:07","slug":"how-ben-stiller-is-tackling-generational-parenting-struggle-after-confessing-he-f-ked-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/222379\/","title":{"rendered":"How Ben Stiller is tackling ‘generational’ parenting ‘struggle’ after confessing he ‘f–ked up’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ben Stiller is working to break the nepo baby mold after his kids called him out for being an absentee father.<\/a><\/p>\n

Ben \u2014 the son of Hollywood icons Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara \u2014 reflected on how his childhood impacted his own parenting while discussing his new documentary, \u201cStiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost,\u201d on \u201cThe View\u201d Thursday. <\/p>\n

The \u201cMeet the Parents\u201d actor \u2014 who shares daughter Ella, 23, and son Quinlin, 20, with wife Christine Taylor \u2014 explained the patterns he noticed while making the film about his late parents. <\/p>\n

Ben Stiller reflected on the \u201cgenerational\u201d parenting struggle in an interview with \u201cThe View\u201d Thursday. Getty Images<\/p>\n

Ben is the son of late Hollywood stars Anne Meara and Jerry Stiller. WireImage for Harrison & Shriftman<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving kids who are now actors also, and experiencing that, that became part of the movie in terms of talking to them about how cyclically, generationally these things get handed down,\u201d Ben said. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to do better than your parents,\u201d he continued. \u201cIn some places, you do better, sometimes worse. It\u2019s that struggle we all go through.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ben, 59, also appeared on the \u201cToday\u201d Thursday, where co-host Savannah Guthrie complimented him for having \u201chard\u201d conversations with his children on camera. <\/p>\n

\u201cHaving kids who are now actors also, and experiencing that, that became part of the movie in terms of talking to them about how cyclically, generationally these things get handed down,\u201d Ben said. Getty Images<\/p>\n

The father of two said he realized the influence his parents had on him. FilmMagic<\/p>\n

\u201cI realized the influence my parents had on me and my sister and all parents have on their kids has influenced my relationships with my wife and my kids,\u201d Ben explained. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs I got deeper into looking at my parents\u2019 relationship,\u00a0I realized I had to acknowledge my own relationships and the effects that they had on that. So it became more of a family story,\u201d he said of the project.<\/p>\n

While interviewing his wife and kids for the doc, Ben realized that he was having new, vulnerable conversations with them. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs I got deeper into looking at my parents\u2019 relationship,\u201d he said, referring to working on his film, \u201cStiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost.\u201d AppleTV+<\/p>\n

Ben shares Ella and Quinlin with wife Christine Taylor. WireImage<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I was watching cuts, I was like, \u2018Oh, wow, I\u2019ve never really talked about any personal stuff like this,\u2019\u201d he told the Wall Street Journal<\/a> in an interview published Thursday. <\/p>\n

In the documentary, the \u201cZoolander\u201d star\u2019s kids blasted him for not being around much when they were growing up.<\/p>\n

Ella told her father, \u201cI literally can\u2019t ever remember you being around when I was growing up.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Ben asked his son if Ella\u2019s thoughts resonated with him, Quinlin told the actor that parenting seemed to come \u201clast\u201d on his list of priorities.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to do better than your parents,\u201d Ben said. \u201cIn some places, you do better, sometimes worse. It\u2019s that struggle we all go through.\u201d Getty Images<\/p>\n

Ben also has a sister named Amy. AppleTV+<\/p>\n

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\u201cAfter a tough day, or if something was going wrong, you can kind of get into your own head and when you get into that place, it\u2019s hard to get you out of it,\u201d Quinlin said. \u201cSo that would kind of put a damper on the fun part of being on vacation.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have all these hats that you\u2019re trying to balance, you know?\u201d he continued. \u201cBeing a director, an actor, a producer, a writer. But also just, like, a father.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quinlin also expressed his disappointment over his father being gone for months at a time due to filming schedules. <\/p>\n

The \u201cZoolander\u201d star\u2019s kids said that he was an absent father. Getty Images for Tribeca Festival<\/p>\n

\u201cI literally can\u2019t ever remember you being around when I was growing up,\u201d Ella told him in the doc. NBC via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Ben admitted that he thought he had done a better job than his father, but that he now knows this to be untrue. <\/p>\n

\u201cI thought I was pulling it off,\u201d Ben said in the documentary. \u201cI was flying home on weekends and finding special places for the kids to play when they would visit the set. But in reality, just hearing them talk about it, for them, it was the same thing I was going through as a kid and I just couldn\u2019t see that at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ben admitted in an interview with the Times published earlier this month that he \u201cf\u2013ked up\u201d raising his kids. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ben Stiller is working to break the nepo baby mold after his kids called him out for being…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222380,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[95006,38182,6491,9054,2755,4039,96,95007,3339,9052,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-222379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-anne-meara","tag-ben-stiller","tag-celebrities","tag-celebrity-children","tag-celebrity-news","tag-documentaries","tag-entertainment","tag-jerry-stiller","tag-nepo-babies","tag-parents","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}