Kate Middleton

[WILKO9]

AIBU to find Kate Middleton really annoying ? It's probably just me but I find her so smug. Anyway feel much better for getting that off my chest !!!

I wouldn't complain about anything she's currently doing or not doing - she has 2 children under 3! The vast majority of ordinary women I know with such small children focus most of their time and energy on them, why should she be any different?

However I did feel unfeasibly irritated by her in the years before she married William and didn't seem to do anything besides wait around for him, it just looked like such a boring, powerless existence! Great practice for her royal role though I suppose!

I think the public took to Diana as she was so young when she married boring Charles and worked as a nanny (in a very posh nursery admittedly )but she seemed to like it!. She was fun and pretty. Kate is towing the line, maybe that's why i cant take to her as much!

cardibach - Muckogy what are you on about?

I think kate, william and their family will retreat from public life. they have already begun the process in their move to Amner Hall.

Funny how being a SAHM is totally fine unless you're KM.

"Education for educations sake is valid no matter what path is chosen...unless you're in the public eye".

I absolutely adore the hive of hypocrites Mumsent harbours.

Meh. She seems like a nice enough person, posh and perhaps a bit boring but she seems perfectly personable. They seem happy and to love each other. She's playing a role, an old fashioned, anachronistic role but a role all the same.
I am a republican and think the monarchy should be abolished but I have nothing personally against her at all. It's the institution of monarchy that is rotten to the core and I will never understand why anyone thinks it's acceptable to have certain people be considered superior and afforded unlimited wealth and privilege simply because of an accident of birth. Totally can't get my head round that one.

Right. I have it on good authority (one degree of separation, doncha know, and it isn't Eng Lit):

Kate got into the Royal set when she was still at Marlborough. Her friends were friends with the royals and they all met up at Highgrove

Kate knew that William planned to take a gap year, do operation raleigh, then go to St Andrews to do History of Art.

Kate declined her place at Edinburgh, took her own gap year, did Operation Raleigh herself so that she would have this experience as a talking point, applied for and was accepted onto the same course as Wills.

Her parents paid top dosh for the most expensive uni accommodation in the first year so that the chances of her seeing Wills on a regular basis would be greatly increased.

Of course, the rest of it was up to Kate wearing a see through dress and doing that thing Williams likes

what could she do though to make people that dislike her, like her? And surely that would turn the people that do like her now, against her.

She has a very difficult role and do remember she wears the ring of woman killed by marrying into the role family. Her husband is motherless, due to her marrying into the role family.

There will be lots of issues behind the scenes, one can only guess at the protocol, the toes being trod on, etc etc.

yes she gets so much in return, but she could have also fallen for a similarly rich boy in her "set", had most of the trappings she now enjoys but without the public scrutiny and attention.

I am neither for or against her. I do feel for William however having lost his mother. I really hope he has found happiness in his own little family.

*Unless they can't get a place. In which case they often do a somewhat related degree and fight for a place on a post-graduate medical course the moment they graduate.

Although I bet if you search hard enough you will find a doctor who did a History of Art degree first and got his/her place on the post-grad degree course*

That is just nonsense . There are a small number of universities in the UK which offer a 4 year accelerated post-grad degree course for medicine in the UK. The idea that a history of art degree will be a way in if your qualifications weren't good enough to go into medicine as a first degree is ridiculous.

I'm disgusted that you (and staff) have been discussing any mother giving birth - rarely anyone's finest hour. You're obviously a gossip and unlikely to be a trustworthy source.

I haven't been discussing her - I couldn't give a toss! First time I visited Marlborough I was given the tour. I was there on business completely desperate to any Middleton interest, but got lots of "and this is the house Kate Middleton boarded in," "here's where she took her art classes etc". On evenings out with others, who happen to be protection officers I was chatting and something was said like "hard to stay close enough to that lot to protect them. They're fans of the camera." Etc. The midwife I know at ST Mary's had nothing to do with Kate's delivery, but it was the talk of the staff room for weeks afterwards apparently. I don't know details, nor do I want to!

That is just nonsense . There are a small number of universities in the UK which offer a 4 year accelerated post-grad degree course for medicine in the UK. The idea that a history of art degree will be a way in if your qualifications weren't good enough to go into medicine as a first degree is ridiculous.

You're sandwiching two different posts together, mate.

