Well, bully for Katie

[Lucyinthepie]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1382889/Royal-Wedding-2011-Kate-Middleton-says-shell-housewife-now.html
Anyone else think that she should be doing the work that is associated with her new life of luxury? Justify the expense to the taxpayer and get out and fulfil the usual royal diary of visits.

Nothing wrong in the man being the stay at home parent - that's fine, I just feel strongly that young children should have one parent at home for them, doesn't matter which one

so do you have an issue with men who work when their wives' salaries mean they don;t have to?
Or is it just women?

Wook: Diana didn't start charity work until a few months after the wedding, and then started small and added as she went along (until she cut back drastically post-divorce, when presumably she had enough assets from the settlement to live off). I think we can expect to see a graduated start from Catherine too - give her a chance, she's only been married 4 days! There will be a lot of charities already making overtures in the hope of securing her as Royal patron. It makes sense to take a considered approach to her involvement, and with an eye to the longer term too.

Seriously, 'deathbed'? Carmina, can you come up with more platitudes.

On my deathbed, I will be so grateful at how privileged I was to both have a family and an interesting career. I am grateful even now. What regret are you talking about.

meditrina it was a very qualified thumbs up for Di but she did make some bold moves at least. God things must be bad if I'm holding her up as a paragon of virtue!!

Wouldn't hold breath for Kate, she's hardly seemed driven up until now...

So fed up with this deathbed crap- there are a lot of things I'll regret on mine, but earning my living will not be one of them.

I'm not a massive fan of the complete role reversal thing - obviously in some circumstances it's sensible ( if the woman earns more for example )
But on the whole if a system has worked well for millions of years ( men hunt and gather - women care for the children ) and we're still all here, it can't be that bad. Being different doesn't make you unequal - differences should be celebrated ( as in cultural differences etc ) so why women constantly feel they have something to prove I don't know.

Last post - out of battery!

No, being different doesn't make you unequal. Being dependent makes you unequal

Not a historian but I think this idea that women have been staying at home to look after babies is misguided - poor mothers have always had to work - on farms, in factories, as domestic servants.

My issue is that in order to be happy people need to feel that their life has a purpose, and for a while children can fulfil that need, but children will grow up and hopefully have their own lives and it does not seem entirely healthy to me to make children one's sole purpose in life.

Wook: I take it you don't believe any of what's beenvstated publicly about her role in planning her wedding then? (lots of people must have been very driven to pull off so well an event that large and complex).

She's only been married 4 days. I expect a bit of time doing engagements with the Duke wouldn't be a bad starting point. I'd be surprised if we saw/heard much from either of them until the Canada trip. Then August is the quiet season. I would have hopes for something staring up in the autumn maybe. I bet whatever that no matter how benign the first solo engagement is, it'll be nerve-wracking.

Leave her alone.

The good news is that Prince Will's salary as a search and rescue pilot is below the threshold for losing Child Benefit, so once a baby come along, she'll have a bit of pin money.

I predict twins before the Olympics...

I think saadia speaks a lot of sense
hijack saadia did you do pgce? remember you from a thread yonks back
I certainly agree the dynamics of the marriage seem quite retrograde and quaint. But it's Royal Family, where they still have primogeniture, and women are there essentially as support. We've been fortunate to have a Queen, so have seen one Royal woman with a non support role - wonder if things will change when it goes back to King after King

I am the breadwinner in our family. However, had things been different in that regard, I might have quite liked to have been able to get pregnant without being in paid employment. I was not treated terribly well at work during the pregnancy, and yes, it would have been good to have been able to do without all that. The whole business of trying to leave things in such a way that they could be easily picked up again after the pregnancy, of trying to appear suffficiently dedicated as to be taken seriously, of trying to negotiate one's entitlement to maternity leave etc. In a way, it would have been great not to be reliant on maternity pay and be counting up the weeks and months spent at home with the baby.

Stress in itself makes it more difficult to get pregnant and makes miscarriages more likely.

At the same time, I know that I find some of the mummy stuff rather awkward and working frees me a bit from all that. Can you imagine having a Duchess in your NCT group? Might it not be a bit isolating to have that much status and privilege, in a way? The sort of people who would want to get to know her on the basis of her rank might well be very creepy. And she will be tucked away in a corner of the UK rather distant from her family. She will need some sort of support network, maybe this is part of what she is looking to cultivate.

