This week on No Parental Guidance, Louise and Hannah are joined by the actual icon Sophie Ellis-Bextor. Pop star, kitchen disco queen, mum of five boys and proof that some people really can spin every plate without launching one directly at the wall.
We obviously have to talk about the Saltburn moment. Sophie reveals how she got an email back in 2022 asking to use her song Murder on the Dance Floor, thought it was lovely, signed it off, and then only found out much later exactly what kind of naked, chaotic, slightly sinister dancing was going to happen to it. The way she describes it is so funny and so alarming, and honestly, once you’ve heard it you can never listen to that track the same way again.
Sophie also gets properly real about the long game of parenting when you’ve got kids spanning nearly 15 years. She’s got one in his early 20s, two teens, and a youngest who’s just turned seven, and the dynamic is fascinating. She talks about the older sibling bond, how brothers tell each other things they will never tell you, and how weirdly emotional it can be watching relationships form in your house that have nothing to do with you.
There’s also a brilliant chat about how parenting trends have changed over the years, from naughty step culture to the era of “I see your anger”, plus the absolute noise of school WhatsApp groups and how everything now arrives at the same level of urgency. One minute it’s an email, the next it’s block capitals, and suddenly you’re spiralling because your mum hasn’t replied and you’re convinced she’s actually dead.
Then we get into identity and work, and Sophie is so refreshing about it. She talks about becoming a mum in her mid 20s and feeling like the world expected her to disappear into nappies and never be seen again. She opens up about how clunky it can feel at first, how the first baby knocked her sideways, and then how she actually found her flow the more kids she had. Including the casual reveal that she once recorded a vocal while feeding a baby, which is either iconic or witchcraft.
Before Sophie joins, Hannah and Louise are in full mum mode too. There’s a very honest rant about how most of parenting is just being asked to locate items from the third shelf down on the left. Plus the classic moment where your kid says “Mummy” and you brace for a crisis, sprint in like someone’s about to lose a limb, and they just want to show you their game score. Which somehow they interpret as you being thrilled, so they keep doing it forever.
Warm, hilarious, surprisingly emotional in places, and full of the kind of chaos that makes you feel less alone, this one is such a good listen.
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