‘I’m proud of where we’re at in life’: Candice Warner on marriage to David Warner and why their daughters are on social media

Candice Warner reveals why she and her cricketer husband David Warner have chosen to let their daughters be on Instagram – and why the challenges they have faced ‘made us even stronger’.

Candice Warner reveals why she and husband David have set up a dedicated social media page for their three daughters.

Stellar: Happy Mother’s Day. You’re on the cover of Stellar with your husband, David Warner, and your daughters, Ivy, 10, Indi, 9, and Isla, 5. Three children and lots of props … How was the shoot?

Candice Warner: It was so much fun and suited our family to a tee. We had bikes, tennis racquets, balls, hula hoops. That’s no different to what our house is like, except I put my foot down because there are no skateboards or bikes in our house.

Stellar: You’re an extremely close-knit family. Is that shifting as the girls start getting older?

Candice Warner: We’re still incredibly close. [David] retired from playing cricket for Australia

[in 2024] but he’s still away a lot. So the girls are my best friends. We do everything together. I’m one of those mothers that loves to be there. I’m present. I’m at school pick-up and I try to do it all because I love that and I had parents like that. The girls are so different. Ivy, she’s the sensitive one. I can rely on her for absolutely anything and everything. Indi is the joker, always making us laugh. And then we have Isla, who is the spitting image of David and full of energy.

Picture: Stellar

Picture: Steven Chee for Stellar

Listen to a new episode of Something To Talk About featuring Candice Warner below:

Stellar: One of the biggest hot-button issues this past year has been the conversation surrounding social media and children. Your daughters have a shared Instagram account called The Warner Sisters, managed by yourself and David, which you started in late 2023 – it now has almost 200,000 followers. Tell me about your decision to open an account for them, especially when so many parents are evaluating their kids’ relationship with social media?

Candice Warner: During Covid, David was really big on TikTok. He loved doing all the dances and the girls would often get involved. I saw how much fun we were having as a family. It brought us together on the weekends. So I started the Instagram account and it was a way for us to teach the girls how to use social media responsibly. Before we post anything, we show them, they can read the comments, it’s all about teaching them, guiding them. Our kids are no different to any other kid. They play sport, they like to do dances. Yes, they’ve got parents with a high profile, but for us, it was all about putting out a positive image… At the moment, it’s fun. They’re not influencers. They’re just young girls living their life, having fun, being sporty, and I capture it and I put it on a page.

‘We’re really proud of how far we’ve come and that we didn’t give up.’ Candice Warner on her marriage to David Warner, left. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Picture: Getty Images

The Federal Government passed the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act last year, which introduced a minimum age of 16 for accounts on certain social media platforms, noting the link between the rise of social media and the harm to the mental health of young Australians. To be clear, the girls don’t manage the account themselves, yourself and David post on their behalf. But how do you navigate issues such as trolling?

[Of all the comments we’ve received] 99.9 per cent have been positive. If there have ever been any negative comments, it’s about us as parents, not so much about the kids.

In regards to [last year’s change in legislation], I definitely support that. Suicide happens from all this online trolling and that’s very serious. Our girls don’t have [personal social media] accounts because I don’t believe that young kids have the mental capacity to deal with trolls. But for us, their joint social media is about teaching our girls how to use it responsibly. They have an input in what we show. I teach them about ignoring negativity. We have experienced trolling. We still experience it… But if you completely block [social media] out and say it doesn’t exist, then I don’t think you’re teaching your kids how to use it properly. If you want to protect your kids in a way where you’re not teaching them any life skills, then you’re letting your kids down.

‘They’re just young girls living their life.’ David and Candice Warner, with their three girls. Picture: Steven Chee for Stellar

The Danish royal family recently released an official portrait of Princess Isabella, the 18-year-old daughter of King Frederik and Queen Mary, in which she was holding an iPhone. It sparked huge debate. What do you think that discussion says about us as a society?

