Pop’s mothers have told of guilt, loneliness and record-label prejudice – so do men face the same problems? Wayne Coyne, Tom Fletcher, Ghetts, Thurston Moore and others respond

This summer, two of the world’s biggest pop stars became parents for the first time. Katy Perry told an interviewer that after becoming pregnant, “a lot of people have asked me: are you going to go away?” Presumably, though, nobody has enquired if new dad Ed Sheeran will be exiting the music industry with immediate effect. Perhaps they should.

In recent years, female artists such as Perry – but rarely their male counterparts – have been speaking with increasing candour about the anxiety, guilt, unrealistic expectations and logistical nightmares involved in balancing parenthood and pop stardom. Paloma Faith said the toil of touring with a young baby made her ill, and that her record company assumed her sales would divebomb because “people wouldn’t find a mother as appealing”. In 2018, Cardi B cancelled a tour due to begin six weeks after the birth of her daughter, saying she had “underestimated this whole mommy thing”.