Catherine's childhood shaped the woman she now is

[Pennyapple]

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.

This.

Also, one in three of their children has struggled with very bad depression, let's not forget that. It may not have been the perfect childhood for all of them. James Middleton seems a very different, and very down to earth/genuine person and quite different to his sisters.

@Arggghhhhhhhh I also really like James, his love for his dogs is so lovely, he really seems to have found his niche in life with his beloved cocker spaniels, beautiful wife & new baby.

Also James has dyslexia & didn't find school as easy as his sisters.

Wondering with all that investment in education why none of the offspring seem to have managed to have proper careers. Sounds like they're not very academic or driven or they were just used to being funded by others (their parents or spouses).

I'd be disappointed if my offspring didn't seem to be able to independently support themselves. The girls clearly were brought up to marry well and be decorous but that's about it.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2224101/James-Middleton-How-I-battled-crucifying-dyslexia-read-Kate-Williams-wedding.html

I often think kate is so grounded due to her stable upbringing.

Actually i think she's better than them, she's showing them how it should be done.

"If William hadn't relented and married her".... how misogynistic!

@ssd yes she is. Although the late Queen & Princess Anne are excellent at "rising above everything"too.
William chose very well when he chose Kate but I wonder how well Kate chose given all she is having to endure. Would she did it all again knowing what she knows now? But as the saying goes you can't choose who you fall in love with.

Eh, no. If Kate had been the one to dump William, we'd say she'd relented and married him.

@JustWimpy how do we know she didn't dump him first? She's not one to wash dirty laundry. Perhaps he wasn't committing so she told him she meant business and he realised she was the one for him. Simple.

I agree and what I was trying to say up thread is that this is actually really unusual even for daughters from wealthy families. And also that it was clearly a parenting decision

I went to a posh private school and not one of my contemporaries was given a flat in Chelsea and sufficient funds to spend their time partying and exercising/grooming themselves.

Most of my contemporaries did get support from their parents like a house deposit or even a house outright but there was always the expectation that they would have careers for themselves.

My parents actually probably could have afforded for me to be a lady of leisure/husband hunt but they wouldn't have encouraged that by funding it, they wanted me to make something of myself. They gave me a hefty house deposit once I had shown them some work ethic

Someone like Chelsy Davy is a good example of what I mean, she clearly didn't need to work for financial reasons and could have married Prince Harry and had a life of leisure but you get the sense that her parents didn't encourage that

She said in the engagement interview that he had been the one to break up with her.

Yes, I've shown up with lemon cheesecakes on occasion and I hope I didn't offend!

I really do like Kate but I absolutely loved Chelsy!

@JustWimpy I'll admit to watching one of those youtubers comparing the two engagement interviews and doing an interpretation and in her engagement interview Kate had some tougher questions, ie, the break up, and also, the matter of her ''laziness'' was actually raised in the engagement interview! She answered it fairly well and in fact gave a clue to where she's coming from. She said that the people around her who know her won't see that. It wasn't at all defensive. But just, a rejection of the criticism. As somebody upthread said ''confidence to the marrow''.

Her upbringing was likely very similar to most of the girls she was at school and university with. She just happened to meet and eventually marry a prince. A meeting engineered by her family if that’s to be believed. Who really knows? Her and William had a long courtship so she had plenty of time to understand what her life would be like if she married into the RF. She’s been educated and coached in her role (as anyone who married William would have been) and received advice that she listens to. She obviously has a close and supportive family but the rest is down to fate, obedience, training and discipline.

Was your lemon cheese cake good enough to bag yourself a old monied toff @ChanelNo19EDT 😁

@Pennyapple yeh, they were clearly crazy about each other. They exuded compatibility. Not as a prince and a rich Zimbabwean. Just the two people that they were. It's kind of sad that it didn't work out. A shame he cheated on her I suppose but as somebody who's had therapy, my relationships pre-therapy were doomed in the long-term.

@Pennyapple not yet! I'll have to extend my repetoire, something posh like figgy pudding.

@VintageDiamonds ’mild, obedient good as he’. ‘Be obedient’ words oft said to me in childhood, are they said now? Which makes me think of Protestant work ethic etc. Were the Ms churchgoers & religious?

is a rebellious nature & a push back always because of lax parenting?

@ChanelNo19EDT how have the interviews aged? Is it poss K said she was ‘dumped’ by W, when truth more grey?

No one can say it’s “clearly” a parenting decision as no one knows what goes on in the mind of anyone else, nor is anyone on here party to private conversations between Carole and her dh! Also I doubt whether the Middletons are soothsayers with crystal balls (or maybe they sold them at Party Pieces?) 😂

They would have no idea that Pippa would marry someone as rich as Creusus and therefore not have to work while her dc are young, Who knows what she will do in future?

And despite everyone believing that the Middletons dictated Catherine’s every move, and had puppet strings attached to her limbs, they couldn’t possibly know for sure that the trajectory or outcome of her relationship with her future spouse would entail becoming the Princess of Wales.

Don’t we all just educate and provide for our dc in the best way we possibly can and give as much guidance and help as we can and then, once they are launched, sit back, and to a certain extent, hope for the best?

If you look at Martin Decoder on youtube he has a video where he breaks down how they both came across. Kate had a few very difficult questions. It's hard to answer questions about breaking up without coming across as pathetic or trashing the fiancé who dumped you! but although her sentences were meandering and not that well structured, she said something relatable like 'although i wasn't happy at the time, it gave me time on my own to think about who I was on my own and I now see how valuable that was'.

The interview when Meghan announced her engagement to some pleb called Harry, sure we all remember that. I won't comment on his assessment of that interview!

@ChanelNo19EDT one to watch! I do wonder if the ‘dumping’ had K rather more at the helm & in control than we might imagine.