Everyone is really quick to judge and to point the finger, but let’s face it, you might be sitting at the traffic lights and every single person on that bus has their head down on their phone. You go to a park and are playing with your kids [and] the majority of the mums and dads are sitting there on their phones. They’re a part of our life, phones aren’t going anywhere. Social media isn’t going anywhere, but it’s about limiting it and using it in a positive way.

In speaking about this to Stellar today are you bracing yourselves for potentially negative responses from some people?

I don’t care what people say about me, about my husband, about us as a family – it’s their opinion, it’s not fact. They don’t know us. I’m not here to defend [the girls’ social media] page, but I’m here to say that, yes, it can be dangerous. I truly believe what [Prime Minister] Anthony Albanese is doing is the right thing to protect young adults. But we also have an obligation as a parent – most parents have social media – to teach our kids how to use it in a positive way. Let’s not be all doom and gloom about social media. It can be wonderful if we know how to use it correctly and if we can empower or educate or make people smile or laugh.

An emotional moment for the couple after Australia won the series against Pakistan at the SCG in 2024. Picture: Getty Images

Picture: Getty Images

‘I’m incredibly proud!’ Candice and David Warner with their three daughters inside the SCG locker rooms in January of last year. Picture: Getty Images

Listen to a new episode of Something To Talk About featuring Candice Warner below:

A lot of other high-profile Australians blank out the faces of their children or don’t post them on social media, but you and David haven’t chosen to do that?

We’ve never found a need to blank our kids’ faces out. We’re incredibly protective of our girls, don’t get us wrong. But I don’t feel like someone is going to come and kidnap my daughter if they know what school she’s at. I’m not that type of parent. You’ve got to live a little bit. Just because we have a profile and my husband plays cricket, are we supposed to just live behind four walls and never leave there and never let our kids be seen or heard? If it’s good for us, it’s good for our kids. And they’re very happy. They’re thriving. They’re really happy young girls. Yes, we’re protective but we’re also realistic in the world that we live in.

You appeared in the newspaper at the age of 14, when you were beginning your ironwoman career. Do you think the pressure you felt as a result of that kind of exposure at a young age differs from your three daughters’ experience of living a public life?

I know with myself at such a young age, I didn’t start putting pressure on myself because my photo was in the paper. I put pressure on myself because I worked really hard and I wanted to achieve at a high level. So pressure is sometimes a good thing. And my girls understand pressure. They play tennis five, six times a week. Most of the time in tennis, you lose; in a tournament, there’s only ever going to be one winner. So tennis teaches you how to lose. It teaches you to be resilient, how to keep turning up week after week when you may not have had a win.

Almost every parent wants to teach resilience to their children. What’s your hack?

The best way to teach resilience is to not wrap your kids in cotton wool. A bit of tough love. How can you teach resilience if they’ve never failed? How can you tell your kids to get back up when they’ve never fallen? We love our kids and we support them but we also need to let them learn for themselves sometimes. And losing or failing, it doesn’t mean that’s the end. It means there’s going to be growth.

Listen to a new episode of Something To Talk About featuring Candice Warner below:

You and David celebrated your 10th wedding anniversary last month. How do you reflect on your time together?

I’m incredibly proud of where we’re at in life, where our kids are at and the parents that we’ve become. Our relationship is very strong, but it always has been. Certain situations that we’ve overcome together have made us even stronger. We look at our kids and we see them as our biggest achievements. We’re really proud of how far we’ve come and that we didn’t give up along the way.

Read the full interview with Candice Warner and see the shoot with the Warner family inside today’s Stellar via The Sunday Telegraph (NSW), Sunday Herald Sun (VIC), The Sunday Mail (QLD) and Sunday Mail (SA). And listen to Candice on the Stellar podcast, Something To Talk About, wherever you get your podcasts.

For more from Stellar and the podcast, Something To Talk About, click here.

Originally published as ‘I’m proud of where we’re at in life’: Candice Warner on marriage to David Warner and why their daughters are on social media