I’m riddled with fear over safety of my daughters, I use an app to track them obsessively, says Tess Daly
LIKE any mother raising teenage girls, Tess Daly admits to being riddled with fears over the safety of her daughters.
But the 54-year-old Strictly presenter has become so worried about her eldest, 18-year-old Phoebe, that she “obsessively” tracks her on an app when she is driving alone.
Tess, who also has 13-year-old Amber with fellow TV presenter husband Vernon Kay, says she has been a “nervous wreck” since Phoebe passed her driving test last year.
“When your child starts to drive, that’s a whole new minefield,” she says.
“I’ve got that app LIFE360 and I track Phoebe on it obsessively until she gets to her destination.
“It’s because she’s a new driver. And the relief when I see she’s reached it . . . you never stop worrying.
“She’s only gone for 20 minutes and I’m a nervous wreck. It’s ridiculous. Loosen the leash!”
But despite her nerves, Tess does believe in letting her girls find their own path in life and refuses to be too “preachy” as they move into adulthood.
“You just have to advise them and gently guide the way,” she says.
“It has to feel like they’re reaching their own decisions in life.
‘You never stop parenting’
“But they’re needing more as they get older. They need more life advice, there seems to be more mental hand-holding.
“It’s amazing really how much you are needed as they get older. And so it’s a learning curve as you go through it. Every new stage in their teenage life is a learning curve.
“You never stop parenting. I don’t know when that all-seeing eye ends.
“Is it when they move away from home? I’ll still be worrying!
“But it is what it is and you wouldn’t change it for the world.”
With Tess focusing on her girls as well as her busy career — which includes her TV work, running a swimwear company and now the release of her new book, 4 Steps: To A Happier, Healthier You — she could be forgiven for feeling overwhelmed.
But the former model believes self-love is key when juggling motherhood, work and marriage.
“It’s tricky,” she admits on the Spinning Plates podcast.
“As women I think we tend to often, not neglect ourselves, but we are last on the list. For everything we have to do and everyone we’ve got to look after in our lives, and all the responsibility we have and all the balls we’re keeping in the air — it feels like we are last on the list. So it’s really important to look after ourselves so we can look after everything else.”
Tess refuses to look at emails after 9pm, in case the stress stops her from sleeping.
“If you haven’t slept enough you won’t feel like you’re seizing the day, you’re just getting through it,” she says.
“It’s so important. Our immune system is affected by a lack of sleep. And our wellbeing, our skin . . . it affects everything.”
There was a time, after Phoebe’s birth, when Tess was suffering from such sleep deprivation she almost missed a live Strictly show.
She says: “Phoebe didn’t ‘sleep’ for three and a half years. She didn’t want to. She wanted to wake up and socialise, all night. I remember I had to go back to work at Strictly six weeks after she was born, and I was so tired from waking up three or four times a night. If your sleep is broken, it’s brutal.
“It’s like torture. It’s the worst.”
While Tess is incredibly busy at work, her girls remain her priority.
Though she says she hadn’t always planned on having children, and it took meeting Vernon, 49, to make her broody.
“I had that subconscious feeling I would always be a mum but I wasn’t one of those people who planned it,” she says.
‘It hadn’t felt like the right time, but I was being selfish’
“I wouldn’t see cute girlies’ dresses and think, ‘One day!’ I never thought that. It took meeting the right person, which was Vernon. I met him and I thought, ‘Ah, suddenly I can see it. I can see children’.
“It hadn’t felt like the right time, but I was being selfish, living all over the world, travelling, working in fashion, I was never settled in the right place with the right person, and then I met him.
“Biologically, I was 31 then, so my clock was probably subconsciously going, ‘Tick tick, you’d better find someone’. I wasn’t even thinking about that consciously.
“I never planned on being a mum, but I thought I would be one day. We never feel ready for that really. But then it happens and it’s the perfect time.”
Tess says she and Vernon have a great relationship with their girls, although they are about to embark on the terrible teen years with Amber, which the whole family are trying to poke fun at.
She says: “Amber now is 13 and we were joking that when she turned 13 she was probably going to start snapping at us.
“She was the world’s most ethereal girl, her nickname was the Little Buddha. She cradles baby dogs and she’s often picking flowers. She’s very sweet.
“We said, ‘Amber, you won’t start snapping, will you — when you turn into a terrible teen?’, and the other day she was snapping at us. And we laughed at her and she stopped and laughed at herself.
“She realised it’s the hormones and it’s just the way it is.
“We have a great relationship with our girls. They’re brilliant.”