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From school bullying to Olympic gold, Tom Daley sees teen idol pressure in new light
From school bullying to Olympic gold, Tom Daley sees teen idol pressure in new light

Straits Times

time24-06-2025

  • Sport
  • Straits Times

From school bullying to Olympic gold, Tom Daley sees teen idol pressure in new light

– Meteoric early fame took a toll on British diving great Tom Daley, the retired former Olympic champion told Reuters, reflecting on the intense pressure of his early days as a teen idol with more sympathy for himself now that he is a parent. The 31-year-old Daley retired from competitive sport in 2024 after collecting silver – his fifth Olympic medal – in the 10m synchro in Paris, having spent more than half his life in the public eye. A documentary '1.6 Seconds', released this week on streaming service Max, chronicles Daley's breathtaking rise to fame as a 14-year-old Olympian through his difficult days of childhood bullying and his father's death when the diver was a teenager. 'I would look back at that and I feel sorry for the young Tom a little bit, just to be like, 'Oh my gosh, someone just tell him to stop and have some time to himself to kind of grieve and figure out what's what',' he said. He picked up his first Olympic medal, a bronze in the 10m platform, at the London Games in 2012, and claimed third place on the podium again in the synchro in Rio four years later before his breakthrough gold at Tokyo 2020 in the 10m synchro. 'That was particularly intense, talking about my school experience and bullying and then just seeing the down off from Rio going up into then Tokyo,' added Daley. 'Seeing the pressure that I put myself under as a young kid and especially now as a parent looking back at that... it's a lot to look back at.' Daley, whose popularity rose even more after he came out as gay in 2013, has long preached in favour of inclusivity in sport and fears that the current momentum against transgender Olympic participation could hurt the next generation. US President Donald Trump's decision in February to exclude transgender girls and women from female sport triggered what experts expect to be a long clash with the global sport authorities ahead of the Los Angeles Games in 2028. The International Olympic Committee has refused to apply a universal rule over transgender athletes' participation in the Games, instructing federations to devise their own guidelines. 'The messages that you send out and banning certain groups at whatever level it is – it just can be really dangerous in terms of allowing anyone to feel safe in the sport,' said Daley. 'As soon as you start banning certain groups, you start then feeling, 'Am I going to be able to be included in the future? Is sport a place for me?'' REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.

Is being too good at sport too young a curse? Of course it is
Is being too good at sport too young a curse? Of course it is