I don't think kates going to lose any sleep over not being admired if she chooses not to work do you?
I don't think anyone really knows what she does day to day only her close family therefore saying comments like she hasn't done much over the years is silly. Noone really knows her - judging and criticising someone you don't even know what does that make you look like? I bet she wishes she did know you personally.

I'm not convinced it is actually a life of luxury. Financial security, sure - but she no longer has the luxury of being anonymous, free and able to make spontaneous choices. Everything she does now will be under the microscope, from the first inkling of a pregnancy to her fashion choices. It will be like being dissected every day, and that will take some getting used to. She wil also have constant security wherever she goes which may be novel at first, but could become wearing.

She has also become a Forces wife which has it's own set of challenges with regards to jobs, sudden moves, separation and the job always, always coming before anything else. Add to that being married to the heir to the heir and she is already third in the pecking order after service commitment and then royal commitment.

Given the massive sulks that the PoW threw when Diana garnered more column inches than he did, they will have to avoid 'upstaging' the PoW again, and are presumably treading carefully until she finds her feet. I would imagine that it is alarming and tiring going to an event where loads of people turn out to see you; you have to master what the visit is in aid of and ask intelligent questions and look fascinated by all that you see. It is a big ask.

We don't expect people to perform perfectly in a new job - we train them, mentor them and support them. That could be what is happening here; she will have a period of 'training' on protocol and what to expect and will try it out in Canada, at the Trooping of the Colour and the celebrations for the DofE's 90th. Once she is up to speed she will take on more, but they have obviously learned lessons from both Diana and Fergie and are breaking this one in gently.

Seems mean to begrudge them some time together, after all, once the circus starts in earnest, they won't have much of it.

"Breaking in gently" is what masters do to horses. A kindly way is better, but it's still establishing subservience.

Given scary is from a Forces background and knows more about the role of a military spouse, it seems to do more to reinforce subservience than I might otherwise have thought.

Perhaps the Royal narrative hasn't changed much, other than some courtiers becoming more media-savvy.

// just quickly replying to this post .

'being dependent makes you unequal'

No it doesn't - a good marriage/partnership is based on mutual love and respect and an ability to work together as 'a partnership' - a marriage is not a power struggle ( or shouldn't be ) it should flow happily along in a sea of contentment. If your marriage is a seething mass of resentment and regret, you probably should have stayed single.

Two comments:

I used 'breaking in gently' not in a horsey fashion, but in the context of a gradual introduction to her new role. It's not about subservience at all, it's about making sure she's comfortable I would imagine, and up to speed with requirements. A bit like teacher training really - takes two years with PGCE and NQT year before one is a really comfortable with dealing with teens in a firm but fair fashion (cracks whip). What KM has taken on is not something she can step out of at the end of the day, but is 24/7 and pretty relentless and gruelling. Her only escape is death or divorce - at least most of us can resign.

Being a Forces wife isn't subservient either, when you marry a service person the deal is that the exigencies of the Service come first. That means missed births, cancelled holidays, rearranged weddings, being sent to sea at 1930 Christmas Eve and having no idea when they'd be back. It means short notice moves, and either accepting there will be a large degree of separation if one wishes to pursue a career and put down roots somewhere; or you kick the career and the forever house if you want to be together all the time. It also means that one is reliant upon your spouse's salary as if you can't work where you are, you have no income of your own. Equally, teaching can be like that at times and dh used to have to cope with me working all day and marking all night during exam season, and nothing deflected from that, so it is swings and roundabouts.

Carmina - I am 'dependant' because we are abroad and I don't work here. Seems unfair to take a job a local might need more than me and my Flemish isn't good enough to teach here. When I raised this with dh he said it was a partnership and always has been, doesn't matter who earns the money, it is our money and not his. We both bring different things to our marriage and different skills, and it works, or has done for 25 years to date.

Plenty of people do it at the tax payers expense its called benefits and least she will be doing official visits and being patron to charities
and to be fair William dose actually have a job

Well said scary!

hijack - hi ninah - yes started part time PGCE nearly two years ago, coming to the end now one assignment and final placement to go, how are you doing?

Thanks Porto.