Sitting back at The Footy Show desk six weeks after the birth of her daughter Eliza, Erin Molan was feeling overwhelmed.
Still recovering from an emergency C-section and suffering from the anxiety of being separated from her newborn, she was also counting down the minutes to the commercial break.
โI have memories of going out during those breaks to breast pump because I was actually leaking through my clothes,โ she chuckles in remembrance of those early days of motherhood.
โIt was bloody hard. But the reality of our situation is that we need to pay our mortgage. It wasnโt an, โI am woman, hear me roar, I must go back to workโ thing. It really was just for our family and our situation.โ
The word โfamilyโ will come up multiple times today as Eliza, now 15 months old and the apple of her motherโs eye, and Erin, 36, celebrate their special bond with The Weekly.
Family means everything to Erin. The Nine Network sports presenter calls her mum, Anne, and dad, former major-general and former Liberal senator, Jim Molan, โthree or four times a day,โ she bashfully admits.
Her older sibling Sarah, who went through the unimaginable pain of giving birth to a stillborn daughter before winning a battle with bowel cancer, inspired Erinโs passionate ambassadorships for charities including Bowel Cancer Australia and stillbirth support ride Sydney2CAMberra.
Younger sister, Felicity, recently โovershadowed poor Elizaโs first birthdayโ by giving birth to her own first child on June 6, Erin recounts delightedly, adding that the youngest Molan, airline pilot Mick, is โthe most incredible, divine thing in the whole worldโ. And then thereโs her fiancรฉ and Elizaโs dad, Sean Ogilvy.

Little Eliza is growing up fast and adores reading โ something she shares with Mum.
(Credit: Photography by Alana Landsberry.)The pair met at Sydneyโs Coogee Bay Pavilion, arguably not the most salubrious of venues, while Erin was out with friends for Christmas drinks.
Sean caught her eye straight away. โI thought, heโs a good looking rooster,โ she recalls.
The next morning she called to ask him out. Four weeks later he moved in and a year after that he proposed which was, she says, โa lovely feeling to know that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with meโ.
โWhen you know, you know,โ she shrugs of her instant romance with the 45-year-old policeman.
โI love that heโs not in the industry, I love that he wouldnโt be seen dead on a red carpet with me. Itโs not his world and I love that about him because it doesnโt appeal to me either.โ
โI love my job but I wouldnโt go to an event unless I had to for work. Iโm a bit of a loner and I like to be at home, weโre similar like that.โ
Sean has given her stability, she says, musing that itโs something she no doubt has been seeking in a relationship, having grown up moving around the world as an army brat.
โI went to 16 different schools and we moved around every few years,โ she says. โSo stability for me has never been a place. Itโs never been bricks and mortar or a home because we had so many โ itโs always been people.โ
โWhen I say I call my mum and dad several times a day, thatโs because thatโs always been my stability. Because we have always changed friends, moved all around, moved schools, I probably do crave stability a bit more than normal and crave reassurance.โ
Growing up Molan
Life very much revolved around her fatherโs career in the Australian Army in Erinโs formative years, which saw the family spend time in multiple overseas postings, including a long stint in Indonesia.
Her mother, Anne, had accrued โmultiple university degrees โ sheโs one of the smartest women youโll ever meet โ but she gave that up to travel around with dad.โ
With three kids under three โ Mick would arrive four years after his sisters โ Anne was there to do much of the heavy lifting, while Jim built his army career, often spending 10 months of the year away from the family home.
โSo many of my memories are of Dad leaving for work, coming home from work, always working and being really successful at what he was doing โ his work ethic is incredible,โ Erin recounts.
โHe was an incredible soldier, an incredible officer and achieved incredible things. Heโs definitely where I get my own work ethic from. He inspires me.โ
That notorious Molan work ethic โ which today sees Erin a regular fixture on Nineโs news and sporting coverage as well as on the radio airwaves on Sydneyโs 2GB โ was one she started displaying at an early age.
A keen gymnast in her younger years, at 13 she worked after hours as a paid gymnastics coach at the Jakarta International School.
But while many of her schoolmates were ferried from luxury home to school and back again, Erinโs parents were keen for her not to ignore the realities for the multitude of locals living in poverty.
โEvery posting we went to, Mum and Dad were adamant that we immersed ourselves in the real culture and developed a healthy sense of perspective on how blessed we were to be from a country like Australia where we have clean water and food.โ
Erin is also grateful โ albeit with the benefit of hindsight โ for the strict rules her parents insisted upon. Going through a self-proclaimed โnaughty phaseโ in her late teens, Erin says she was mortified by the tough love dished up to keep her in line.
โI used to get so annoyed when Iโd want to go to parties when I was 17 and Mum and Dad would say, โWeโll just ring the parentsโ,โ she says with a grin.
โWell, obviously the reason they are having the party is because the parents arenโt home, you idiots! So theyโd ring and find out and then I wouldnโt be allowed to go.โ