The Herald Scotland

time15-06-2025

  • Entertainment
  • The Herald Scotland

Is being too good at sport too young a curse? Of course it is

The diver, unsurprisingly, was a phenomenon at those Olympic Games becoming, as he had, one of Team GB's youngest-ever Olympians. In fact, even prior to Beijing 2008, he'd already been in the spotlight for a number of years. Such a precocious talent was the Englishman, he was being interviewed by the BBC aged just 11 and qualified for the Olympics aged only 13. There's something endlessly fascinating about watching athletes competing on the international stage despite the fact they are still children. Every so often, an individual comes along who has mastered their sport by their mid-teens or, in Daley's case even earlier, resulting in the public watching a literal school child compete against adults. If you're good enough, you're old enough is the adage that's consistently trotted out when stressing the point that age, particularly in sport, is irrelevant. On a very base level, this is true. If your sporting abilities are up to scratch then why should it matter if you're still sitting your school exams? But Tom Daley's newly-released documentary, '1.6 Seconds', brings sharply into focus quite what it means to be both a child and an elite-level athlete simultaneously. 1.6 Seconds, which was released earlier this month, is a documentary about the British diving sensation, with the title coming from the fact it takes precisely 1.6 seconds between diving off the 10m diving board and hitting the water. Ultimately, Daley became a five-time Olympian, with the highlight being Tokyo 2020, at which he finally became Olympic champion. (Image: Getty Images) So while this documentary charts Daley's brilliance as a diver, it also delves into the price he paid for that success. And it was a hefty price. It's hardly surprising that Daley became a fascination for the media. His early breakthrough, his ability to speak eloquently despite his tender age and his photogenic looks made him the perfect subject. Things hit the skids early, though. At those Olympic Games in 2008, Daley was partnered with Blake Aldridge who was, at the time, almost twice Daley's age and after the pair under-performed in the 10m synchro event, Aldridge essentially blamed the young Daley for their failure. Tom Daley at the Beijing Olympics 2008 (Image: Houston Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images) Daley's life, despite his Olympian status, was then a struggle for quite some time. He endured severe bullying at school, leading to him being home-schooled, developed an eating disorder and, most traumatically, suffered the death of his father just days after his 17th birthday. Paparazzi essentially gatecrashed Daley's father's funeral to grab photos of the teenager, something Daley describes in this documentary as feeling 'really abusive'. Now aged 31, married with two kids and having retired from competitive diving, Daley appears a genuinely happy and content man. But the struggles he endured to reach this point have clearly been sizeable and it's hard to ignore that so many of them came as a direct result of his athletic talent being so far ahead of his development as a person. Inevitably, if you're only 13 or 14 years old, you're entirely unequipped to deal with challenges that many adults struggle with. It's why, if you're a world class athlete who is still a child, sport can be such a challenging and, at times, destructive environment. And it's why so many athletes who were child stars, if that's what you'd call them, end up as ill-adjusted and damaged adults. Daley has, it seems, come out the other side as healthy and as balanced as anyone. Perhaps it helped that it wasn't until 2021 he won his long-coveted Olympic gold medal, over a decade after his Olympic debut. But Daley isn't the only athlete who has struggled to adjust to being a child sporting superstar. There are, of course, several walks of life in which child stars emerge but the significant difference between sport and say, entertainment is that it's a given that fame goes hand-in-hand with appearing in films or television. In contrast, I've never met a single athlete who began diving or kicking a ball or running round a track because they wanted fame. Rather, they did it for the love of the sport and fame was a by-product, more often than not an unwanted one, of subsequent success. Daley is by no means an anomaly when it comes to struggling with being a very good athlete very young; the sporting world is littered with athletes who were precocious talents but the pressure and fame that was heaped upon them frankly, messed them up. From Jennifer Capriati, the tennis player who turned professional at the age of only 13 and won Olympic gold aged just 16 before suffering many personal problems that included her being arrested several times to Kamila Valieva, the teenage figure skater who, as a 15-year-old, went into the 2022 Winter Olympics as favourite for gold but ended those Games having been handed a doping suspension and suffered a public meltdown, the perils of being very good at sport at a very young age are plentiful. Jennifer Capriati also excelled at a particularly young age (Image: AFP via Getty Images) It's easy to see exactly why individuals who become world class athletes while still teenagers or, in Daley's case even younger, struggle so badly with what elite sport brings. The fame and attention can be a heavy load to bear and the constant media attention and scrutiny is something may adults are not equipped to deal with, never mind expecting a child to cope. Having the press and the public watch your every move and having so many people invested in your success of failure would be enough to send anyone mad. It's easy for people to trot out the line that age is only a number. Sometimes, this is entirely true. But in other cases, age isn't only a number, it's also a sign that someone isn't ready for what's about to be thrown at them. Daley's retelling of his life story is a reminder that while excelling at sport at an unusually young age brings many positives, it also brings many, many negatives. The Englishman has, in the end, come out the other side intact and in a good place. Not all athletes who excelled while very young are so lucky.

