Parents are taking their kids to family-friendly raves now.

We’ve all had that moment, when you walk into a club and think ‘when the hell did everyone in here get so young?!’

They look like they’re too little to even be in high school. Drinking their raspberry mixed drinks, wearing dresses that wouldn’t even fit you as a t-shirt, and sucking on dummies….wait. What?

YES. DUMMIES. BECAUSE YOU KNOW WHAT?!

Toddlers now have a way cooler social life than you, my friend.

And noooooo. It’s not bopping around to The Wiggles. I’m talking going to a rave to hear one of the biggest DJs in the world play a set.

DJ Fat Boy Slim.

Allow Holly Wainwright and Andrew Daddo to explain in this week’s episode of This Glorious Mess. (Post continues after audio.)

He played an exclusive two-hour set at a very secret gig as part of the Brighton Fringe Festival that you could not get into,  specifically for little people and their parents. And he brought his daughter along to share in the fun, too.

“I can safely say this the first time I’ve done a gig for babies and their parents,” he told the BBC. “It was great fun for both me and my daughter though, and the crowd were so up for it.”

And this isn’t a one off event either, toddler rave parties are taking the UK by storm.  Companies like CirKiz and Big Fish Little Fish organise afternoon raves for children, complete with strobe lights, DJs, glow sticks and whistles.

Sounds crazy? Well, Holly Wainwright reckons there is one very good reason for why they’re becoming so popular.

“It’s not really a rave for the toddlers. It’s a rave for the parents, who can’t rave anymore, because they have toddlers. It’s an excuse for them to go and dance, and pretend they’re doing it with their kids, but really they are reliving their youth.” she reckons.

Watch the kids rock out to Fatboy Slim’s rave essential hit with Riva Starr “Eat Sleep Rave Repeat”   (Post continues after video.)

Daddo left the dance scene quite sometime ago, and can’t quite get his head around a PG rated rave scene, “Right..the parents are on the pingers and the kids are on Fanta?” he asks.

Not quite.

Just good, clean, UV-lit fun.

Listen to the full episode of The Glorious Mess below, and hear Nikki Gemmell’s secret to control her kid’s screen time, plus, when a stranger tells your kids off for climbing trees, what do you do? Hear one parent’s genius response. For more episodes, subscribe to the show in iTunes, via The Mamamia Podcast app (iOS only) or via your podcast app of choice.