“It’s 100 percent mental and a mighty juggler” – Tommy Bowe on parenting
“It throws you sideways,” says Tommy Bowe when contemplating parenthood. “Everyone tells you how tired you’re going to be and how messy it is, but you have no idea. Nothing can prepare you for how exhausting, how mental and how amazing it is.”
The former rugby star, who was capped 69 times for Ireland, and his wife, former Miss Wales Lucy Whitehouse, have two young children – Emma, 5, and Jamie, 2.
The couple first met in 2011 when Bowe was playing for Ospreys in Wales and married in 2015. They knew from the start they wanted children.
“We’ve always been very interested in doing it; I come from a tight-knit family, we’re tight-knit, and I’ve always wanted to be a parent.”
Their daughter Emma arrived early, two weeks before her due date in April 2017.
Back then, Bowe (38) was still playing rugby professionally. In March 2017, just weeks before his daughter was born, he broke his leg in the final minute of a Six Nations game against Wales.
As he was carried off the pitch, he knew he would never play for Ireland again. He underwent surgery and began an intensive rehabilitation program and then became a father.
“I had just injured myself and was on crutches at the time, so I wasn’t of much use to my wife,” says the Co Monaghan native.
“And you don’t get a lot of paternity leave if you play rugby, that’s not really a thing. If you play you have to play the games you could get a week free. And at the time I was injured I had to go into rehab and try to get fit again.”
As a result, he says the time was pretty intense.
“I was trying to combine all of that with a newborn. And Lucy’s parents live in Wales, so we had to juggle a lot,” he says.
“It’s a chaotic time – everyone finds it chaotic. No matter how many times you’ve been through it, whether it’s your first or your fifth.”
Playing sport at a professional level requires a level of commitment that can sometimes interfere with family life.
“It’s pretty sad, but you have to be pretty selfish. There is a game every weekend. If you want to perform, you have to prepare. There have to be sacrifices… the guys who play the Six Nations are pretty much out of the house for seven or eight weeks.”
The couple’s son Jamie arrived in 2020 when the country went into lockdown. However, like many parents, Bowe felt more confident as a father.
“On your first, when they cry, you can’t sleep. But when they fall asleep, they remain silent and you still can’t sleep because you worry that something is wrong. So you are always on high alert and full of panic. When the second baby comes, you realize you can really enjoy those 15 or 20 minutes [when they are asleep].”
I ask if the parent he imagined deviates from reality.
“Nothing can prepare you for some of the challenges. You may have this great idea of what you want to be, but what if you have to negotiate with a two-year-old who doesn’t want to be potty trained? There is no negotiation. I thought I was being stubborn – that’s another level. There is no rationality,” he laughs.
Bowe officially retired from rugby in 2018 and made the move to television; He made a documentary about retirement, The final gamestarted presenting stints on the travel show RTÉ getaways with Vogue Williams before taking on the role of co-host Ireland AM with Muireann O’Connell and Alan Hughes.
While nothing can replace the atmosphere of a match day, live television gives it an adrenaline rush.
“Look, I’ll never re-enact my elimination in the Six Nations or a try against England at Twickenham,” he says.
“You have to make peace that you’ll never get a kick like that because that’s been my dream since I was six years old. But you have to keep going. I’ve been very lucky with live television. I’m not getting lumps knocked out of me, but I’m still part of a team.”
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Tommy and Lucy on their wedding anniversary in 2015
Interviewing politicians or addressing topics that he is not familiar with excites him.
“It gives me a real adrenaline rush and my heart beats. Even if you just go on live TV knowing you have to be careful not to say the wrong thing and get into a lot of hot water. You have to be on the ball for three hours. It gives you an adrenaline rush, it’s not quite as high as rugby but not far off.”
Ireland AM requires a 4am start time. For many, waking up in the wee hours would get pretty old pretty quickly, but Bowe doesn’t mind.
This level of planning and discipline was “dumped into him for 15 years” as a sports star.
“If I have to get up at four or five in the morning, I need to get the right amount of sleep; I must have my clothes ready; I have my food ready to go in the fridge. I turn into a little robot. When I talk to Muireann…she doesn’t get along. So I think athletes are just wired a little bit differently.”
Bowe faces hectic weeks; apart from Ireland AM He also works on Six Nations coverage and has his own clothing line, XV Kings, to oversee.
