It's shocking how much harder the older Royals are working

[tatalan]

The Princess of Wales barely outworked Queen Elizabeth who died in early September after cancelling a series of engagements.

Charles and Anne look to be carrying the monarchy at present. The Earl and Countess of Wessex are grafting hard as well.

What do William and Kate spend their days doing? Surely as young energetic members of the RF, they should be pulling their weight.

Living their lives of luxury!

Looking after their young children? Perhaps C&C, along with other senior royals, want to give them the opportunity to be as close to a normal family as they can for as long as they can, given they know better than anyone the burden William and Kate Will be taking on?

Kate has three primary school age children. I think it’s completely reasonable for her to work part time.

Being a mum to 3 is working though?
this is Mumsnet. We are know being a mum is work here!

I have young children and DH & I both work FT with zero help.

I do think it's ridiculous they work so little

Kate has three children, I’m glad she spends time with them, they are still young .

With 3 kids, one only at school this year, I'm guessing she's busy!

Not sure about him, they do undertake engagements not on the official list too, perhaps that accounts for the discrepancy?

I guess working part time also merits a wardrobe costing over £150, 000. Must be nice.

Two are school age, they've got a nanny, house keeper and all sorts of help. She's not your average working Mother.

Part time for the royals is not what we pjs a think of as part time. 138 engagements across the year is about 2.5 a week which sounds reasonable if you think in terms of each one being a day. But a phone call is an engagement. They may fit 3 in during one day - a town centre meet and greet followed by a meeting with local councillors, then whisked in their chauffeur driven car to another town where they chat to some fundraisers for the local hospice. All done in an hour and a half. The PW will spend longer getting ready for a day like that than she does actually working 🙄

They aren't billed as part time working royals though, they are full time senior working members of the royal family. Unless they took a pay cut somewhere?

Normal families usually have at least one parent working full time hours.

Even the numbers are suspect, I remember a member of the royal rota claiming they counted 4 calls that took place in the span of a couple of hours as four separate engagements. I wonder how often that happens.

Until September they were only the grandchildren of the monarch rather than the children so I can see why they didn't do as many engagements. It'll be fairer to look at their tally towards the end of next year.

It will be interesting to see how William's number of events compare to his father at the same age. He doesn't seem to have the passions Charles did for say the environment or organic farming, plus Charles set up the Prince's Trust by the time he was 30.

Princess Anne has a reputation as the family workhorse now but I'm not sure if she did just as much when her children were young. Ditto for Diana when she was Princess of Wales and William and Harry were little.

Oh the Cambridges are shockingly lazy really. Fine if you can afford it. Bad form on the taxpayer's money.

Assuming we still have a monarchy, given they will be working until the day William dies, I’m ok with them doing less at this point in their lives.

Well quite and considering an "engagement" can be a quite phone call neither of the Cambridges have ever exactly shone with work ethic in the way that the Queen, DoE, Princess Anne and some of the older royals have or even in the way the Wessexes stepped up despite being so far from the throne they would normally be fringe members by this stage.

But then Kate, for all her moneyed background, education and connections spent best part of a decade faffing around on part time Sloane jobs waiting for Will to marry her, at which point all jobs were dropped in favour of being a silent clothes horse. Will was very late to the game for an heir to the throne - by comparison both his father and younger brother had much more substantial projects and public work underway by their early 30s.

Its amazing how little you can get away with if you have money and an expensive PR machine.

To be honest if shaking hands with the public, cutting a ribbon and smiling at a cup cake is work then it doesn't matter if they're 32 years old or 132 years old - get out and do it. Describing it as 'work' such a misnomer I have no comparison because it's so ridiculous.

You have a point, they'll never get to retire like average citizens but they will never have money worries like average citizens either.

Still, it's pretty outstanding how Charles and Anne have left them in the dust.

Will was very late to the game for an heir to the throne - by comparison both his father and younger brother had much more substantial projects and public work underway by their early 30s.

True, Charles set up the Prince's Trust, Harry had Sentebale and Invictus. Even Meghan managed two successful projects in the short time she was a royal - the Grenfell cookbook and Smartworks capsule wardrobe.

But even with all the resources available to them, William and Kate haven't really done the same. He talks about men's mental health from time to time and a few years ago there was all that coverage about the 5 "big questions" to inform her early years work, but what has come of that?

Most people Charles and Camillas age are retired and don't work. William and Kate may well have to work quite hard in their later years.

They don't live normal lives like other people so I don't think it's comparable to say I worked full time with 3 primary aged DC (i did) and so should they. If I hadn't had to I wouldn't have.

Quite.
Who on earth would want to be in Camilla's position, a job promotion at 75 when most people are thinking of, or actually are, retired - not for me thanks.

If they haven’t by 40 then I don’t think they’ll ever change. No passions all perks

He's done the EarthShot prize which was promoted as the Oscars/Nobel Peace Prize/Superbowl of environmental awards.

The UK’s Prince William launches Nobel-like prize for the environment

In an interview with CNN’s Max Foster, the prince said he considered the prize would be “the most prestigious environmental global prize” to date and his aim is to shift the debate from pessimism and negativity to optimism and hope.

And of course Kate's charity work. She took over a year to even adopt some charities when she married William, despite a decade of faffing around to think about this. The reason give because she wanted to be able to really commit to them. A couple subsequently closed down without her ever crossing the threshold, none showed much benefit for her patronage.

We spend a vast amount of money (in lost tax on the huge estates and inheritances for a start) enabling the royal firm to build a huge fortune and a life of luxury - frankly the Wales' don't give much return for money.