Is being too good at sport too young a curse? Of course it is
Is being too good at sport too young a curse? Of course it is

The National

time15-06-2025

  • Entertainment
  • The National

Is being too good at sport too young a curse? Of course it is

He was 14 years old, but so baby-faced was he, the teenager could probably have passed for being even younger. The diver, unsurprisingly, was a phenomenon at those Olympic Games becoming, as he had, one of Team GB's youngest-ever Olympians. In fact, even prior to Beijing 2008, he'd already been in the spotlight for a number of years. Such a precocious talent was the Englishman, he was being interviewed by the BBC aged just 11 and qualified for the Olympics aged only 13. There's something endlessly fascinating about watching athletes competing on the international stage despite the fact they are still children. Every so often, an individual comes along who has mastered their sport by their mid-teens or, in Daley's case even earlier, resulting in the public watching a literal school child compete against adults. If you're good enough, you're old enough is the adage that's consistently trotted out when stressing the point that age, particularly in sport, is irrelevant. On a very base level, this is true. If your sporting abilities are up to scratch then why should it matter if you're still sitting your school exams? But Tom Daley's newly-released documentary, '1.6 Seconds', brings sharply into focus quite what it means to be both a child and an elite-level athlete simultaneously. 1.6 Seconds, which was released earlier this month, is a documentary about the British diving sensation, with the title coming from the fact it takes precisely 1.6 seconds between diving off the 10m diving board and hitting the water. Ultimately, Daley became a five-time Olympian, with the highlight being Tokyo 2020, at which he finally became Olympic champion. (Image: Getty Images) So while this documentary charts Daley's brilliance as a diver, it also delves into the price he paid for that success. And it was a hefty price. It's hardly surprising that Daley became a fascination for the media. His early breakthrough, his ability to speak eloquently despite his tender age and his photogenic looks made him the perfect subject. Things hit the skids early, though. At those Olympic Games in 2008, Daley was partnered with Blake Aldridge who was, at the time, almost twice Daley's age and after the pair under-performed in the 10m synchro event, Aldridge essentially blamed the young Daley for their failure. Tom Daley at the Beijing Olympics 2008 (Image: Houston Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images) Daley's life, despite his Olympian status, was then a struggle for quite some time. He endured severe bullying at school, leading to him being home-schooled, developed an eating disorder and, most traumatically, suffered the death of his father just days after his 17th birthday. Paparazzi essentially gatecrashed Daley's father's funeral to grab photos of the teenager, something Daley describes in this documentary as feeling 'really abusive'. Now aged 31, married with two kids and having retired from competitive diving, Daley appears a genuinely happy and content man. But the struggles he endured to reach this point have clearly been sizeable and it's hard to ignore that so many of them came as a direct result of his athletic talent being so far ahead of his development as a person. Inevitably, if you're only 13 or 14 years old, you're entirely unequipped to deal with challenges that many adults struggle with. It's why, if you're a world class athlete who is still a child, sport can be such a challenging and, at times, destructive environment. And it's why so many athletes who were child stars, if that's what you'd call them, end up as ill-adjusted and damaged adults. Daley has, it seems, come out the other side as healthy and as balanced as anyone. Perhaps it helped that it wasn't until 2021 he won his long-coveted Olympic gold medal, over a decade after his Olympic debut. But Daley isn't the only athlete who has struggled to adjust to being a child sporting superstar. There are, of course, several walks of life in which child stars emerge but the significant difference between sport and say, entertainment is that it's a given that fame goes hand-in-hand with appearing in films or television. In contrast, I've never met a single athlete who began diving or kicking a ball or running round a track because they wanted fame. Rather, they did it for the love of the sport and fame was a by-product, more often than not an unwanted one, of subsequent success. Daley is by no means an anomaly when it comes to struggling with being a very good athlete very young; the sporting world is littered with athletes who were precocious talents but the pressure and fame that was heaped upon them frankly, messed them up. From Jennifer Capriati, the tennis player who turned professional at the age of only 13 and won Olympic gold aged just 16 before suffering many personal problems that included her being arrested several times to Kamila Valieva, the teenage figure skater who, as a 15-year-old, went into the 2022 Winter Olympics as favourite for gold but ended those Games having been handed a doping suspension and suffered a public meltdown, the perils of being very good at sport at a very young age are plentiful. Jennifer Capriati also excelled at a particularly young age (Image: AFP via Getty Images) It's easy to see exactly why individuals who become world class athletes while still teenagers or, in Daley's case even younger, struggle so badly with what elite sport brings. The fame and attention can be a heavy load to bear and the constant media attention and scrutiny is something may adults are not equipped to deal with, never mind expecting a child to cope. Having the press and the public watch your every move and having so many people invested in your success of failure would be enough to send anyone mad. It's easy for people to trot out the line that age is only a number. Sometimes, this is entirely true. But in other cases, age isn't only a number, it's also a sign that someone isn't ready for what's about to be thrown at them. Daley's retelling of his life story is a reminder that while excelling at sport at an unusually young age brings many positives, it also brings many, many negatives. The Englishman has, in the end, come out the other side intact and in a good place. Not all athletes who excelled while very young are so lucky.

