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.

I don't mean to insult Brits but this sort of critical thinking seems few and far between. Then again, a diet of tabloids ensures they don't.

If I were Kate, i'd half my engagements next year 😂

Err they are all work shy….

Anne did 10 in one day this year and that was basically less than 9-5. A phone call, coffee, meet someone else, cut a ribbon - visit a school an hour and so on. Most are less than an hour. Try saying 300 hours a year - very nice job when you are taxi in and out as well.

I agree Kate won't pick up toys off the floor and tidy away.

However they now don't have any live in staff and just the one nanny, Maria Borrallo who is live out now they live in Windsor. as Adelaide House is only 4 bedroom, so no room for her. So when the nanny is not there I'm quite sure Kate will ask the kids to pick up and tidy away their toys, just as we do. And no doubt wash up when she's cooked, fling the hoover round and tidy up much the same as we do.

They have aids that do it all and a quick briefing etc

people are so urgh sycophantic in their approach to the royals just to say hello or even see them -

I'm just glad they're there.

Errrmmmm she is yards away in a cottage. I read somewhere that she basically does it all.., breakfast routine, charts for the kids where they have to be and when (W or K take them to school I believe), their clothes, the evening and bedtime routine, monitoring homework etc.

You are absolutely deluded if you think Kate picks up toys, tidies and runs the hoover around. Really, not.

The sttaff live in cottages on the Estate

Just because Kate has access to childcare doesn't mean that she has to use it full time. These children are not normal children and will spend the rest of their lives in the public eye, probably surrounded by people who may not have their best interests at heart. I can see why she and William want to personally be around as much as they can, without relying on staff.

I also have young children and work full time, as does my husband but if money wasn't an issue I'd prefer to be part time.

There is also a lot of travel around the length and breadth of the country involved in these engagements, probably involving frequent late nights and overnight stays. It's not like they're going to a 9-5 a couple of miles away. We couldn't do a job like that and also be the main carers for our children.

Poor Kate/William having to travel for work occasionally

"Work" 😁
Yeah, right

You'll get posters saying they do other work behind the scenes and giving the children as an excuse, but it's plain as day they just do the bare minimum. It's a real shame as there's a lot of scope to do good things within their role and really be a credit to Britain, but there you go.🤷‍♀️

much that what would ordinarily be referred to as leisure and social events are referred to as work

Yes, stuff that people do for fun is counted as work. They really shouldn’t call it work.

Why?

They have people who do all that behind-the-scenes stuff

I wonder if Kate and William's nanny, housekeeper and chef work more than 138 days a year.

Disgraceful and lazy.

Especially given an engagement can be a phone call.

Which is the member of the extended royal family who used to teach music in schools in some northern town (Hull maybe?). She sounded more in touch with normality than most of the family, though maybe the rest of her life was ridiculously out of touch.

I work full time but only about 30% of my time is meetings.

Number of engagements can't fully reflect what a person contributes if they are doing more than meetings. Some of the Royals will be all about meet and greets, whereas some will be more involved in other tasks I think.
The same complaints were levelled at Charles years ago.

LOL. No. Staff do that. I guess they probably read some crib notes prepared for them which is fair enough as the public facing stuff is what they're there for, but the low number of engagements is certainly not an indication of them beavering away behind the scenes. If it was that onerous, someone like Princess Anne would presumably be working round the clock.

I think I know why 😏

Personally, I think they should be working their arses off... for the privilege they have. What I really really don't understand is...

OK, they want to be there for their kids, I understand that. But it really doesn't need two parents there. Why isn't William working the equivalent of a full time job? Or half and half each? One parent is enough, and as long as they can connect on an evening all together a few times a week, why do they keep saying about being there for the children? Will this go on until Louis is 18?!

When my kids were little, they didn't see their Dad during the week, he was up and gone travelling the country and back home after they had gone to bed. Not ideal but work is work and we made up for it at weekends.

I cannot work out why they don't do more, I honestly can't. I think they are going to have to prove themselves or people will rapidly be going off them.

They are pretty lazy, I wouldn’t consider Meghan lazy despite all her other faults. However I have a low bar for the royals. As long as they aren’t embarrassing themselves, or committing crimes or going on about the environment I’m not too bothered how they spend their time.

They should be working to justify their existence.

The current generation seems to understand that.

When Charles and Anne are gone, I wonder if people will look at who is left and consider how ridiculous it is that they receive public money to live in a palace and occasionally shake hands and wave.

@Roussette there are hundreds of engagements on there. I wouldn't consider that occasional travel if my employer expected that of me. Nor can they simply helicopter around to save time, and rightly so.

I work full time because I have to. I enjoy my work but I am TIRED and I miss out on a lot of stuff I'd like to be there with my children for. If I could work flexibly part time with no financial downsides, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

@Roussette between them, they do just over 300 engagements a year. So more than the Wessexes but less than Anne and Charles.

Maybe they work it exactly as you say, so one of them is at home while the other is away.

Of course William and Kate aren't 'busy with their young children'!
What do you think that means?
They're all at school full time and have nannies. When they were babies they had 24/7 maternity nurses and night nannies?
Are they busy cooking for them? No, cook does that.
Busy cleaning up and washing and ironing? No, housekeeper does that.
Supervising homework? Oh wait, nanny and tutor manages that.

They probably play with the kids a bit every day, maybe they do some bedtime stories and parent's evenings, but if someone else is cooking, cleaning, doing the laundry, sorting uniforms, school runs, taking them to extracurriculars, tidying up after them, arranging playdates with other nannies - literally just 'being' a parent isn't a job.

Cutting ribbons and shaking hands is grafting?