Lucy works as a registered nurse and with two young children, daycare and an ever-growing array of extracurricular activities, there is a lot of logistics to attend to.
“It’s a huge challenge for me and my wife,” he says. “We need a common calendar. I have work commitments and home commitments to bring in and she will do the same. We both just have to work together.
“It’s a compromise. It’s all about communicating as much as possible with his wife and making sure that at work I can do my job as well as I can – and vice versa for her.”
He adds: “I have Ireland AM and XV Kings trying to get to the factories – it’s really busy. My daughter has just started Irish dancing. She does ballet and swims. There are all these obligations. But anyone who is a parent will know exactly what that is like. You want to do what is best for your children and encourage them to get involved in extracurricular activities and enjoy time with their friends. But you also have to do the work to get the food on the table.”
Bowe has previously spoken about the pressure children can put on relationships. Last year, up Ireland AM He said daily arguments are a regular part of married life when you have young children. “When you’re tired, you get mad and moody about everything – who does more work than the other? Someone is home while you go to work,” he said at the time.
He and his wife try to make time for each other and respect each other’s parenting styles.
“We try to sit down and watch TV together,” he says. “Between me and my wife, she’s probably a disciplinarian. I’m the one who upsets her before bed because I play too much and suddenly someone bangs her head and it all ends in tears and it’s my fault. But I think we have a nice balance.”
Talkative and good-natured, Bowe speaks openly on the phone while shopping for dog food for his “first baby,” the family pet, Bonny.
He’s very composed, which could explain his popularity with viewers and why he seems so unperturbed when things go wrong on the air.
“I love it when things go wrong,” he says. Bowe got into a lot of trouble last year when author Séamas O’Reilly appeared on the show to talk about his book Did you hear mammy died?dealing with the loss of parents.
Introducing O’Reilly, Bowes co-host Clare McKenna told viewers he was “only five years old when he and his 10 siblings…”
At this point, Bowe interjected in shrill disbelief, exclaiming, “Ten siblings?!” before McKenna concluded that she “lost her mother.”
The clip was shared widely on social media, remixed into an electronic song, and even printed on greeting cards.
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Tommy Bowe with co-hosts Muireann O’Connell and Alan Hughes from Ireland AM. Photo: Brian McEvoy
“I didn’t really realize I made a mistake,” he says. “I continued the interview as if nothing had happened. It’s only when I later saw it on social media that it shows the power of social media… I mean, I’ve had way worse, bigger buggers.”
He declines to give examples of these more significant on-air fumbles. Instead, he talks about recovering from them.
“Everything I get comes from rugby,” he says. “If I dropped the ball or missed a tackle in the first minute of a Six Nations game and my opponent scored a try under the post, I have nothing to worry about for the rest of the game. I have to go ahead and get back in the game and pretend nothing happened or use that as motivation to try and play better. It is the same. I make a lot of mistakes on the air, but you can’t let the whole show fall apart.”
He thinks that being able to roll the punches is a sign of a good presenter. “[Sometimes] The cameras don’t work and our herds are broken. Or someone didn’t show up. To be able to deal with it and make it look [as if]…there is absolutely nothing wrong. It’s a real sign that you’re getting better at your job.”
As our conversation draws to a close, he reflects on how fatherhood has changed him and what he has learned from his children.
“[The kids] put everything in perspective. They don’t care if I screw up on TV or if I’ve missed a new business opportunity. They are just happy to see you and that you are giving them your time. So my big thing is trying to be present and putting my phone down.”
He tries to embrace the chaos of raising young children while it lasts.
“We are so lucky; The kids are young, they are so much fun and they are happy. Everyone I speak to that has older kids says, “Just try and enjoy, enjoy the absolute mentality of that age.” And it’s 100pc mental. And there are moments that are just pure joy. I try to appreciate that as best as I can while tearing my hair out at the same time,” he laughs.
“Nobody can prepare you for how amazing it is. You might have 23 hours of absolute chaos, but that hour of gold, pure joy, somehow makes it totally worth it.”
Tommy Bowe presents Ireland AM, Ireland’s longest running breakfast TV show, airing seven days a week on Virgin Media One
https://www.independent.ie/life/family/parenting/it-is-100pc-mental-and-a-massive-juggle-tommy-bowe-on-parenting-42322033.html “It’s 100 percent mental and a mighty juggler” – Tommy Bowe on parenting