Erin believe her parentsโ tough love tactics have helped her in the long run.
(Credit: Photography by Alana Landsberry.)โBut thank God I had parents who were tough when they needed to be because I donโt know what path I would have chosen to go down had I not had parents who were amazing.โ
Not that it stopped her from pushing the boundaries.
โI remember Dad having to come back from exercises in Brisbane because Iโd taken the car โ and I didnโt have a license โ and picked up another girl to go out nightclubbing under age,โ she recalls of one particularly well-punished crime.
โStill, they didnโt kick me out on my arse so thatโs nice. Even though I was naughty from about 17 to 21, I knew I could always rely on them. They both just love and adore me unconditionally.โ
A new generation
That love is now flowing down to Eliza and her cousins. Anne and Jim now have four grandchildren (eldest Sarah has gone on to have two more children) and are relishing the joys that grandparenting brings.
Despite living in Royalla, NSW โ a good four-hour drive from Erinโs Sydney base โ Anne happily travels for babysitting duty, a godsend when, as happened recently, Sean was suddenly called away for work while Eliza was suffering from tonsillitis and Erin needed to fly to Brisbane for a game.
And, to her amusement, Jim has had a drastic change in stance when it comes to enforcing rules.
โHe was a six-foot-six major-general in the army and seeing him with the kids now heโs a total softie. God, if any of his soldiers had seen him in that light!โ she laughs.
โI look at some of the stuff the kids do and theyโre like, โHaha, so cuteโ, and Iโm like, โI would have been sent to my room for six months!โ But then I guess thatโs the same relationship I had with my grandparents โ itโs really lovely.โ
Itโs inevitable at this point that the conversation turns to the possibility of adding more to her brood. โSheโs not a baby anymore, sheโs a little girl,โ Erin says of Eliza, while admitting to feeling clucky when spotting newborns in prams. Still, itโs not looking likely that Eliza will have a sibling anytime soon โ if at all.

Erin says she and husband Sean are happy with just one little one for now.
(Credit: Photography by Alana Landsberry.)โI just donโt know if weโll have another one. We talk about it and I get asked about it a fair bit. But at this stage weโre just happy to enjoy her. Sheโs so sweet natured. I would be blissfully happy if this was it. And I think at this stage it probably will be.โ
Also still on hold are those wedding plans. Recently, Erin was pictured without her engagement ring and at our shoot itโs still off. But donโt read too much into the missing bling.
โItโs because it bloody knocks everything and every time I pick up Eliza it scratches her,โ Erin protests. โBut a wedding is so far down on the priority list. The only thing is that Iโm quite traditional and Iโd love to take Seanโs last name โ Iโd love to have the same name as my daughter.
โOriginally weโd planned a big wedding on a boat and it was all set in stone but then I found out a month and a half before we were supposed to get married that I was pregnant. It was a late notice call off. Now, if we do get married, it will probably just be in Mum and Dadโs backyard.โ
Bringing up girls
For now, the pair is happy to concentrate on raising a happy, healthy baby. Like her mum, Eliza loves books and the pair spend hours together reading. Sean, she says, is a โbrilliantโ hands-on dad and his daughter โ who has recently found her voice and is happily testing it out on our set โ adores him.
Itโs a juggle with two high pressure jobs but one, for the most part, she feels theyโre succeeding at. โI hope I raise someone who will be proud of what Iโve done and how hard Iโve worked,โ Erin says, admitting that recent public criticism over her early return to the workforce stung.
โBut sheโll also know firsthand that I was always there for her as well.โ
Her job is also continuing to bring plenty of joy, heightened by the recent increased success of womenโs sport.
Itโs been thrilling, Erin says, to watch men she works with who are โrusted on traditionalists who have only ever cared about menโs sports and had an attitude about womenโsโ talk animatedly about Ash Bartyโs success on the tennis court or Ellyse Perryโs finesse on the rugby field.

โIf sheโs got my genes she probably wonโt be an athlete, but the fact that if she does she can do whatever she likes and can do it at the top level, is amazing,โ enthuses Erin.
(Credit: Photography by Alana Landsberry.)As a female sports reporter, sheโs long fought for gender equality in sport on screen but admits that, โsince having my daughter itโs tenfoldโ.
โAddressing the gender pay gap would be nice, sure, but first it needs to generate the same revenue as menโs sports. Thatโs going to be a process of TV rights and crowds. Once they start to grow and build โ as they have been doing โ then weโll see equality. And weโre on the way, weโre close.โ
Read more about Erin Molanโs life and loves in the October issue of The Australian Womenโs Weekly, on sale now.
