Julie Jay: Nothing beats a bop when it comes to letting off steam with your kids

It would appear that my kids have taken after their dad in the dance department - and that is no bad thing

Thankfully, my kids don’t seem to have taken after me in the dancing department. Both love a bop and may take after their father, who has been banned from mentioning he was once on Dancing With The Stars.

WHEN I was a child, I once went to an Irish dancing class, which cost £2 at the time. At the end of the class, the teacher gave me £3 and asked me never to come back again.

I can’t say I blame the woman. I have always been an atrocious dancer, incapable of moving my arms and legs in sync.

I once asked for tips from a friend who was a bit of a Britney, a blonde pocket rocket who was also a great mover on the tiles. Admittedly, my memory could be sketchy, but I’m at least 17% sure she also had a thing with Justin Timberlake.

She observed me in action and delivered her feedback without equivocation: had I considered perhaps moving my feet? It was a gamechanger, but I still can’t move my ankles with much confidence when the beat drops.

My husband is the one who likes to shake it at a wedding, with our own first dance consisting of me standing static while he did his best John Travolta.

A couple of years ago, I made him take an online dyspraxia quiz, having expressed a theory he might indeed have a touch of it. 

Going through the checklist, it appeared to be a slam dunk until we got to the last statement, ‘an inability to dance or move rhythmically’, and my husband announced I could be dyspraxic. To be fair, he’s not wrong.

Thankfully, my kids don’t seem to have taken after me in the dancing department. Both love a bop and may take after their father, who has been banned from mentioning he was once on Dancing With The Stars.

Every week, Number One marches off to his hip hop class, delighted to be catching up with his friends who take their moves seriously.

“I’m doing my sport,” he will announce gleefully, and who am I to argue with a child armed with a Spidey water bottle in one hand and a yo-yo in the other?

The vast majority of his class are boys, which is wonderful, given it wasn’t too long ago that Billy Elliot had to box people in the face to assert that moving rhythmically to music isn’t just for girls.

So far, there has been the utmost secrecy when I enquire what exactly they have been up to.

“I’ll show you one thing and Daddy one thing, but neither of you can see both things,” he informs us. We laugh along, but he is deadly serious. Much like the recipe for Coca-Cola, this dance routine is very much classified information.

The move I am shown is simply him bending his legs and putting one arm up in the air. Of course, because we are modern parents, we gush and cheer like this child has done five cartwheels in a row.

As previously mentioned in this very column, the song choice in question is Uptown Funk by Bruno Mars, with Number One singing random bars about Michelle Pfeiffer multiple intervals throughout the day. Much like Sky News, Michelle Pfeiffer is repeated on the hour, every hour, and is usually accompanied by some impressive flailing arm work.

It has been lovely seeing him embrace the dance because, despite my conflicted history with the art form, we do love a bop, especially on days when Mammy needs to shake off some parental responsibility with an impromptu disco before dinner. I can’t say I’m good at it, but dancing with the kids helps me forget about things like the cost of living crisis and my impending NCT.

Who is to say whether or not he will stick with the dancing, but I do hope that whatever extra-curricular activity he keeps up, he will choose based on his love for it, and for that reason alone.

Thus far, the sky seems to be the limit for Dingle’s newest dance troupe, mainly comprised of junior infants. As they practice their routine week in, week out, he has recently informed me they are working towards a show in the near future. However, he refused to give me any more information, for fear, no doubt, that I would inform the paps.

When I pressed him, he sighed with the world weariness of a global superstar coming off the back of an intercontinental tour and told me, “It was no big deal, just a show.”

Honestly, as much as I want to be a dance mom, I will be fuming if he and his buddies manage to pack out a theatre in Tralee that I only half sold the last time I played there.

To be outshone in my own industry by my five-year-old would be a bitter pill to swallow, but I guess that’s showbiz, baby.

In the delicate dance of life, it is always good to know the moment to step aside and let someone else take centre stage, especially when they are your very own Billy Elliot.