Being a single dad and a pop star doesn’t exactly go hand-in-hand. But doting dad Ian Watkins, aka ‘H’ from Steps, makes it work – although he happily admits: “My children look like jumble sale kids and the house looks like it’s been burgled.”

The affable Welshman, who’s dad to six-year-old twin boys Macsen and Cybi, is brutally honest about how hard parenting can be, particularly when you’re a single parent, and he’s keen to stress that real parents don’t have immaculate children and pristine family homes – it’s all about sticky little hands, and mountains of mess, and that’s all part of the fun.

“The first five years are complete and utter slavery, I’m not going to lie,” he declares. “People who put beautiful pictures of it on Instagram are absolutely lying – it’s carnage, it’s hell!

“I’m very vocal on my Instagram story that parenting is ridiculously hard, but it’s so rewarding at the same time.”

New research by the Play-Doh Parenting is Messy campaign (playdohmessyparenting.com), which Watkins has teamed up with, has found 67% of parents feel an overwhelming pressure to be the ‘perfect’ parent, and 72% claim the glamorised expectations of parenthood on social media are to blame.

Watkins couldn’t agree more. “Social media causes problems with humanity – the pressure you feel being a parent. There are so many expectations that are forced upon you, but you just have to give yourself a break, and say, ‘I’ve done my best for today’.

“It really annoys me when I see Instagram accounts showing beautiful voile curtains and white bedspreads and tidy playrooms and immaculate children. It’s not real – a lot of these people probably have nannies and a PR team and airbrushes and social media managers. I do everything myself, and I try to keep it real and I have a little rant now and again.”

As a successful pop star Watkins, who says he’s done “the lion’s share” of parenting the twins since he split with his partner Craig Ryder when the boys were one, could afford to employ a nanny to help look after them. But he reveals: “I thought about getting a nanny, because I’m a single parent, but I didn’t have children for other people to bring them up, so even though I am absolutely exhausted, I would have it no other way.”

He says his parents don’t live very far away, and they help with the kids a lot. “Even them taking the boys swimming one day a week gives me that bit of breathing space, just to catch up on life and washing and prepping their packed lunches. It’s just stuff you didn’t think you’d be doing pre-children.”

Watkins might not have foreseen the hard-working single-parent life he’s now leading, but he’s clearly doing an admirable job bringing up the twins, who were born via a surrogate. “My boys have manners and they’re caring and kind,” he says proudly. “They’re also demons, don’t get me wrong – but when they’re out in the right places, they do and say the right things 90% of the time. In the house, that switches and 90% of the time they hate each other, but there are glimmers of loveliness.”

The twins were four during the pandemic lockdowns, and Watkins admits: “Lockdown was really hard – mentally and physically it was challenging. I had to find ways to keep them occupied and to keep me from drinking gin,” he jokes.

“I’m pretty good at being quite inventive and creative, and we can pretty much make something out of nothing, so there wasn’t a toilet roll or a washing up liquid bottle left in our village. We had  crafternoons and we made marble runs, bubble towers, water towers, aeroplanes on elastic. We did something every day, and it saved us, really.

“It’s exhausting – but I’m not alone. There are so many people out there who realise there’s so much pressure put on you as a parent, and as a new parent in particular.

“My mantra is ‘one day at a time’, every day is different. You just have to get messy, and that’s when it becomes fun. That’s been my saving grace – the mess can wait, just have fun.”

The twins are now in Year 2 at school, which Watkins says means he gets “a bit of breathing space,”  undoubtedly helped by the fact that he’s extremely well-organised. “I’m pretty good at organising and forward-thinking, so even before something happens, I’ve prepped for it. The night before school, I’ll always lay their clothes out, I lay their breakfast trays out, their bags are ready, their coats and shoes are ready. There’s literally a biscuit-trail of things for them to do to get ready.

“It’s all tedious and boring for them, and that’s why we make messy play fun. If I have a delivery with a massive cardboard box, it’s not a cardboard box for them, it’s a spaceship or a rocket. We get the paints out and – my advice is do this in the garden – we put old clothes on and throw paint at the box and create an amazing art installation.”

Aside from the mess, there’s a great deal of creativity in this household, and it’s no surprise to learn that Watkins went to art college many years ago, and paints himself. “I love that I get to open my children’s eyes to creativity. I have an art studio, so if I’m painting a landscape, they’ll be there beside me, getting messy with their crayons.

“I’m very lucky that I have a playroom for them, so I can close the door, but I’m not going to lie, it looks like somebody’s burgled it most nights!”

As well as being a rushed-off-his-feet dad, Watkins is also busy with Steps,  whose 25th Anniversary Summer Tour was earlier this year. Watkins’ parents moved into his house to look after the twins during it, but on tours before they were old enough for school, the boys accompanied their dad.

“They came on tour with us – that was so, so lovely,” he recalls. “They had their own playroom at the arenas, they had their own little menus, and the guys were just amazing aunties and uncles to them.”

Watkins says his kids aren’t particularly impressed that their dad is in a famous band, commenting: “I show them some of my work on TV – we  headlined the Queen’s Jubilee show and I showed them for five minutes and they went, ‘Can we play Nintendo now?’.

“It’s because it’s all they’ve ever known. My kids get what I do, but they’re not massively into it. Last month, I took them to one of our Steps shows, and they got to stand at the side of the stage, and do you know what, it was so magical to see the penny drop that all those people had come to see daddy. It was wonderful.”

The Play-Doh Parenting is Messy campaign (playdohmessyparenting.com) has produced a free downloadable booklet outlining the honest truths of parenting as told by celebrities like Watkins, Ferne McCann and Vogue Williams.