Tom Daley on the 'Lonely' Times Behind the Olympic Successes
Tom Daley on the 'Lonely' Times Behind the Olympic Successes

Newsweek

time11-06-2025

  • Entertainment
  • Newsweek

Tom Daley on the 'Lonely' Times Behind the Olympic Successes

Tom Daley photographed for his documentary - Tom Daley - 1.6 Seconds. Tom Daley photographed for his documentary - Tom Daley - 1.6 Seconds. Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc "It was a very lonely period because no one really understood." British diver Tom Daley was thrust onto the world stage at his first Olympic Games in 2008, age 14. What remained hidden from the public was the strain success at a young age put on him. "It was a very lonely period because no one really understood." Daley reflects on his diving career and life in the new documentary Tom Daley: 1.6 Seconds ( "Growing up, you think you know everything.... It's only when you look back, you realize you knew absolutely nothing." Daley also had to contend with losing his father and coming out as gay. "It was quite scary to finally, actually, come out. Because I knew that it wasn't just going to be telling my family. There was going to be public opinion." And he recounts being bullied while growing up. "I almost felt guilty for being bullied at school. I'm really grateful and really lucky to be in the position that I'm in, yet I'm having this really rough time." Though revisiting the past was hard, the keen knitter is proud of his documentary. "It would be really cool for my kids to have something to look back on and see what happened in my diving career." SUBSCRIBE TO THE PARTING SHOT WITH H. ALAN SCOTT ON APPLE PODCASTS OR SPOTIFY AND WATCH ON YOUTUBE Editor's Note: This conversation has been edited and condensed for publication. Tom Daley of Great Britain with his gold medal won with team mate Matty Lee of Great Britain in the Men's Synchronised 10m Platform Diving at the Tokyo Aquatic Centre at the Tokyo 2020 Summer... Tom Daley of Great Britain with his gold medal won with team mate Matty Lee of Great Britain in the Men's Synchronised 10m Platform Diving at the Tokyo Aquatic Centre at the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympic Games on July 26, 2021 in Tokyo, Japan. More Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images What struck me watching the doc is how young you were when we all were introduced to you. What was it like seeing a lot of this old footage while doing the documentary? It was the first time that I'd seen most of that footage, if I'm being honest. Obviously, the Olympic stuff I had seen, but the home video stuff and all the footage—I was reacting for the very first time that I'd ever seen that. It was very surreal to look back at my whole life in that way. I remember watching it back the first time—I was very emotional. Because I was like, "Oh my gosh. This is all the stuff that I did and had to go through." And I kind of felt sorry for younger me and how I was thrust into this thing, not really knowing how to deal with any of it. Not really having any advice or knowing anyone that was going through the same thing. Because growing up in a small town of Plymouth, there weren't many people around that had had any similar experience. That's really it, how watching the doc we can feel how much you were thrust into the spotlight. I look back at it now as a parent as well. My oldest son turned 7 at the end of June, and that was the age I started diving. And I look at that, and I think, "Oh my gosh. That was the age where I started doing all of this stuff." I mean, with Robbie, if he wanted to, great. But it seems so young. And I only thought of it as being young now as a parent, because when I was growing up and I was doing it, I was like, I knew everything. I was an old person. As you're growing up, you think you know everything. And then it's only when you look back, you realize that you knew absolutely nothing. And it was a wild ride to go on, I'll tell you that. Queen Elizabeth II meets the Olympic diving team including Tom Daley (R) at a reception held at Buckingham Palace for the 2008 Great Britain Olympic Team on October 16, 2008 in London, England. Queen Elizabeth II meets the Olympic diving team including Tom Daley (R) at a reception held at Buckingham Palace for the 2008 Great Britain Olympic Team on October 16, 2008 in London, England. Tim GrahamWhy did you want to do the documentary now? Once I released my book in 2021, right after the Olympics in Tokyo, they approached me to do a little bit of a retrospective about my whole career and things like that, because there's so much footage out there from various documentaries that I've done in the past. But then it