Joe Swash shares six children with wife Stacey Solomon and says a complete social media ban for under 16s would help him feel safer as they grow up
Joe Swash loves showing us how to make picture-perfect meals for our families, while his wife Stacey Solomon will tell you that packets of crisps are best stored hanging from tiny pegs on a spring-loaded pole. It’s in this manner that the couple have built a lucrative social media empire, with more than eight million followers between them and a net worth that keeps climbing.
But despite this, Joe is fervently backing calls for a social media ban for under-16s. “I don’t want to make anyone do anything they don’t want to do,” says Joe, who has six children with wife Stacey. “But as a parent, personally, I’d feel a lot safer and a little more peaceful if I knew there was a complete ban on social media for kids.”
In December 2025, Australia became the first country to ban social media for children under the age of 16. Now Italy, Norway, Denmark, France and Spain are looking to follow suit. Earlier this year the UK government announced a consultation to consider banning social media for children under 16.
“Kids are not kids for long, so let them be kids. They’ve got a lifetime to be on their phones,” says Joe. “For me personally, I don’t think it’s a bad thing.” Joe and Stacey are parents to Rex, six, Rose, five, and Belle, three, while Stacey is also mum to Zachary, 17 and Leighton, 13, and Joe has an 18-year-old son called Harry. For their younger children, they’d like to see a ban in place, which would empower parents to stop their children using social media.
“It’s something in our household we would quite embrace,” says Joe. “As a parent it gives you a bit of power. If I said to my lot, ‘Get off now’, they’d be like, ‘No no’, but if I said, ‘Look, the government said get off or the police are coming round the house,’ then that’s all I need. I can’t see it being bad.”
The dark side of social media is well documented and Joe knows you need a thick skin to use it, as well an ability to spot harmful misinformation. “As a parent you spend your whole life trying to put helpful, useful knowledge into your kids’ heads and morals and stuff like that, then it’s just weird to me that suddenly you let your kid go off on a tablet and let a stranger fill their heads with stuff you have no control over,” he says. “I’ve got a thick skin because I’ve been on telly since I was a kid, but my kids haven’t. So if they get called something it might really affect them. As a parent you don’t have much control.”
Of course, Joe and Stacey’s children have some TV experience thanks to their BBC reality show Stacey & Joe , which welcomes cameras into their home and even on their family holidays. Just before our chat with Joe, Brooklyn Beckham publicly accused his parents Victoria and David of valuing “public promotion and endorsements above all else”, sparking a national debate about whether famous parents should put their children in the spotlight. For Joe, he says the choice lies with his children.
“We’ve always had it like a big open book,” says Joe, 44. “Our kids have always shown an interest, but as soon as they don’t want to do it, there’s no pressure. You’ve got to let your kids find their own way in life and not push them into things.” For Joe, having his kids on the show came from wanting to spend more time with them. “I love working with my kids,” he grins. “If I can spend more time with them I love it.”
Joe’s cooking show Batch From Scratch: Cooking For Less , doesn’t feature his kids, but it does help families spend more time together. Joe – along with Suzanne Mulholland, aka Instagram’s @thebatchlady – go into homes to help families win back time and money by planning their meals, prepping them for the freezer and then defrosting as they need them.
The families aren’t the only ones learning how to take the stress out of meal times on the show. Joe has found that batch cooking has helped him too, especially with regards to his ADHD, which manifests in him starting lots of jobs but not always finishing them.
“With my ADHD I’ve got loads of little fires I need to put out,” explains Joe. “I’ve got loads of jobs but I don’t finish any of it. But with the batch cooking it really does help take that stress out of cooking. It gives me a little bit more space to breathe, not having to worry about the food. It makes my brain a little bit less full.”
He also reckons it’s helped his marriage to the famously well-organised Stacey, as prepping meals for the freezer makes it easier for them to share the workload. “If one person does too much of one thing, you become a little bit resentful with it,” he says. “Me and Stacey are good at teamwork.”
Batch From Scratch: Cooking For Less airson Monday 23 February, 8pm, Channel 4. * Follow Mirror Celebs and TV on TikTok , Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads .
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: mirror.co.uk