I said nothing about someone failing to get in to med school and deciding to use HoA as a pathway in my second post. I was thinking more that people change their minds, discover new ambitions and develop new career plans, and this could include someone deciding that they'd rather be a doctor after doing a History of Art degree. I'm sure I've heard of people doing graduate entry medicine after a few other arts degrees.

I feel sorry for KM after reading this thread! Hopefully she doesn't give a flying eff what anyone thinks of her. Her whole family has got a kicking on here too, I wouldn't want to be her in a million years. I hope she knows by now that anything she does will piss off a huge number of people so better to just do what she thinks is best and avoid reading the papers (or Mumsnet!)

(My uni flatmate did History of Art, was lower middle class and is now curator of a major art museum)

This is judgemental MN at its worst.

Two different paragraphs, sorry.

I'm sure I've heard of people doing graduate entry medicine after a few other arts degrees

And your point is what exactly? That people with one degree sometimes make a career change? That's completely different from the American system where a first degree seems to be the accepted route before going to Medicine or Law school.

And I am not your "mate"

I find the Carole Middleton planned this royal wedding from the day Kate was born schtick really funny. When I don't find it deeply misogynistic.

Do you really think Carole (and it is ALWAYS Carole) looked over her daughter's cot and said "my dear you WILL marry Prince William because I can imagine nothing better for my infant daughter than an advantageous marriage circa 1830 despite me being a working parent and having all the usual hopes and dreams of how intelligent and creative my baby will be .... and nothing will stop our dastardly plan ... right up to enrolling you in Marlborough and allowing you to have a gap year! No one will see my cunning plan because so many other girls will be going to Marlborough and having gap years! "

jesus.

I have never read anywhere about how Michael Middleton schemed to get his daughter married to royalty. No that is reserved for the bitch mother.

Have I imagined this - did they split up at one point because of William behaving badly?

They did split up for a spell. Can't remember why.

There were lots of paparazzi shots of Kate looking wistful in a wrap dress outside Hooray Henry haunts. Then they got back together.

There were lots of paparazzi shots of Kate looking wistful in a wrap dress outside Hooray Henry haunts. Then they got back together.

And thus you perpetuate the received wisdom that women are passive creatures waiting for men to react to them.

Did anyone ever seriously consider that after the split, she needed to be persuaded back to him? That the split was because she couldn't imagine living the crap life being married to a royal offered (see this thread) for the rest of her life when she was a young, pretty, intelligent, educated, well connected woman who had loads of other options.

I don't give a crap about the walers or any of the royals either way but as a woman I find the misogyny about the Duchess of Cambridge depressing.

Someone on here once swore that the break-up was an act, to flush out someone in their social circle who had been selling stories about them.

Not sure what their "degree of separation" was though.

Am I the only one to feel slightly inadequate that KM looks so well put-together and is out and about so much with two very young children?
This comes from someone who has been back in for an important keeping in touch day at work, but it required much planning with a 3 month old BF baby. And I was exhausted afterwards!
I'm not sure what message it is sending out to those of us who are taking as much mat leave as we can afford.
I feel sorry for her if there has been pressure to "get back to work". Although I totally don't consider her appearances at tennis and rugby as work.

If you listen to Kate's speeches then I think it's painfully clear just how very nervous she is doing them.

i think - wait till the kids are at school - Queen will probably have popped her clogs by then so William and Kate will have to step up their engagements seeing as William will by then be heir to the throne.

I still think that going to see Wales V England is not classed as "work" though.

To be fair she did also go to Wimbledon and a couple of Olympic events.

Am I the only one to feel slightly inadequate that KM looks so well put-together and is out and about so much with two very young children?

She's barely ever seen out with the children.

That's because of the papers and the paparazzi presumably.

And your point is what exactly? That people with one degree sometimes make a career change? That's completely different from the American system where a first degree seems to be the accepted route before going to Medicine or Law school.

You must have been MN'ing while doing something else when you posted that.

My point was that I did not think it "ridiculous" of me to have sought to avoid implying that one can only ever take the graduate entry path to medicine with a "related degree". Which is how that post would have read without that extra paragraph.

How awful of me to avoid sweeping statements, eh? I was concerned it might be misunderstood, so immediately afterwards I posted, That is not intended as a slur on post-grad medical degrees, by the way. Just a reflection [sic, acknowledgement would have been better] of how complex and interesting the world is, full of people who didn't take the "right" path to get where they did.