got to a point where they were like, "Oh, do you want to do something where you look back on everything?" And I was like, "Yeah, that would be great. But also, surprise! I'm also going back to dive again for another year." And it was one of those things that just—I don't know—it always feels weird when people approach you to do things like that. Because you're like, "Oh, what? Who would care? Who's interested in any of that?" But then I actually thought about my kids in that moment. Like, you know what? It would be really cool for my kids to be able to have something to look back on and see what all happened in my diving career. So, if anything, it's like a token—a thing for them, really. The doc also reveals things that I don't think a lot of us knew, like your experience with going back to school after the Olympics, and the bullying you were subjected to. What was it like watching all of that? Very lonely, honestly. It was a very lonely period because no one really understood. I had my best friends—Sophie, who is still my best friend today, who I never spoke to about diving. She's there to be, like, "Yay! That was great." But she doesn't have any interest in knowing what's going on within it. Well, maybe she does have interest. But she doesn't see me just as a diver. She's my best friend. So I think that's something that's really quite nice to have, and I'm really grateful for her. Obviously, I had my parents and my diving teammates, but no one really understood what it was like to be that young when I was going away on team competitions, because they were all so much older than I was at the time. So there was nothing that we had ever in common. So it was a very lonely existence. I almost felt guilty for being bullied at school, because I was like, I never want to bother anyone about this. I'm really grateful and really lucky to be in the position that I'm in, yet I'm having this really rough time. It was like being pulled from one side to the other of like, "Yay, great. I'm succeeding in this." But then, "Oh no, I'm being pulled this way." It was this constant back and forth. It was quite difficult to have that moment where I was just like, "You know what? I feel very alone. I don't really know what to do." That's part of the reason why I think I kept finding myself putting on this other personality to be able to hide from that bit of me that was really struggling. Because I never really wanted to confront it, whether that was being gay, being bullied, knowing that my dad was terminally ill, and having all these things that I had to deal with. I never wanted to come across as the person that felt sorry for himself, because I felt so grateful and lucky to be in the position I was and I didn't ever feel like I was in a position to ever complain about that. How was it grappling with your own sexuality while dealing with all of that at that time? It's really difficult. Going through childhood and growing up is difficult anyway, for anyone. We have all of these things pulling us in different directions, telling us what we should be, shouldn't be, how we should portray ourselves. But it was very difficult to explore who I was sexually because I was always really worried about being caught. Because you know what society says that you should be. So then when there's something wrong with you or you're slightly different, you feel like, "Oh, gosh, I can never actually explore that side of me, because I don't want things to go wrong." And then I was getting advice from different people where it was—it just felt very lonely and a very difficult thing to have to go through and navigate. It was also one of those things that I couldn't tell anyone that I was struggling with that side of things, because as soon as I told someone, that meant I came out, and I wasn't ready to do that. So it was quite scary to finally, actually, come out. Because I knew that it wasn't just going to be telling my family. There was going to be public opinion, and it was scary. But [I'm] very grateful and lucky that it did go way better than I had expected. It's touching in the doc to see the impact your father had on you, and the impact of his passing at such a young age. How hard was it looking at that old footage, and what impact do you think he had on your Olympic success? My dad was a great guy, and he taught me so many valuable lessons I didn't even know he was teaching me at the time. Mainly to not care what anyone else thinks. As long as the people around you are happy and healthy and you're not hurting anyone, you're doing well. And he taught me so much about perspective. But seeing those videos back for the first time when they first came up, oh my gosh, it took