Aljaž Škorjanec admits he 'had to' put his Strictly career aside to be a 'hands-on' father
Aljaž Škorjanec and wife Janette Manrara have opened up about the challenges of raising a daughter while juggling work.
Aljaž Škorjanec admits it was non-negotiable giving up 'Strictly Come Dancing' to focus wholeheartedly on being a father.
The 35-year-old Slovenian dancer returned to the BBC One Latin and ballroom show in 2024 after five years away, to be a "hands-on" father to his and wife Janette Manrara's daughter, Lyra, 21 months.
Aljaž and Janette - a former 'Strictly pro, who hosts sister show 'Strictly: It Takes Two' - have just documented their hectic lives juggling bringing up Lyra while touring the nation in the honest and moving short film, 'Dancing Through Change'.
Speaking at a private screening of the film - which was sponsored by the mum+meAPP and attended by BANG Showbiz - Aljaž said of leaving 'Strictly': "I always knew that I have love to give being a dad, but then equally, I knew that if I want to be a dad, when that happens, that's all I want to do.
"And every single person that I'm close to was thinking I'm crazy for leaving Strictly, but to me, it was irrelevant, because I knew that, you know, with the schedule that you get every summer, with being on the show, it was impossible for me to be hands-on, which is what I wanted to do.
"And I completely put that aside. And little did I know back then, that saying no, I was gonna be the only one that ever gets to come back and have the best of both worlds."
Janette, meanwhile, spoke about being trolled for going back to work when Lyra was a newborn and felt compelled to share her story to normalise different styles of parenting.
She said: "There's always the trolls that have their opinions, and basically, they were just saying that it was too soon.
"I don't look like I need to work. I don't look like I have the life that requires me to work. And I normally don't really care what trolls say.
"What it made me think is how sad that in 2023 [at the time], in society, we still have this mentality that women shouldn't go back to work, or that, you know, the woman stays at home, and the father is the one that goes to work.
"And that is so, so not the reality for so many parents out there a lot of parents, the mother has to go back to work.
"In my case, I kind of it was both a little bit I needed to go back to work and I wanted to go back to work because I felt, as a woman, if I didn't do me, I was never going to be happy enough to be a good mom."
This acted as the catalyst for the short film, which was released to YouTube on Mother's Day 2025.
She continued: "So that kind of really stemmed and pushed this, if I'm honest. So I thought there's not enough stories out there of women saying how happy they are to work and provide for their children and be good mothers at the same time.
"So yeah, it bothered me, but more than anything, made me sad that, like, that's still kind of a conversation we are even having."
Aljaž and Janette believe you can "have it all" when it comes to working and parenting, but not at the same time.
She continued: "Aljaž and I, when we found out we were going to have Lyra, we really decided we're gonna go co-parent. We're gonna do this together. So there was no he's gonna go off to work and I'm gonna stay and, you know, vice versa.
"We're just gonna do this as a team. And every family is different. For some families, the mother is the one that stays home, for some families it's the father, there are same-sex couples that have children.
"You know, it just really depends on your personal family situation. And that's why I thought we cannot sit and judge each other, because every single family and every single situation is different."
