Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two presenter Janette Manrara answered whether she and husband Aljaž Škorjanec are likely to expand their family and give their daughter a sibling
Janette Manrara gave a candid update on her family life (Image: Dave J Hogan, Dave J Hogan/Getty Images)
Strictly Come Dancing star Janette Manrara gave a candid update on the possibility of expanding her family.
The former Strictly pro, 42, shares daughter Lyra Rose with fellow professional dancer Aljaž Škorjanec, but she admitted she probably will not have any more children.
Janette and Aljaž married in 2017 before welcoming their daughter into the world in 2023, but she thinks their daughter might be an only child.
She told podcaster and singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor: “I don’t think Aliaj and I will have any more children. I’m 42 this year, so the clock is ticking. I mean, never say never. We might.”
Janette says she’s happy being the parent of an only child, except for one thing: “If she doesn’t have any siblings, and she doesn’t have any cousins, and she doesn’t have aunts and uncles and grandparents nearby.
“I grew up with such a big family. Like Cubans, we’re just like, there was 20 of us all the time in the house.”
Janette Manrara with her husband Aljaž Škorjanec(Image: Gareth Cattermole, Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)
Janette jokes that when she was growing up she always had a ready-made audience for her dance recitals.
She adds that her husband, fellow Strictly alumnus Aljaž, didn’t have quite such a big extended family, but still had plenty of company as a child.
Janette added: “Aliaj didn’t grow up with as many people, but his nucleus, his mum and his dad and his grandmothers and sister, they were all really close.”
Instead, their two-year-old daughter Lyra will grow up with a support network of friends, rather than family, Janette says.
She continued: “We’re kind of learning as we go, the people that are going to be a part of her life, not because we make them, but that are choosing to be a part of her life.
“And when she goes to nursery, and I’m hoping like as she starts getting older and older, she’ll make friends at nursery, and then we could throw parties for her with her friends and things like that.”
Janette answered whether she is likely to have any more children (Image: Andrew Benge, Redfernsvia Getty Images)
Janette added that there are some benefits to being an older mum, explaining that she feels like her maturity helps her be a better parent.
She said: “I found that so liberating from my own kind of self work and self reflect, reflecting that I did … letting things go, letting people go and just kind of doing me and working on me and only really processing my reaction to things.
“I think I’m a better mother to Lyra for that as well. If Lyra would have been born before I had kind of done the work on myself, I don’t know if I would have been as good of a mom really, because I would have maybe tried to control her and tried to like make her do certain things and behave in certain ways.”
Like a lot of working mums, though, Janette does still sometimes worry about balancing her successful stage and TV career with her responsibilities as a parent: “It was really tough because I was so exhausted all the time because I was doing shows in the evening and then trying to be her mother in the day.”
Janette says the stress of trying to combine motherhood with her showbiz career was almost too much to take: “I just wasn’t sleeping. So I kept beating myself up going, I can’t be in two places at the same time.”
Janette adds that she knew that Lyra was well looked-after with Aljaž, and both of the little girl’s grandmothers pitching in to look after her. Despite this the Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two presenter still felt anxious that she wasn’t at home with her.
Strictly Come Dancing returns tonight (Saturday, October 11) at 6.05pm on BBC One.