me out. I was not ready to be hit with that straight away. I don't know if anyone else feels the same as me, but I feel guilty sometimes about the fact that, as I'm getting older—I lost my dad when I was 17, and of course, I like to think that he comes into my head every single day. But then there's some times where he doesn't—then I'm like, I don't want to forget about him, but I don't know how to feel about it being so present all the time. And just seeing that documentary and knowing that that's there for me to be able to always look back on and cherish those memories is pretty special. Tom Daley (L) and Dustin Lance Black pose at the PFLAG 50th Anniversary Gala at The New York Marriott Marquis on March 3, 2023 in New York City. Tom Daley (L) and Dustin Lance Black pose at the PFLAG 50th Anniversary Gala at The New York Marriott Marquis on March 3, 2023 in New York City. Bruce Glikas/WireImage There's also the impact of your husband, Dustin Lance Black. From the doc it does feel like so much of your life aligned after meeting him, from your marriage to even your Olympic games. Yeah, it gave me a sense of perspective. Of realizing that I'm more than just a diver. That diving isn't what matters most in life. It's all of the stuff on the outside. It's your friends, it's your family, it's feeling loved and supported. And without that, it's really difficult to succeed and not put the tons and tons of pressure on yourself. But when you go into a competition knowing that you're going to be loved and supported regardless of how you do, it's so incredibly freeing, and allows you just to be able to fly in the way that you never thought that you even possibly could. You've accomplished so much at such a young age. What do you do now? Honestly, I spend all my time knitting. There's lots of knitting that happens, which is great. Made with Love, my knitting business, is where my passion lies, and I want to keep expanding. But I also have done different TV hosting things. I just finished shooting a TV show in the U.K. called Game of Wool, which is basically like the knitting version of [The Great British] Bake Off. It's like a competition show. I'm hosting, and then there's two judges, 10 contestants. Each week, someone gets cast off—if you're a knitter, that is a knitting pun, when you cast off your work from your needles. It has been really fun. There's lots of things that we've been doing and working on with that. So yeah, we'll see what comes from that. But ideally, to work in TV hosting and expand my Made with Love passion. Britain's Tom Daley (L) knits in the stands next to Lois Toulson during the men's 3m springboard diving semi-final during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Aquatics Centre in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, on... Britain's Tom Daley (L) knits in the stands next to Lois Toulson during the men's 3m springboard diving semi-final during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Aquatics Centre in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, on August 7, 2024. More OLI SCARFF/AFP via Getty Images How often do people ask you to randomly knit them things? Oh, all the time. I get asked to knit things all the time. And if I knit you something, that means that you're really important. Because I'm so busy with knitting things all the time for different people and different things. I do just genuinely love it. An ideal day would literally just be sitting by a pool—actually, I've done that my whole life—maybe on the beach, let's say. And just knitting the whole day. It's just so therapeutic to me. I often look forward to going on long-haul flights just to be able to have uninterrupted knitting time. Wow. You are going to be a great senior citizen. I know! I'm so ready for being a senior citizen. Well, kind of. Not really. But yeah, I feel like I'm going to be able to pass the time. As long as my hands are still working nicely as I get older. What do you ultimately hope people take from this documentary? I mean, there's so many different things. I think, obviously, never giving up on your dreams and working as hard as you possibly can toward them. But also accepting help, keeping people around you and being able to keep those open lines of communication. Being able to really have a support system around you—whether that's family, whether that's friends—and realize a sense of perspective that you're more than just what you do. And if you take a step back or take a break from what you do, and you see it from a different perspective, it really allows your perspective to shift when you go back into it. So I think that's one thing that I hope people take away from the documentary.

