Ben Affleck: Celebrity Father of the Year?

 
We make fun of Ben Affleck a lot. The guy just isn't the best actor on the planet and supports the Boston Red Sox in an annoying fashion.

The more he talks about his family, however, the more Affleck appears less and less like an attention-starved star who dared to put us through Pearl Harbor.

In an interview with USA Today magazine, the actor appears to have learned from the 2004 split from Jennifer Lopez that made international headlines. He says he's changed his ways since becoming a dad.

"I've never been very judicious about my own behavior or choices until they had an impact on people other than me," Affleck said. "Obviously, my wife. And my daughter, who's going to have my last name â€" I don't want her to mutter it over a drink. I want her to be proud of her old man."

Affleck and his wife, Jennifer Garner, never released photos of 1-year-old Violet, as the race is on between who the public sees first: her or Jayden James Federline.

"I'm extraordinarily lucky and privileged," Affleck continued. "And I've tried not to be bitter, but I have developed a reactionary defensiveness."

"But for my child, she didn't make the bargain I did. She didn't make that choice. And I don't want her to have to pay for the parents' sins. I try to protect her privacy. I'll end up in the magazines, and that's life, and I can live with it, but I try to shield my daughter."

Look out, Kevin Federline, someone's trying to outdo you for Father of the Year.