To be mildly astonished that DD (15) knows so little about the Royal Family

[5Foot5]

Maybe I shouldn't be surprised since we are not exactly ardent royalists ourselves and, in normal times, they are not a topic of conversation that crop up very often in our house. I have certainly never tried to explain to her who they all are and how they are related.

But I suppose I had assumed that this was a bit of general knowledge that she would just pick up as she went along. However, it became apparent that she has only a very sketchy idea who all the members of the Queen's immediate family are and last night I found her Googling them on her lap top because she said she wanted to mug up a bit before Friday.

A quick quiz revealed the shallows of her knowledge, e.g.:

• she would never be able to pick out Princes Andrew or Edward in a line up
• she can't really tell you what the royal line is back before our present Queen
• she though the famous horse-riding granddaughter of the Queen might be Pippa Funnel!!

Is this typical for a modern teenager do you think?

And I only know about the role of the Queen, parliament, PM, judiciary etc because I did a law degree. We weren't taught at school.

My dd1 is in Y6.

She knows a royal wedding is taking place, and that the bride is Kate and she is not a princess. She hasn't a clue who she is marrying though. She does know that she is getting a day off school and is pleased about that.

My DD knows feck all about the useless shower them.

She knows who President Obama is though and that David Cameron is a cunt.

She is ten and them's the basics but I might have to help her expand her political knowledge.

Insmonia, I am the same age as you and I knew who all the main royal family were at Charles/Di wedding. Later on I got to know who all the others were. Blimey - if some of you lot don't even know who the Queens kids are, you definitely aren't going to know who the extended family are.

Grendel- you've omitted an Edward and a George there. After victoria cam her son Edward then his son George then his eldest son Edward, who abdicated passing the crown to his younger brother George, Elizabeth's Dad.

Ah, but Mad, she will be a princess this time tomorrow

Well, having just googled, Charles and Diana got married when I was 11, but I only have very a vague recollection of it. I have very good recollections of Margaret Thatcher coming to power, the miners' strike, the Falklands war, the Challenger Disaster, Greenham Common, airstrikes on Tripoli, the Rainbow Warrior sinking and many other important events from when I was growing up.

It's a question of realising what's important, and what isn't - having said that I have a near-encyclopaedic knowledge of 80s music, so perhaps my capacity to absorb trivia was exhausted by that :)

My neighbour's DD told me that, "Charles and Di" would "do it" on their wedding day. I knew about doing it but I heard it as, "Chas and Dave"

Not a pleasant thought.

Loving coolasacucumbers one liner!

DS1 (3.5 years) told me this morning that "William is marrying Kate, and then she'll be a princess, just like William is a princess".

So you can rest assured that royal weddings to increase knowledge about the royals in general!

No she won't be a princess, she will be Duchess of blah, blah.
Or am i wrong?

I know it doesn't really matter in the grand scale of things, but my mind boggles that adults would not have even heard of Prince Edward and Prince Andrew.

Applauds coolascucumber.

OTT, she will be something like HRH Princess William of Wales

Although I think she will be a duchess too. In fairness, she is gonna have a whole heap of titles. She will be Catherine too (Princess Catherine??)

According to Wiki (so it must be right ):

Middleton's title upon marriage will depend upon the additional title, if any, which is bestowed upon William. It is customary for royal men to receive a dukedom when they marry. It has been suggested that possible dukedoms for William after his marriage are Clarence, Cambridge, Sussex, Connaught, Kendal, Avondale, and Strathearn. By convention, the wife of a son or grandson of the Sovereign is entitled to the style title or attribute of "Royal Highness". Therefore as the wife of a royal duke and prince, Middleton would assume the title of duchess and be known as "Her Royal Highness The Duchess of X".

However, it has been suggested that William may prefer not to accept a dukedom. If William does not receive a further title, then Middleton would, by convention, take her husband's first name (as with Princess Michael of Kent) and be known as "Her Royal Highness Princess William of Wales".

The BBC's Nicholas Witchell has also raised the possibility that the Queen could follow the precedent which she set in February 1957, when she accorded her husband Prince Philip "the style and title of a Prince of the United Kingdom" in his own right. This suggests that the Queen could, if she chose to do so, make Middleton a "Princess of the United Kingdom", in which case she would be known as "Her Royal Highness Princess Catherine".

"I know it doesn't really matter in the grand scale of things, but my mind boggles that adults would not have even heard of Prince Edward and Prince Andrew."

Hmm - I guess I think that is basic common knowlegde because when I was a kid I remember there being this sort of documentary programme that got shown several times all about the Queen's family. This was when they were all quite young. Also I had an aunt who was a fervent royalist and I guess they may have been less cynical times so we probably thought it mattered.

I remember getting a day off school for Princess Anne's first wedding and several Mum's and us kids had a little party at next door's house because they had a colour TV and invited us round to watch.

Then of course there was the Silver Jubilee and Charles and Di.....

But actually what I meant to get around to saying in my previous post and then got distracted from....

When I was young and there was a significant royal event going on I remember the oldies saying things like "Oh look Princess Marina has been invited" or "Isn't Princess Alice looking old now" (I may have got those names wrong) and I would not have a clue who they meant nor do I now. So perhaps while it seems strange to me that a young(er) adult doesn't know who Andrew or Edward is then that is no different to my parents rabbiting on about these Marina ans Alices who are now lost in the mists of time.....

I learnt who the royal family was when I was a kid from Spitting Image.... if I hadn't watched that I doubt I would've known as they were much less relevant than Thatcher and Scargill!

Just proves, modern teenagers are not all bad.

I am so old that I remember when Charles and Diana got married, we were told she would not be Princess Diana, but Princess Charles of Wales.

Everyone ignored it anyway!

5Foot5 my comment was more directed at other posters on the thread who said they hadn't heard of Andrew or Edward, rather than your DD. Anyway, I think that not knowing who minor members of the Royals are is different to not knowing who the Queen's children are.

There's a whole other thread about what titles WilliKat might have tomorrow.

I tried the questions in OP on DD: despite my faith in her earlier, she got only one out of three.