After hanging up his Speedos, Tom Daley is throwing himself into dad life
After hanging up his Speedos, Tom Daley is throwing himself into dad life

Yahoo

time10-06-2025

  • Entertainment
  • Yahoo

After hanging up his Speedos, Tom Daley is throwing himself into dad life

Doing a choreographed dive into a pool from 10 meters above would scare most people. But for Tom Daley, who won five Olympic medals doing just that, it's his job at home that frightens him the most. 'Everything scares me about parenthood because [your kids are] all you think about,' he tells Yahoo Life. The 31-year-old former British diver and his husband, Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, are fathers to two boys: Robert 'Robbie' Ray, who turns 7 this month, and Phoenix Rose, 2. Now that Daley has left Olympic diving behind, announcing his retirement after the 2024 Summer Games, he's trying to navigate what it means to parent in this new chapter of his life. 'For me, being a dad is all about being present, being there to play, being there to love, being able to be completely emotionally available,' he says. 'To be there to pick your kids back up when they fall, and to encourage and support them and make them feel like they're invincible and protecting that feeling for as long as possible before the world tells 'em otherwise.' While Daley is no longer competing on the Olympic stage, he hasn't retired retired. He continues to be a media personality — this month releasing the documentary 1.6 Seconds, which follows his sports achievements and powerful backstory, including the death of his own dad — and is otherwise focused on his knitting brand, Made With Love by Tom Daley. Husband Black, meanwhile, is an American screenwriter, director and producer. Both have work and travel schedules that Daley says can be tricky to juggle alongside the demands of parenting. 'That guilt as a working parent when you have to travel is a lot,' he says. 'One of us always has to stay behind, obviously, to be able to be there with the kids, or the kids come with us. … It's this dance that becomes really quite a challenge.' But there's more flexibility compared to when Daley was diving. 'That was so structured and [there was] so much routine and so many goals and [it was] very one thing to the next,' he says. 'There would be occasions where I'd miss the wake-up with the boys or I would see 'em just before I would leave for training. Whereas now I'm around a lot more.' He does still travel for work, including making trips back from the family's home in Los Angeles to his native U.K. 'I do have to leave occasionally, but when I'm there, I'm there,' Daley says. 'And I think that's the real difference, is that I can be really present and really engaged in everything that they're doing. I can go running around on the weekends with them without worrying about being too exhausted for training the next day.' Robbie, for one, understood his dad's job as a diver and even looked forward to Daley (known at home as 'Papa') taking trips for it. 'I would always bring him back a Lego,' says Daley. As for Black's job as a filmmaker, the boys don't have a grasp on what that means quite yet. 'I think the kids really like to see us happy, and they like to see us doing the thing that we love to do because that's what they hope to do when they're older. They want to be able to do something that they love to do,' says Daley, noting that he won't put pressure on either of them to go into sports. 'If they want to, great. … I'm very much happy to let them try as many things as they want to show interest in, and then we see what happens from there.' As an LGBTQ couple who welcomed their boys through the surrogacy process, Daley and Black might be thought of as an archetype of the 'modern family.' But as Daley points out, there's no real ideal for family dynamics in 2025. 'What is a normal family right now, and what is the best dynamic of a family? I think as long as the child is loved and cared for, that's the most important,' says Daley. 'In order for LGBT people to have a family, it takes a lot of planning. So every child is so extremely loved, wanted, cared for.' He's a believer that parenting 'takes a village' and values their surrogate's role in that as well. 'We had the most magical experience. Our surrogate, who doesn't want us naming her, has become a dear friend, [as well as] her husband and her kids. [She] is someone that was so selfless to be able to help us have our dream family.' Despite the chaos that fills a home with two young children, Daley says he finds the most joy in 'the moments where they just come over to you and give you a hug, unsolicited, and they just want to sit with you and be with you 'cause you are their person. I think that for me is the most magical thing.' And it's not lost on Daley that he was only 7 when he started diving. 'Robbie's getting to those ages where I was starting to do those things,' notes Daley, who credits his late father for allowing him to chase that dream. 'It's very surreal to think.'

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