No Parental Guidance

This week we’re joined by the brilliant Ashley James. TV presenter, DJ, author of Bimbo, mum of two and a fierce advocate for women rewriting the rules.

From lockdown love stories to parenting reality checks, this episode is packed with honesty, humour and a few very relatable fails.

Ashley takes us back to meeting her partner on Hinge, moving in just before the world shut down, and finding herself pregnant only months into a new relationship. She opens up about becoming a mum when she wasn’t even sure she liked kids and the resentment that crept in when her partner went back to work.

We get into the double standards that follow women everywhere. The labels like nag, ball buster and frigid. The pressure to shrink yourself to be liked. The way dads get praised for changing a nappy while mums carry the mental load without applause. Ashley explains why she refuses to accept mum guilt until there’s a collective term for dad guilt.

The conversation also dives into body image. From her Made in Chelsea days and chasing perfection, to battling adult acne, quitting Photoshop and the Victoria’s Secret show moment that changed everything. It’s a powerful reminder of how deeply women are conditioned to hate their bodies, and what it takes to unlearn that.

Of course, there’s plenty of chaos too.

Pregnancy bloating confessions. Breastfeeding myths that are not true. Postpartum sex realities. Finger puppets during lockdown when you used to be DJing festivals. School detention drama involving a pen running out and an accidental ChatGPT email fail. Playground slide mishaps. WhatsApp group disasters. Sparkly tutu outfits for nursery. The everyday madness of raising small humans.

Ashley shares how she’s parenting differently, raising her children without outdated stereotypes, and learning to be calmer with milestones the second time around. It’s warm, witty and completely unfiltered.

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed, judged, exhausted, resentful, in love, proud and slightly feral all in the same day, this one is for you.
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This bonus episode is packed with parenting fails, holiday drama, and the real-life chaos of raising kids while trying to survive your own sanity.Emily and the team dissect the chaos, the panic, and the heroic improvisation that followed, including dry tissues, emergency wipes, and a toddler completely unbothered by it all.From there, Emily opens up about her own parenting journey - breastfeeding struggles, formula guilt, pumping in stadiums, and all the messy, emotional, hilarious realities of motherhood. She’s refreshingly honest about feeling like a “failure” when in reality she was doing just fine, and she shares the lessons that helped her survive those early years without losing her mind.Then it’s onto kids, social media, and Snapchat disasters. From mortifying phone fails to accidental live streams and the awkwardness of trying to film content while wrangling children, Emily spills the funny and stressful moments that parents everywhere will recognise.The episode also touches on family holidays, sunbed wars, and what it really means to maintain calm while your kids, other guests, and random strangers push every button imaginable.Warm, witty, and completely unfiltered, this is the kind of parenting therapy session you’ll want to send to every mum or dad who’s surviving the small disasters and big embarrassments of family life.Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@NoParentalGuidance?sub_confirmation=1Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/no_parental_guidance/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@noparentalguidancepodNo Parental Guidance is the unfiltered, laugh-out-loud parenting podcast that cuts through the impossible standards of Instagram parenting with honesty, chaos, and empathy.
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This week, Hannah and Louise are joined by the queen of organisation herself, Emily Norris, for a deep dive into the "middle bit" of parenting, teenage hygiene, and the reality of raising three boys.

From traumatic birth stories (including a broken tailbone!) to the "sextortion" talk and the chaos of sleep deprivation, nothing is off-limits. We’re also talking about the shift to senior school, the absolute black hole that is a teenage boy's appetite, and why Emily decided to go under the knife for a blepharoplasty.

The episode kicks off with the usual chaos of term time as Hannah tries to find her calm while simultaneously losing every piece of school uniform in the house. The girls swap their most embarrassing sleep-deprivation fails—ranging from Hannah accidentally following a stranger into a bathroom to Louise buying baby gear in a haze she definitely shouldn't have been driving in. We also find out why Louise’s daughter is suddenly speaking Spanish and how an Irish teacher handled Hannah’s French GCSE.

When Emily joins the chairs, she opens up about the shift from vlogging with a toddler to navigating life with teenagers. She shares the emotional journey of her own upbringing in a "shouty" household and how that fuelled her desire to create a secure, stable environment for her three sons, even if that means letting a pet snake into the house to maintain her "cool mum" status. From viral freezer dump bags to the reality of perimenopause and why she’s buying her Christmas cards in January, Emily proves why she is the internet's favourite organised mum.
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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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This week on No Parental Guidance, Louise and Hannah are back with another proper parenting therapy session, joined by Hilary Whitehall for a bonus episode that swings from absolute maternity ward chaos to the kind of advice you actually want to hear at 3 a.m.

It kicks off with a listener story so mad it sounds fake: they’d just given birth when the ceiling collapsed from the room above and they were stuck in the labour room for five hours while it was cleaned up. Hilary talks through how she’d handle it as a doula, and why sometimes all you can do is stay calm, focus on the baby, and use humour because you literally cannot fix the chaos around you.

From there it turns into a very real chat about being in the trenches. Half term dread, kids needing to be “run like dogs”, and how to survive a week off without losing your mind. Hilary shares genuinely useful ideas that don’t require you to be a Pinterest mum, plus a couple of low-effort wins like water painting with a brush and a bucket that keeps them busy without destroying your house.

There’s also a relatable detour into teenage boys and food, the snack hiding places they always find, and the way grown-up kids still walk into your house and go straight to the fridge like they own the place.

But the heart of the episode is Hilary’s advice for exhausted mums who feel like it’s never-ending. Her message is simple, comforting, and honestly a bit emotional: you are doing a great job, make a cup of tea, take a breath, ask for help, and aim to be a “good enough mother” not some impossible perfect version. There’s also a brilliant chat about taking guilt out of breastfeeding and why a flourishing baby matters more than anyone’s opinions.

Warm, funny, and properly reassuring. This is the one you’ll want to send to a mate who’s just had a baby and is spiralling at night.
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