Catherine's childhood shaped the woman she now is

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Following on from the Catherine's looks thread below I think it is fair to say her childhood upbringing has had so much to do with who she now is.
Her parents took great pride in the familys appearance, manners, education & extracurriculars.
The Middleton kids excelled at swimming, athletics, lacrosse, hockey, netball, skiing, triathlon (James & Pippa), rowing, tennis on top of amateur dramatics, piano & girl scouts.
That type of investment carrys on into adulthood.
And I do feel the Middleton's were fantastic parents in the kids younger days, very clued in & knew exactly what type of children they wanted to raise.

I admire that about Catherine. As someone who had two left feet and was always picked last for sports to the point I had zero confidence in attempting anything if people were watching, I admire that gutsy attitude she has. That is one thing about her I'm most definitely envious of.

@SilentNightDancer K has class, grace, decorum & pluck. She seems sensitive & poss being photographed & filmed/TV has rendered her overly self critical.

I think she’s composed herself with great dignity over the whole MM debacle too. She’s been thrown under bus more than once. I am very glad she has staunch support. The truth will out.

@User14March the queen would be proud of Kate's stiff upper lip. She just gets on with things like her family. That level of decorum, poise & being non reactive under extremely stressful situations shows great resilience, steeliness & huge self control. Which is why she is our future queen & slots in so perfectly with the royal family

As well as seemingly resenting the close-knit nature of the Middleton family – which was in stark contrast to her own rather more fractured upbringing – Meghan would “bristle” when praise was lavished on Kate for her mothering skills, wardrobe and general kindness. The Duchess was a woman in a hurry while Kate was the complete opposite: an introvert, uncomfortable with confrontation. Meghan was a natural oversharer while the Princess has always kept her cards close to her cards close to her chest. She was also seemingly unassailable when it came to the loyalty of their shared team.
As one former aide pointed out: “The Princess of Wales is very popular with staff. I remember after Prince Louis was born, she popped into Clarence House, quietly knocked on the door of the staff quarters and introduced them all to the baby. They were really touched by that.”

This recent article goes some way to explaining why Meghan (and many of her fans) seem so exercised by the Middletons.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2023/12/03/princess-of-wales-duchess-of-sussex-royal-rift/

It's behind a pay wall, is it possible to copy & paste plz?

@FinallyFinalGirl even with all these attributes & advantages, I have seen it go horribly wrong. A stint in another country can lead to kids becoming destablised as much as enriched. Good looks help esp if any whiff of not belonging in circles you run in. This really was apparent.

Confidence to the marrow, the unshakable sort can’t be bought or instilled easily. It’s such a gift. Do Carole & M have it? How do we make our kids more popular and self confident? This is the secret sauce & I think CM should write a book :)

Where I’ve seen that unshakable type of teflon confidence & stability, usually the mother has it in spades. Power in your own circle can give a boost but true confidence, discipline & belief is enduring. Having x3 children, close in age, likely helps as they have true allies.

I think Pippa & Carole seem very similar in terms of unshakable confidence & having "presence".
Kate's confidence is undeniable & is very evident but she appears more demure for want of a better word than Carole & Pippa.

I wouldn’t say she was ‘nice’ to other girls,
no… my friend was quite upset when PM brought the pudding she’d made, to my friend’s dinner party.

@ToThineOwnSelf I knew a close friend of hers & she is or was lovely. The friend is resolutely, but very quietly, ‘castle set’ but imagine all friends are.

no… my friend was quite upset when PM brought the pudding she’d made, to my friend’s dinner party.

Ok seriously - as someone who has no real interest in the Middletons, I'm finding this to be really a questionable discussion. Someone brought a pud to a dinner party as a host gift. The host didn't appreciate it. The end. There is nothing unkind about bringing a gift to a party.

It was just to support the point made upthread that they were all about bagging a husband, while at university. Pippa definitely was.

You are right but no matter where we live and how much we have in the bank, we can all make sure our children are well mannered, have a decent level of education( not all education takes place in school) have plenty of exercise and know what fruit and veg taste like.

Isn't it normal to bring a dessert or something to a student dinner? To claim it's a she can prove she's good wife material seems presumptuous. And I know many fellow university mates who got PR type jobs after - Pippa did an English degree after all. Most graduates get bog standard jobs.

@User14March that's why I worry about my children. Because my self esteem is nowhere I cant bear that 'rubbing off' on them. I work two jobs so I can afford music lessons for them as I think learning a skill like an instrument can help. So far, so good.

I look at women like Catherine who gets out there and does things that would be impossible for me look so effortless, even with millions of eyes on her and long for that kind of self esteem.

This sounds crap to me. Surely if you are moving in the upper class circles, someone else will be making puddings and you wouldn’t be eating them as you’d be desperate to stay thin!!

Why was your friend upset about Pippa's pudding?

What's with all the Kate worshipping threads lately?

She seems like she's probably perfectly nice but we know basically nothing about what she's like as a person, except that she's never really worked, chased William for years, never expresses an opinion on anything, and loves her kids.

It's weird how much she's idolised and how much is projected onto her, but I guess that's the point. She's a blank slate so people can project whatever they want onto her.

I wonder what would have become of Kate if William hadn't relented and married her. The Middletons seemed to have failed to give their daughters any kind of work ethic or career ambitions.

@AppleCrispMacchiato you've pretty much answered your own question. Nobody knows much about Kate because she reveals the bare minimum about herself.
No family or friends would dream of selling her down the river & trying the blacklist her (except her brother in law & his wife which we know by now can be taken with a pinch of salt!)
Everyone has the same thing to say pretty, intelligent, confident, ambitious, very sporty, determined.
But as you say we know nothing as she doesn't do tv interviews about her feelings, she doesn't do magazine interviews, her inner circle don't speak about her, the school gate parents don't speak about her.
We know nothing about Catherine & that is why she is intriguing.

I agree^^. The whole point of her role is to be bland and non controversial in one way. She obviously has her professional face on when we see her.

I recently watched a clip of her greeting crowds from the crowd side of things and I was struck by how perfect she was. She was really charming and smiley, took her time but didn’t dawdle either, focused on one individual while addressing several at a time, answered questions in a very down to earth way, while managing to maintain that just slightly distant professional manner. Not at all easy to achieve when people are screaming and shoving phones in your face.

I'd be upset if someone just rocked up with a pudding to my dinner party because I'd probably have made a pudding myself. Fair enough if they'd offered/asked beforehand. My MIL and SIL do this, gets invited for dinner and turn up with dinner without telling me. And I will have spent the afternoon cooking and now have food which goes uneaten!

'Kate's confidence is undeniable & is very evident'

Is it? I think she looks visibly nervous whenever she needs to speak publicly.

I agree with this. Think about how other people (ahem Harry) have reacted to bad press etc.

100% agree I would not encourage my child (also pregnant with a girl!) to be like the Middletons.

@bonzaitree exactly the royal motto "never complain, never explain".. I'm sure Kate has plenty to say behind closed doors & around her parents kitchen table but she has the common sense not to air her dirty laundry in public!