Jennifer Lopez's Best Quotes About Motherhood and Coparenting

Jennifer Lopez is a triple threat performer but being a mother is her favorite role to date.

Lopez and ex-husband Marc Anthony, who wed in July 2004, welcomed fraternal twins, Max and Emme, in February 2008 after nearly four years of marriage. The "On My Way" songstress and Anthony - who is a father of six - ultimately split in 2011. Their divorce was finalized in 2014 as the pair learned to amicably coparent Max and Emme.

"Marc and I are good how we are right now," Lopez said during a March 2017 appearance on The View. "There's a reason we're not together, but we're great friends. And we're parents together. We're even working on a Spanish album together. [And] that has been even better for us. We met working, and that's where we're really magical, when we're on stage together, and so we leave it there. That's it."

Lopez later moved on with Ben Affleck in May 2021. Less than one year after reuniting - the twosome were previously engaged between 2002 and 2004 - the pair got engaged for a second time. Lopez and the Good Will Hunting star tied the knot in July 2022 during an intimate Las Vegas ceremony before they started blending their families. Affleck, for his part, shares daughters Violet and Seraphina and son Samuel with ex-wife Jennifer Garner, whom he split from in 2015. Affleck and Lopez ultimately split in 2025.

Scroll below to read Lopez's best quotes about motherhood and coparenting:

June 2026

Lopez opened up about feeling "emotional" as Max and Emme prepare to head off to college.

"It's been the three of us," she reflected during an appearance on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen. "People have come in and out of my life, but it's been the three of us. They've always been there, and I've always been there."

The Office Romance star continued, "I just never thought they would not be there. I just never thought that far ahead. I thought, too, that they're so independent - I gave them roots and wings. [I thought], ‘It's great, this is how it is … this is a healthy mom thing to do.' And then about a couple of months ago, I just was, like, writing something for their end-of-the-school-year thing for them to put in the program at the graduation, and I just have not … every time it comes up, I just start crying. I could cry right now."

May 2023

"I think being the child of famous parents is really not something many people can understand and I feel for [my kids] for that because they didn't choose that," Lopez told Audacy of her twins navigating both of their parents' fame. "I haven't talked to them a lot about this, but they have just started letting me know how people treat them. So when they walk into the room, that's what people are thinking about, they're not seeing them for who they are. And I think that has to be a really hard thing for them. I'd love to protect them from that."

She continued: "They know there is a lens on them. I did that to them. So, we have this guilt as moms about what we do and what we've brought into their lives. … You don't ever want them to feel a moment of pain in their lives but you realize that's not realistic. I want them to feel strong, feel good and I want them to feel unapologetically themselves and stand in their own truth and their own power. That's what I want to instill in them so I don't have to protect them from anything, they can protect themselves."

February 2023

The New York native gushed in her birthday tribute that she was "so proud" of her two kids, whom she affectionately nicknamed her "coconuts."

January 2023

Lopez revealed to Today that it was an "emotional transition" for her kids to move in with Affleck and his children.

November 2022

"[She's] an amazing coparent, and they work really well together," the "Dance Again" artist told Vogue of Garner and Affleck's custody arrangement. "What I hope to cultivate with our family is that his kids have a new ally in me and my kids have a new ally in him, someone who really loves and cares about them but can have a different perspective and help me see things that I can't see with my kids because I'm so emotionally tied up."

September 2022

Lopez and the Argo director tied the knot for a second time in August 2022, holding a romantic ceremony at Affleck's Georgia estate.

"As I walked down the aisle, the first song [Marc Cohn] played wasn't ‘True Companion' however. It was his ‘The Things We've Handed Down' - a song about the wonderful mystery of children - something we could only guess at back then, but it was the perfect choice as our five children preceded me on the walk," she wrote in her "On the J. Lo" newsletter, nothing their blended brood all had special roles on the big day. "As the eldest of our children finished her walk, Marc began 'True Companion,' a song we first listened to together what seemed both like yesterday and forever ago - and life came, strangely, beautifully, mysteriously, divinely full-circle."

February 2022

"They have their own lives, they have all their own ideas about the world already and they love to kind of, like, show you that they know things," the "Love Don't Cost a Thing" songstress said of Max and Emme during an interview on Live With Kelly and Ryan. "I feel like I learn so much from them. They keep me so abreast with the world and what's happening now and how kids are thinking. It's a whole different thing. It's a different world!"

May 2021

"It was my mom who instilled in us at a very young age that we could do anything," the Grammy winner wrote via Instagram on Mother's Day. "This was something that has really stayed with me. Being a mom is my greatest joy, and today I think about my mommy and all the moms out there. This is your day, and I hope you are surrounded by love, gratitude and appreciation. Enjoy it!"

November 2020

Lockdown with her kids - and then-fiancé Alex Rodriguez as well as his two daughters from a previous relationship - was a new adventure for Lopez.

"I actually loved being home and having dinner with the kids every night, which I hadn't done in probably - ever," Lopez recalled to WSJ Magazine. "And the kids kind of expressed to me, like, the parts that they were fine with about our lives and the parts they weren't fine with. You thought you were doing OK, but you're rushing around and you're working and they're going to school and we're all on our devices. We're providing this awesome life for them, but at the same time, they need us. They need us in a different way. We have to slow down and we have to connect more. And, you know, I don't want to miss things."

She added: "I feel like everybody aged, like, three years during this pandemic. I watched them go from kind of young and naive to really, like, grown-ups to me now. When did this happen? They're not our babies anymore. They've been given a dose of the real world, with the knowledge that things can be taken away from you and life is going to happen no matter what."

December 2019

Portraying Ramona in Hustlers allowed Lopez to think about the lessons she wanted to pass on to Emme.

"When you do certain roles, you realize something about yourself. I've always been so much a romantic, so much about having a relationship, and this woman is the total opposite," she told The New York Times. "To play that, to live in those shoes, to walk in those very high heels, in that skin, made me realize I'm out here on my own. That's what I need to teach [Emme]. That aspect of it, that you can do it on your own. Women are not taught that all the time."

April 2019

"When I realized I was pregnant, I was in Portugal," the former World of Dance judge told Max and Emme in a YouTube video. "I was doing a big show. I had just went away for two days. When I sat there, I was in my hair and makeup trailer, and here's what I felt. In my belly, I felt a flutter. I felt like a little butterfly and immediately I knew that I had life inside me. I knew it. It came right into my head."

While Lopez was excited to become a mother, she did start "laughing hysterically" when she found out there were two babies in her belly.

January 2019

"I grew up with the fairy tale, ‘A prince is going save you,' ‘Wait for true love and that's what makes you happy,' ‘If you're not married, you're not happy,'" Lopez confessed to Red. "Well, let me tell you, [Emme] is eons above me already. [They] said to me when [they] was 8, ‘I don't know if I want to get married, mommy.' When [Emme] said that I was like, ‘YES!' because I've been teaching [them] to love [themself] since [they were] little."

March 2017

"They just made my life so much better," she tearfully told Today. "I'm forever grateful that ... you know, I didn't have kids until later and so I almost thought that it wasn't going to happen for me, so I'm very aware that I was blessed with that. It could have been something different. I don't take it for granted one day."

April 2010

"I remember my flabby belly hanging out right after I gave birth," Lopez previously told Us Weekly of embracing her postpartum body. "I kind of laughed and said to Marc, 'Look, baby! Isn't this crazy?' I just didn't care. … You get to the point where you're like, ‘Where am I? What happened to me?' I got to get myself together for my kids, you know? They need to know what I really look like."

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This story was originally published June 11, 2026 at 12:47 PM.